Lies of P is still the best Soulslike ever made, for my money, and The First Berserker: Khazan is one of the best Soulslikes I’ve played this year, so it raised an eyebrow when both games dove headlong into the genre’s evergreen easy mode discourse within days of each other.
Lies of P, which previously nerfed a bunch of bosses shortly after launch, straight-up has an easy mode now. And if that wasn’t easy enough, developer Neowiz is also already planning to tone down some infamous sections of the game’s new DLC, Overture.
FromSoftware boss and Elden Ring maestro Hidetaka Miyazaki, widely and fairly regarded as Father Souls himself, previously argued that games like Elden Ring have to be hard in order to convey the intended vision and experience. “If we really wanted the whole world to play the game, we could just crank the difficulty down,” he said.
I think Miyazaki is absolutely right. If that’s the vision of the devs, they can very well stand by it. But the FromSoftware way is not the only way to make and balance games like this, and clearly the makers of Lies of P – a game which is notably less flexible than Elden Ring, and closer to the Sekiro school of thought where the final exam is ‘learn this play style or prepare to die’ – were happy to make the game more approachable. And they’re not the only ones.
On June 11, The First Berserker: Khazan creative director Junho Lee sent a message to the game’s community. A coming update, he said, is packing highly requested gear and inventory quality-of-life features, the tutorial has been improved, and balance changes will continue to support a range of play styles to avoid the spear’s “Trance spam” build sucking the air out of the room.
The headliner, though, was a set of “Difficulty System Improvements.” Not nerfs, improvements. We’ll come back to that. For now, here’s everything that’s changing:
- Current “Easy” difficulty renamed to “Normal”
- Current “Normal” difficulty renamed to “Challenge”
- New difficulty below Easy, “Beginner,” added
- New difficulty above Challenge, “Hardcore,” unlocked by beating the game on Challenge
I played The First Berserker: Khazan on what used to be normal mode because it was the highest of the two difficulties available, but there are suddenly a stonking four options to choose from. The difficulty gradient has doubled in size, giving players more ways to pick their preferred level of punishment.
Not only that, Hardcore will hide enemy HP and stamina gauges, disable support systems like the AI summons, and (this actually sounds un-fun) remove your handy Phantom Form. There are also new “balance settings and a unique camera lock-on perspective.” It is, you could say, hardcore. The devs are even taking the demo down briefly since “the gameplay experience between the demo version and the full game has grown significantly different.”
With changes like this, rather than undermining one intended experience, it feels like Lies of P and Khazan are focusing on helping a range of players define their own optimal experience. I don’t think either approach, the FromSoftware vision or this adaptive one, is wrong. I enjoy both.
Difficulty is relative; Challenge mode in Khazan may give me the same level of resistance that Easy will give someone who’s less experienced with this type of game. We’re both getting our ass kicked at the end of the day. And for the folks worried about their Gamer Cred, you can always say ‘I beat it on Challenge’ if you absolutely must.
That said, I don’t think the difficulty-adjacent ‘play it for the story’ argument matters that much here. Lies of P has an interesting enough world, though I was really only in it for the combat and music, but playing The First Berserker: Khazan for its story would be like going to a fancy restaurant and ordering their finest dishwater.
Wuchang: Fallen Feathers is the hardcore Soulslike you’d get if you tried to turn Sekiro into Chinese Dark Souls 3, and that devotion to FromSoftware is exactly why I like it.
