Truly hardened, tough gamers might say that every game is best played on its highest difficulty. While several titles are most enjoyable on their hardest modes, quite a few are the exact opposite. Two main factors come into play here. Games can have such good stories that a large portion of the player base just wants to experience that instead of a challenging experience.
Another factor is the lack of a substantial difference between the difficulty modes. A good hard mode should feel almost like a completely different game, but several titles just change the various stats in the game's favor.
Updated on May 8, 2023, by Dennis Moiseyev: If you enjoy games more for their story and don't want to challenge yourself too much with their sometimes overwhelming combat that takes away from the experience, that's perfectly sound. Thankfully, many games continue to offer balanced and more pleasant immersive gameplay with an easy mode option — this list has been updated with a few more of those examples.
14 The Callisto Protocol
The Callisto Protocol on easy mode, or Minimum Security, may still be considered a stretch in terms of how much you'll actually enjoy it. The sci-fi story and lore are incredibly interesting, and the world-building creates many hidden plotlines. Still, the bullet sponge Biophage enemies and the melee combat system are its most disastrous pitfall.
On the lowest difficulty, you will probably continue dying through the forced dodge and swing combat, but less frequently, as you can take less damage and more ammo and resources are available. Otherwise, the harder difficulty modes make it near impossible to get through enemies and will make you want to flee Callisto by shutting off your system.
13 Star Wars Jedi: Survivor
Star Wars Jedi: Survivor is like the God of War Ragnarok of Fallen Order. It introduces new planets offering much more exploration, a mount traversal and companion system, more variety of skills and stances, along with an expanded bestiary of enemies (Imperial and native planetary organisms). There's also a lot more story to enjoy with all the side quests available.
However, it's still a Soulslike Metroidvania design with some tough enemies that can kill you instantly and respawn to do it again, even on the medium Jedi Knight difficulty. There are more repetitive minibosses and giant creatures for you to fight over and over, aside from the numerous main boss battles, which will keep you running out of stims and break your Jedi immersion.
12 God Of War
2018's God of War was a complete reimagining of the series, a sequel set in the Norse mythology world and one that was more cinematic with level-based progression and skills of the RPG format. The former games saw one challenging boss fight after another with Greek Gods, while this game focused on one God, Baldur, and the father-son relationship between Kratos and Atreus after his wife's death.
It's a very linear story-driven game featuring brilliant acting and character development, with the sequel adding more expanded components. The combat is smooth and satisfying with Kratos' new Leviathan Axe, and getting through most enemies will feel fine on normal difficulty. It's ultimately the final boss fight with Baldur where you'll want to switch to easy mode. It's long and hectic, consisting of multiple stages with not only a frenzy of his attacks, but also Freya's and a resurrected giant named Thamur dealing frost damage.
11 Marvel's Guardians Of The Galaxy
Playing Guardians of the Galaxy on the game's easiest difficulty level, We Got This, feels like a no-brainer. There is only a slight difference in combat challenge from the normal difficulty, where you'll end up using more clutch team Huddles and be more strategic with your Guardians' skills. But the main characters, clever writing and dialogue, and overall story rival the films made by James Gunn.
The plot and narrative progression is fully engrossing with a lot of lore to be discovered and excellent story beats throughout, while introducing new characters the Marvel movies haven't tackled. There are waves of enemy encounters to fight through that bring more tanky brute minibosses, and it gets especially harder toward the end with multiple Church healers, so easy will make things breezy.
10 Mass Effect Legendary Edition
The Mass Effect trilogy is also one of those games in that the story and characters are so good you'll likely play just for that, and this is the main draw for a significant portion of the player base. That's only one reason why Mass Effect is most enjoyable on easy, though.
The other is that, on the hardest mode, the game can feel like an old-school Call of Duty on Veteran, particularly Mass Effect 2 and 3. ME3 is brutal on its hardest mode, and like World at War on Veteran, it's just not that enjoyable. If you play on easy mode, you'll have an absolute blast and fall in love with the series.
9 The Witcher 3
Like Mass Effect, The Witcher 3 has an amazing story with incredibly written dialogue. The characters are great and the side quests are also a notable highlight. What makes Witcher 3 stand apart from Mass Effect is that the game still has plenty of challenging sections on easy. Werewolves are still tough to kill, and the harder Gwent opponents aren't a cakewalk either.
It's a great easy mode in that you still need to try, and it isn't a passive experience. While Witcher 3's harder modes do have some mechanical differences, like meditation no longer healing you, it isn't a massive overhaul like Fallout New Vegas' Hardcore mode. The game will be a better experience on easy mode for a decent chunk of you.
8 Skyrim
The fifth installment in the Elder Scrolls series, Skyrim is one of the best open-world RPGs to date. Like many other games in the genre, the difficulty differences are small. In Skyrim, the only difference between modes is the damage statistics. Since the change is so small, why wouldn't you just play on easy mode?
Playing on easy is still a great way to experience Skyrim. The harder modes won't make the game any more enjoyable since the difference is so insignificant. Plus, Skyrim's easy mode still has challenging parts. In particular, some of the tough bosses in the side quests with seriously painful abilities.
7 Uncharted
Sony's Uncharted series is one of the more famous PlayStation titles. With good third-person shooting, likable characters, and epic moments, the games are a total thrill ride. While its hardest modes are a decent challenge, these third-person shooters are actually most fun on easy mode.
Particularly, Uncharted 4 with its new movement options like the grappling hook. You can go swing around blasting fools, and it's a great time. If you try to do this on Crushing, though, it'll likely end in your death. In that mode, you'll be more stuck to cover since you die so fast. However, on easy, you can just leave the trenches and blast away. It's just more fun.
6 Splatterhouse
One of the most underrated games in recent times has to be the 2010 reboot of Splatterhouse. There are several reasons why easy mode is the most enjoyable in this game. First is the loading times. Even when installed on the Xbox 360, it takes a while, and the final levels have a large difficulty spike. Easy mode will lessen that issue due to not dying as often.
Second, the easy mode will help in the opening levels, where it's hard to learn the basic mechanics. The opening moments are a bit of a struggle, and easy mode will, again, lessen that. Due to these factors, easy is the best way to experience Splatterhouse, especially if you're new.
5 Mortal Kombat 9 Story Mode
Mortal Kombat 9 was a big break for the long-running fighting game series. It was a great revival and offered the best story mode in a fighter up till that point. While playing, you might not have realized that you can actually pick a difficulty for that mode. It's included in the options menu.
Having the difficulty set to easy will lead to a far more enjoyable experience. The bosses are notoriously cheap and unfair, but they're much more balanced on easy mode. It's still challenging but won't make you angry like the other difficulties. The change in bosses alone makes easy much more fun to play.
4 Silent Hill 1
Everyone needs to play Silent Hill on easy first because of how New Game Plus works. On further playthroughs with your continued save file, the game will always bump up the difficulty by one. If you beat the game on normal first and are excited to play it again with the unlocked bonus items, you're going to be in a world of hurt.
You'll be playing hard mode, which makes it difficult to even finish the school section. However, if you beat the game on easy first, your second run will be on normal, which is much more manageable. Plus, the easy mode still makes the title a great horror game, and you can get sucked into the story.
3 God Hand
When first jumping into God Hand, you should start with easy mode for a variety of reasons. One of them is that, at a beginner level, easy and normal aren't much different. Easy mode in God Hand is still a hard game, and you'll die aplenty regardless.
In easy mode, you can't get to difficulty levels three and four in combat. However, most beginners will use an ability to lower their difficulty level in normal mode anyway. If you are brand new to God Hand, you'll have the most enjoyable time on easy mode, as it's the most accessible while still being tough.
2 Blade Runner
The incredible Blade Runner adventure game from 1997 is also best played on easy because virtually all three difficulty modes are exactly the same. Throughout the modes, the only difference is the combat sections, which for the most part, can be avoided entirely.
You can play all three modes and just be puzzled at what the differences even are since you've noticed none. Since easy mode is essentially interchangeable with the other difficulties, it's the best way to play, as it's no different.
1 Perfect Dark
Like GoldenEye, Perfect Dark is also far more enjoyable and accessible on the easiest difficulty. Harder modes are just too much. Not only do enemies hit harder, but the levels are longer since you have more objectives. That's a one-two punch right there.
You'll likely give up on the harder modes because they're that much of a leap in terms of difficulty. However, easy mode is still challenging at times while being the most manageable. You'll have the most fun on Agent difficulty, and it's the best way to play this N64 classic.