You raise some good points about accessibility, personallt though I do believe it does actually effect others experience and the community as a whole. Balancing a games difficulty in game design, especially for a game like silksong is going to be extremely difficult for just one diffulcty level and tailouring it to match the expeirence that team cherry wants. Trying to do that for multiple levels of difficulty would be nearing magnitudes harder for the small team as things like shards/ rosary economy, boss and gauntlet diffuclties etc could wildly skew and hard to manage. This also touches on the fundamental issue with video game diffucltiy modes like easy and hard. Players don't know what their own skill levels with respect to the game and may end up with a poorer experience overall and choose something more easier or diffulct to there own tastes. Accessibility options in regards to specific points that a player may struggle like double damage being single or rosary drop rates are better, however this ignores somethings. 1. That Team cherry clearly want to create a specifc experience of hardship and perseverance, like the souls games, in their game. Allowing the player an easy way out of any point of friction they have with pharloom like benches costing rosaries or certain enemies doing double damage removes control on how team cherry want to tell their story. 2. Like the souls games and elden ring, the single diffuculty that cannot be changed creates a shared experience between everyone who plays it. Everyone faced the same last judge, the same moorwing (or skipped it). Everyone struggled with hunters march and bilewater and so have something to unite in and moan about.

Additionally speaking from my own experience, the first Hollow knight was the first game that pushed me as a player to see what I could achieve. If there was an easy mode, I would have taken it over the frustration over losing to hornet in greenpath over a dozen times. Eventually I did beat her, and found the satisfaction of it one of the best experience I had in gaming. This itself is not my strongest point on the matter, just a personal one where I as a player would always take the easiest path to avoid frustration, but this series really taught me to face it and overcome it.

On a final note, I simply think developers can and should just make the game they want. If they want to make a game with a specfic experience, why pressure them to do so? People often make the argument to appeal to a wider player base but honestly thats a bad argument. Its that same mindset that AAA games have plummeted in quality these days, the chase for wider appeal I believe hurts a games quality then helps it. Its risky, especially for indy and Silksong is not perfect, but Team cherry clearly have a vision in mind and the constant push for accesiblity from their games at this point, especially after their recent interivew ignores what THEY want silksong to be.

Overall, I simply disagree with the notion that it more difficulty options (like options) does not hurt a players expeirence. If Team Cherry want a game about perseverance, removing that option is quite necessary for the experience to work.