The First Berserker: Khazan, which developer Neople has previously described as "more than just a Soulslike," recently received an update altering difficulty options' names – a decision creative director Junho Lee explains was made following fans' feedback.
Lee reveals why Neople ultimately chose to swap the difficulty options around in a statement on Steam, saying it's what seemed to be the correct choice to keep players interested in The First Berserker: Khazan despite how challenging the Soulslike can be. "At launch, we set our intended standard experience as 'Normal' and added a more accessible option labeled 'Easy,'" writes the lead. "We figured that if players found the game too difficult, they'd simply switch to Easy."
That isn't what actually ended up happening, though – fans would rather give up altogether than lay down their honor and change to an option dubbed "Easy," apparently. "When we looked at the data, we saw that many players just quit the game without ever changing the difficulty," continues Lee. "When we asked why, a lot of people said, 'I'd rather quit with dignity than drop it down to Easy.'" It's all about maintaining one's dignity, it seems.
"Some also said that if the default had been called 'Hard' instead, they would've felt okay about switching down to 'Normal,'" the creative director recalls. "Difficulty is subjective, and each player experiences Khazan's challenges differently. That's why we offered multiple difficulty options from the start. We wanted more people to enjoy Khazan, and we thought it would be better to let players freely adjust the challenge."
Lee concludes, saying Neople "thought it was up to the player to lower it if it's too hard or raise it if it's too easy" – and that's "one of the biggest lessons" he's learned from fans so far since The First Berserker: Khazan was released. "So, we changed the difficulty names to give players more flexibility. The old 'Easy' is now called 'Normal,' and the old 'Normal' is now 'Challenge.' We also changed the default starting difficulty to 'Normal.'"
The dev details why Neople added both a "Beginner" and "Hardcore" difficulty, too – and much like everything else, the reasons lie within players' own wants: "One of Khazan's strengths," after all, "is that it offers selectable difficulty levels…"
