I rarely back down from a challenge -- except when it comes to my sacred video game time. I play games to unwind, to rest after the stress of a long day. Some people might enjoy playing their games on the hardest mode possible, but this is one area I take the -- literal -- easy route.
Most video games have difficulty settings for a reason -- easy, medium, and hard being the most generic version of this. Some games get creative with their labeling system and even have more than two or three gameplay difficulty options. But games need to be as accessible as possible in order to encourage as many people as possible to play (purchase the games).
Sometimes at the end of a long day, I don't want to face another stressful, challenging task. I want to sit down with my favorite game of the moment and win more often than I lose, succeed more often than I fail. I didn't have this mentality wnen I was younger -- the harder, the better, because it meant I was getting better at whatever game I was currently playing. But then I became an adult, and found that oh, silly me -- being an adult is HARD.
Working all day five days a week or more? Keeping a house clean? Cooking, doing laundry, trying to stay healthy? Making appointments, paying bills, surviving the ups and downs of journalism in the mid-2020s? Life is hard enough already. Why make your games as hard as your real life when you don't have to?
And we're talking about more than just cozy games here, though I love a few hours lost in one of those every now and then. Even the first-person action, the adventures -- just because I'm playing on story mode doesn't mean I'm not having fun. That's the point.
Don't let your friends judge you for your game difficulty choices. Games, if you primarily play them to relax, should be just that -- relaxing. Now if you're a professional, that's likely another story.