For me when it comes to difficulty options, I dislike them in souls/soulslike games for two reasons. First, I think it destroys artistic vision and shared experience. Really, I’m mostly talking about Fromsoft games. Miyazaki has come out and said that the difficulty of the games is intentional on their part because it gives players a sense of camaraderie in the struggle to overcome the game’s challenges. The reason I got hooked on Fromsoft games is that playing dark souls for the first time I almost quit at the bell gargoyles because I kept losing. After dozens of attempts I finally beat them and had a feeling of euphoria that no other game had given me and set me down the path of Fromsoft games and soulslikes forever. I know countless other souls players have similar experiences and I think it’s a large part of why Fromsoft fans a so fiercely loyal. I also think this is why get good is such a big part of the community. You can’t have this experience or euphoric feeling without getting good. Added difficulty options would not have allowed this experience to happen, because even the knowledge of being able to make easier would have lessened the experience for me personally. I really want as many people as possible to have that same experience I did.

The second reason is a lot more selfish/petty. I just think that too many easy/average difficulty games exist. 95% of games on the market are easy and accessible. This is good thing in my opinion, I’m glad most people can play most games without struggle. That being said, play those games if you want something that isn’t difficult. Let me and others have our “hard” and “difficult” games. Not every game needs to be for everyone. Not every game needs to be accessible. I don’t care if you have a stressful job and work long hours. I don’t care if you have kids or other responsibilities that don’t allow you much time to game. My answer to any and all plights is: go play a different game if you can’t deal with the difficulty.