Video games can be hard at times. They require accuracy, attentiveness, dexterity, and above all, patience. So playing on Normal isnât always an option, especially if youâre rusty in a particular genre or have a disability that impedes your gameplay. Dying Light 2, the sequel to Techlandâs 2015 predecessor, is already a challenge, what with its aggressive bandits and even more aggressive zombies. Why make it any harder when the game has three built-in difficulty modes to choose from? Iâm here to tell you that if youâre getting your ass whopped at the beginning of the game like I was, itâs okay if you lower the difficulty setting for a while. No really, itâs fine!
Dying Light 2 sees you controlling new protagonist Aiden Caldwell, who finds himself in Villedor searching for his sister Mia. The narrative is whatever, an uninteresting revenge tale full of corruption and greed that doesnât go anywhere or say anything. Thatâs not the point, though. The point here is to fight and parkour your way through 500 hours of content, most of which is pretty challenging if you leave it on the default difficulty.
Like most games, Dying Light 2 has three difficulty modes: Easy, Normal, and Hard, with Normal selected by default when you boot it up. You might think Normal is nothing, that you can handle the challenge it presents without any problems, and maybe you can! More power to you if thatâs the case, but honestly, Normal was kinda hard for me in the beginning. It mightâve been because Dying Light came out in 2015 and I havenât played that game since its The Following expansion dropped in 2016. But my light was dying left and right as I traversed Techlandâs zombie RPG sequel. Bandits were hacking away at my health. Zombies were eating me up. I get the gameâs world wants me dead, and Normal underscores that impression.
So I died. A lot. Over and over and over again, until I decreased the gameâs difficulty. And let me tell you, things have been smooth sailing ever since.
If you pause the gameâwhich can be done at any point during gameplayâand select the Options text, youâll find yourself in the Settings menu. From there, navigate to the Game tab and at the top, youâll see Difficulty Level. Go ahead and change this to whatever you can handle, but I recommend Easy. At least to start off with. You can change the difficulty whenever you want. And donât worry, constantly changing it doesnât reload your save, make you lose progress, or anything like that.
Going down to Easy introduced a noticeable difference when playing Dying Light 2. It felt like I hit harder, ran longer, and withstood more zombie kisses. It gave me the room to understand the mechanics. It also let me enjoy the story and, more specifically, the character interactions, of which there are plenty of good ones. Iâve since changed the difficulty back to Normal after putting some 30 hours into the game, but starting out on Easy gave me the clarity to get a handle on the controls so that Iâm as effective as possible in both combat and parkour. Not something thatâs totally possible on Normal when bandits and zombies are trying to ruin your day.
Thereâs this strange aversion to not just Easy modes but also to difficulty settings in general. Itâs as if playing on anything other than Normal or whatever the default is will lead to your Gamer⢠card getting revoked. This mentality, that playing on Easy makes you an inferior gamer, is nonsensical bullshit. Developers put difficulty settings in their games for a reason. Use them! Dying Light 2 is a challenge, but it doesnât have to be at the start.
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