The Hardest Difficulty Modes in First Person Shooters

Unlike most hardcore gamers, I don't usually have too long of a backlog. This could be for a number of reasons. I don't usually buy games until they are heavily discounted a year or two after they release. It could also be because I try to finish games before I worry about buying new ones. Anyway, my point is that I often find myself going back and re-playing games that I enjoyed. Some of the games I have replayed have been first person shooters. For all of these games, rather than simply playing them exactly like I had before, I decided to crank the difficulty up all the way. I'm the kind of person who is not ashamed to play games on the normal difficulty, so playing on the hardest difficulty is a bit outside of my comfort zone. However, for most of the games I'm going to talk about here, I ended up enjoying them more on the hardest difficulty for a number of different reasons.

Call of Duty 2 (Veteran)

To start off, I'm going to go with a game that I feel was hurt by the harder difficulty modes. I won't hate on it too much as the game is almost 20 years old, but that doesn't mean there are not lessons to learn. Difficulty in this game comes from having less health, and not really knowing where people are shooting from. Bullets come flying from all directions and one small unknown misstep means death. Though it is not pictured above, the D-Day level in particular proved to be quite impossible for me to complete. Despite doing my best to remain in cover, it always felt like enemies could spot me and would begin shooting and killing me as soon as I inched out of cover. This can probably be blamed on outdated AI, but it is still something some games struggle within modern times.

Battlefield Hardline (Hardline)

Now for a game that seemed to have the opposite problem as Call of Duty 2. Battlefield Hardline felt too easy most of the time. My first playthrough of this game, I snuck around everywhere and arrested as many bad guys as I could. I actually really enjoyed it. The most recent playthrough consisted of running and gunning and getting through levels as fast as possible. That seems a little flipped to me. The most unique and interesting part of this single player campaign is the fact that players take the role of a cop and can sneak their way through levels arresting anyone they see fit. I almost wish the Hardline difficultly was even harder, forcing me to be a stealthy cop. In my mind, that would've made my recent playthrough a lot more interesting.

Bioshock Infinite (1999 Mode)

Now we are getting into the games that I feel benefited the most from playing on the higher difficulties. I was initially very intimidated by Bioshock Infinite's 1999 Mode as my first playthrough on the normal difficulty proved difficult enough at parts. Thankfully with years more of gaming, my abilities matured as well. Rather than feeling impossible like I thought it would, the hardest difficulty in this game just made me dive deeper into the game's mechanics. I decided early on to put all my upgrades into shields to give myself as much rechargeable health as possible. I had to make every shot count as nothing other than headshots would keep me alive. I was much more strategic about how I used the abilities. Most of all, I took much more advantage of the skylines and kept myself moving as much as possible. The added difficulty made all of these parts of the game shine even brighter. It took a great game and made it even better. This is how you do a hardest difficulty mode in a game.

Titanfall 2 (Master)

Much like Bioshock Infinite, Titanfall 2 on the hardest difficulty made me dive deeper into the game's mechanics. The particular mechanics are the movement and playing as the titan. Because I had much less health, the only was to stay alive was to keep moving all of the time. Standing still at all was not an option. Through the game's genius parkour system, I was hopping around buildings and sliding all over the place. I had to be quick with my shots while continuing to move. It is hard not to think of this game as a futuristic ninja game on the hardest difficulty. The only thing that keeps the game from going full ninja, is the titans. On the hardest difficulty, despite taking more damage and dying quicker, I somehow felt even more powerful when it came time to fight in my titan. Bosses took a couple of tries and fighting more than one titan at a time proved difficult, but when I finally did those successfully, I felt unstoppable in my titan. This game is a lot cooler on the hardest difficulty.

Halo: Combat Evolved (Legendary)

Last but not least is one of the first games I ever remember playing. If I have been playing it for over 20 years, why then did it take me so long to play through the game on Legendary? There had been many attempts, but the second mission always proved too difficult. It wasn't until trying again earlier this year that I realized something amazing about playing Halo CE on Legendary. I didn't have to follow the rules in order to beat the game. What I mean by this is perfectly described in how I finally completed the second mission. The second half of the mission is focused around saving marines and defending them until the rescue dropship arrives. I realized that if I simply killed all the marines, the dropship wouldn't be necessary, and I could move on. The geniuses at Bungie seemed to plan for this and at a point the marines started fighting me back. They were still a lot easier of a fight than the hordes of covenant. It was discovering shortcuts like this one that made playing through Halo CE on Legendary so fun. It was as if I had to game the game in order to succeed. I loved finishing this game, and doing so on Legendary not only felt awesome, but it made me feel smart for all the creative ways I got past everything.