Sekiro Reignites Yet Another Controversy on Game Difficulty and Accessibility

An honest request by disabled gamers gets spun as an attempt to sully creative liberty.

I’ve been relatively privileged in my formative years to have been able to experience many games that one could aptly describe as requiring a long period of adaptation, or otherwise be particularly receptive to memorizing cognitive patterns in order to be consistently good at them. Everything from sports games, racing games, fighting games and even the occasional competitive online FPS or action shooter game have made the tally as part of my initiation into the foray of the gaming medium, and having familiarized myself with the mechanics of many, I’ve been remarkably successful at adapting very quickly to games’ dictated pace and approach of play.

However, I’ve been more than once reticent to embrace From Software’s approach to difficulty as it seemed to contradict everything I’ve built up so far on how difficulty is constructed and how adequately the player is motivated to learn its different ins and outs, but the reaction around the renewed controversy of video game difficulty has given me a bit of time to reflect on what has largely been said, and what’s not been mentioned enough. This piece is my contribution to the debate, but it’s by no means providing a definite answer.

The idea of a game dictating its style of play has been frowned upon and long considered by game critics and…