I think another side to this is something along the lines of Necessity vs Playability. Difficulty keeps necessity in line, but without a decent amount of playability a game can feel too restrictive. Too many game mechanics can make some parts to a game feel inconsequential or like you're overpowered perhaps, but personally I'd op for that vs a game that practically wants you to play the game their way. A balance of both is nice.

Yeah, the fact that head-shots mean next to nothing in the game, really burnt me out with the fun factor quite quickly. I even figured out it was actually better for me to shoot them a few times in the leg, then walk away, but even then they'd still get up or crawl around forever. Capcom just didn't give any rhyme or reason with how their zombies acted. In Night of the living dead, we're told a "bullet to the head", everyone knows what that means, and the movie and it's sequels executed it perfectly. With REmake 2, we see a cutscene with Leon saving Claire, by shooting a single bullet to a zombie's head, killing it instantly. In the game, that never seems to even work, so you're instantly given the suspension of disbelief.

It's like Capcom borrowed from old zombie movies and general zombie fantasy lore, but they decided to not read the important pages. I know some people like to claim "it's their game, it's theirs to do with as they wish", but here's the thing:

Capcom does not own the lore on zombies.

They've made a game featuring zombies, but they also act exactly like the sort you see in the oldest of zombie films. The only part they scrubbed out, was actually the most important part to zombie lore, which is basically crippling their head, in order to fully kill the being. I mean we got this with other Resi titles too, like Resi 4-6, with beings that could withstand multiple body shots, but also headshots too, despite having either exposed muscle or decaying flesh. Like, your eyes are telling you "decayed flesh=very brittle/weak skin=easy to damage", yet the game is telling you: "decayed flesh=4 layers of solid steel", and it doesn't even make any sense.

I'm so glad a modder actually made this though, and that they've provided options for us to either make life easier or harder, instead of actually going with making it harder by default (mod originally started out as just hard, but they listened to user requests). Now I can finally play the rest of the game, knowing a headshot is a headshot, and I could even try ramping up the difficulty if it feels too easy for myself (though I rarely do that, unless it's an ARPG).

Yep it is one of the biggest immersion break in gaming when cutscene vs gameplay are very different. Like on some games you can take 3 dozen slashes without any consequence but a single small cut in a cutscene and you are fucked. Also that enemy when you play him you destroy, but your party is OHKOed in cutscene by same enemy.

For RE2 the game was made for you to avoid all enemies that aren't bosses, you are supposed to give couple shoots on the leg if necessary to escape or collect stuff, if you want to be safe after you make it drop on the floor you cut the legs (in the library that is quite necessary because of the bookshelf puzzle and later Mr. X making it worse). RE2 is so dumb on the headshot that even on easiest it still takes several shoots on the head.

The tank control was better on this part because you could believe that you weren't really giving a good HS, it could miss or hit the side of the head, but when you can aim and see you hit perfectly 4 times it is moronic. Even bosses when their weakness is exposed take more damage.

And Capcom could make these 2 special modes available, like they have for DMC "Dante Must Die" and "Heaven or Hell". Let people play the game in different ways add value.

Oh god that reminds me exactly of DBZ Kakarot, in the mission where you play as Vegeta on Namek vs Freiza. You're supposed to fight him like he does in the anime, but in the anime he naturally loses to Freiza, because well, he's OP, yet in the game you can finish him so damn fast that the next cutscene will play. That wasn't really supposed to happen at all, since Freiza was supposed to naturally beat vegeta, and a few youtube reviewers I've watched point this out, and find it a bit glaring that it can even happen. The devs should have made that fight one that you cannot win, but not that I'm saying it has to be difficult, but one that you canonically cannot win. Like RDR2 with Dutch, you can't kill him because he's supposed to die in RDR1, since it's canonical and makes sense.

Honestly, I really hope that next gen zombie games allow a little more creativity with killing zombies, because as of right now, all we can do is rely on a headshot or slicing the head/legs off completely. We've seen enough years of the Walking dead to know what you can do to incapacitate the dead, and I'd love to see us be able to be more creative next gen, rather than doing the 7 headshots and they're dead sort of thing that we currently have now.

I'm pretty sure L4D allows for one hit kill headshots with most of it's arsenal. 

Yeah, the tank controls weren't all that accurate and it added to the tension, and the fact that you couldn't always line up a good shot, and event times where the enemy was off-screen, so you could miss a bunch of times, but now we've got third person over the shoulder controls, we're allowed to be more precise than ever, yet we're not being rewarded with said precision.

What really sucks about this, is that the mod is PC only. We saw mod support with the likes of Fallout 4/Skyrim SE on consoles, but it seems to have just stopped with those two games. I'd hope that next gen allows for more mod support, because mods like these can be must haves for some people (I know I absolutely want this mod, as it'll make my experience more fun and actually immersive). 

Want to make the game harder consider Leon is a newbie and Redfield is a civilian, so make their hand shakes a lot so it is hard to aim the head and then you'll shoot the torso more. Sure with time you'll learn how to time and control that shaking but at least it would make sense.

And thats fine.

Not every game needs to be hard to be successful, and not every game needs to be easy to be successful.If you dont have or want to spend the time to get gud, then just play something else.The video game industry nowadays is big enough and diverse enough to cater to everyone, really.

... I honestly dont get what you are saying.

Difficulty has to do with... everything about the game.

Level Design: Its easier to kill an ranged enemy if he stands in the same ground level as you, opossed if he was on higher ground.Thats level design.

Gameplay: There are some games that have bigger windows of oportunity to attack and deflect attacks.Enemies might have a more aggressive and passive behaviour.The game might demand quicker reflexes.Gameplay isnt just about health or damage.

Sound: Paying attention to the sound enemies makes, especially if its done on purpose to identify when someone is comming from you, or from where the attack comes from.The lack of a proper "sound system" might makes things harder(though that simply would make it unfair, not harder)

And so on and so on.Thats is just me giving examples on how difficulty could be incorporated into everything that contemplates a game.

But thats not even the main point Im trying to make.The main point is: Sure, you could dumb down Dark Souls to the point that any attack from a boss does 1% of the damage and call it a day.But that would just ruin the game, and its clearly not what the devs want for the game.Period.

Making a inherently difficult game in which every single part of it was designed to make you think, plan, and learn really well the mechanics dont fit well with different difficulty levels.Not to say that some hard games cant have difficulty levels, they sure can, but usually these games either have very little difficulty inbued into the level design and demands more of the player in its skill alone, or its just plain unfair(Dying in like 2 shots in the hardest difficulty is simply unfair for example, especially for someone who just began the game).

Of course it does.If a dev dosen't want it in its games, because he wants the player to learn the game and play as it is intended, why would he put something that goes against it?

There is no need to.These kind of games have just been selling more and more with the passing years, which not only means that more people are seeking them out and are ok with the difficulty, but also that they are comming to love it.

The argument could also be made that if you made tweaks to the difficulty, making these games easier, it would make people like them less.

... Thats a mod, an unofficial modification for the game.People who buy the game can do whatever they want with it.We are talking about decisions that the devs themselfs do.