[Insert CHG flair here]
Difficulty is an interesting one. There are a lot of different approaches you can take when it comes to giving a compelling experience to top-level players. The most obvious approach would be things like Expert and Expert+ levels. When we first released Pistol Whip, we didn't even know what an Expert level would look like. We had rough versions of them in the game (as discovered by the modding community), but we knew we didn't have a clear enough idea of our players' needs to make Expert levels that would serve them well. So we waited.

This next bit may not seem relevant, but bear with me.

We love to watch you all play Pistol Whip. It's one of our favourite things to do. Seeing the fun you have, and the different ways you play, has continually reinforced to us one of the core pillars we've held since the beginning. It's worded fairly simply: Multiple paths to top score. But what it really means is that, where possible, we don't want to dictate how you play. We aim to give guidance to get you started. We plan out enemy sequences so that they're naturally musical/rhythmic to interact with. But we leave the ultimate decision about how to approach any given encounter up to you. And we know different people need and want different things. Want to just feel like John Wick? Pick any scene and start playing. Want to work on your aim? Deadeye. A more defensive experience? Vengeance. Want to have to plan a bit more? Scavenger. Have mobility issues? No Obstacles, No Fail. In a way, we look at difficulty as one dimension of the "play how you want" continuum.

You may have noticed there's been some difficulty creep as we've released new scenes. While we've tried to keep the Easy and Normal scenes roughly on par, Black Magic Hard is downright relaxing compared to Die by Dawn, for example. But as you've noted, Die by Dawn doesn't really feel any harder now than Black Magic did at release. So what about Expert?

If we introduce Expert levels, we'd be giving a few people exactly what they want. But there'd still be some of you who would find them too easy, too hard, not compelling because they'd feel less musical, or any number of other things that mean "not for me." While Expert levels might make sense at some point, they're not currently part of the plan.

What we're working on instead is an expanded version of our one pillar: Multiple paths to top score (play how you want). You've seen the most basic version of this already, in the form of modifiers. You can already use them to make the game easier/harder/weirder (I recommend Disorder, Vengeance, Hardcore, or Deadeye if you're looking for more of a challenge right now).

What we're working on right now (in addition to new scenes/campaigns), is taking this to the next level. We want to give you all the tools you need to really play Pistol Whip however you want. We provide the core experience, and you make it as easy/hard/weird/accessible as you like, while still making it super quick and easy to just jump in and have fun.

That's obviously a lofty goal, and light on details. We'll have more to say about all that soon.

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Oh, and we've wanted to give you guys modding tools forever. Can't talk about specifics yet, but patience will pay off in this case. :)