As we move into 2026, I still believe the essence of a well-crafted game lies in its ability to offer 'fair difficulty' rather than being 'cheaply punishing.' A game with fair difficulty challenges players to overcome obstacles through skill and strategy, not by overwhelming them with impossible odds or outdated design choices.
The Table of Contents
I Don’t Miss Games That Wanted You to Fail
I’m not the kind of player who longs for 'the good old days' when games seemed to dislike you and set you up to fail. For instance, my attempt to replay Paperboy in hopes of reliving my NES days was short-lived. I
quickly realized how needlessly and unrewardingly cruel that game is compared to modern designs emphasizing skill development. As a kid, I simply didn’t recognize how different these approaches were.
Wanting Challenge Without Wanting Cruelty
But I’m also not the kind of player who wants games to be easy. My first playthroughs are more often set to Hard than to Normal. My biggest disappointment about the death of my first PS3 was losing the save data for my finished Hard playthrough of The Last of Us, so I wouldn’t be able to play Survivor mode next.
The difference is in what makes the game difficult. Difficulty, like everything else in a game, can be designed well or poorly. A well-designed game challenges players to observe, adapt, and experiment. In Bloodborne, you must observe enemy patterns, adapt your strategy to the environment, and experiment with different weapons and techniques to progress.
Why Bloodborne’s Difficulty Works
We need look no further than Bloodborne to see how good difficulty plays out. Even now, over a decade since its 2015 release, it continues to spark debates about challenge and fairness. It remains a touchstone from the same team that brought us the Dark Souls games, and now inspires a whole genre, including hits like Elden Ring and the recent wave of Souls-like titles in the mid-2020s.
When I scream obscenities at the TV while playing Bloodborne, which is often enough to make my cat just kind of steer clear of the room while the game is on, I’m enjoying myself. At the same time, I’ve realized that Bloodborne isn’t a game I can play while tired. I need to be alert and at my best to have any chance of survival. But even though I wouldn’t consider myself a brilliant action-RPG reflex-happy gamer, I can succeed at Bloodborne when I pay attention and learn from my mistakes.
Learning Through Failure & Not Frustration
One thing Bloodborne does so well is ensure that those mistakes are my fault the game has a clear (electronic) manual and a decent system of unobtrusive in-game tutorial notes you can read if you choose, so
when I fight poorly, it’s because I still haven’t learned the timing of my various attacks and dodges and how to deal with being staggered when an enemy’s blow hits.
I was shocked when I first played at how quickly a battle can go from being under control to being over because I have been brutally killed. If an enemy lands a strong blow and you don’t evade at the right time while staggered, they’ll just go to town on you until you’re dead…much like you do to them when you catch them unawares or stagger them.
I really like this party. Sometimes it’s fun to be overpowered compared to your enemies in a game, but sometimes it’s fun to feel like you’ve earned every kill because things could have gone the other way, exactly as quickly and easily, and often have.
Game designer Hidetaka Miyazaki said, "The challenge is the reward." This sums up how Bloodborne’s mechanics make you really pay attention to the game. Playing this way keeps me focused. I have to stay alert and fully involved in every fight.
Earning Progress Instead of Saving Through It
Bloodborne also makes you earn checkpoints. Getting to my first lamp (respawn point) only took me beating a few enemies, but my next one took me like 3 hours because I was playing tired and sloppily. When I replayed that section the next day with more energy, I made it to checkpoint two in about an hour because I played more carefully and with more respect for every enemy, even the ones I’d killed 30 times by that point.
I’m the type of gamer who occasionally falls prey to the temptation to save constantly to avoid having to replay much. Bloodborne, but taking that option away, has forcefully reminded me of the joys of earning a victory by doing everything right at the same time, not reloading until I get one thing right, then saving, then reloading until I get the next thing right. I feel like a better gamer playing Bloodborne.
Design Choices That Force Better Game Play
Bloodborne uses simple gameplay mechanics like this across the board to make the game difficult but fair. To give another example, there’s no pause feature. None at all. You cannot pause Bloodborne. If your
controller runs out of batteries, you will watch as your character dies a mercifully quick, if brutal, death. If you need to get into your Inventory, you’d better find someplace to be alone. So you’d better have all the items and weapons you expect to need in your handful of quick select slots.
Awareness Replaces Comfort
The utter lack of pause is surprisingly fun. It refuses to let you pause and take in a situation tactically at your leisure, so you either have to scope out the battlefield before entering the fray or learn to be aware of your surroundings on the fly while fighting, or really, both. It’s always both in Bloodborne. Unless you’re a way more skillful player than I am, both advance planning and improved situational awareness mid-fight are necessary to survive.
The Game Teaches You Where You Belong
The game does a good job training you in these skills, though, starting with easier enemies and working its way up, once you find the right path. You also come across tough enemies early that quickly inform you that you are not ready for them by dispatching you with ease. So Bloodborne is also a game where I know the level layouts particularly well. I know where I can go and do alright, where the new tough fights are, and where I need to stay away until I’m stronger and/or more skilled.
Learning the World Without a Map
All this is true even without the game providing a map or a ‘your goal’ feature to lead me to the next boss or treasure. Like the lack of pausing, the lack of a map forces me to be better on my own to learn how places are connected, as the character would, from being there rather than seeing a bird’s eye view or knowing where an enemy I’ve never met is lurking. It’s fun and immersive.
"It's not about creating challenges just for the sake of it. It's about helping you think about the choices you make. You will die in the game, and that is a part of the process. You learn from those deaths.” – Hidetaka Miyazaki, The Guardian
Triumph Earned, Not Given
I don’t want every game to be Bloodborne, I’m not that much of a masochist. But with a truly well-made game, difficulty can be gloriously satisfying. It’s still refreshing, even in 2026, to have to overcome fair (as opposed to cheap) challenges. To have to peek around corners rather than just barging in, confident I can defeat whatever’s coming without strategizing.
Bloodborne is a game that respects your intelligence and forces you to use it to learn to survive. And it turns out that’s a fun lesson to learn from a good, if unforgiving, teacher. In the heart of challenge lies the real thrill of gaming: triumph earned, not given.
Bloodborne, like the Souls games before it, remains a love-it-or-hate-it prospect for most, even as new games continue to raise the bar on challenging, thoughtful design. Which camp are you in? What are the most satisfyingly difficult games you've played, whether classics or new releases from the past year or two?
What games are difficult but infuriatingly cheap about it? Has a game ever taught you patience, or something deeper about yourself? Share your stories, what makes the difference for you, especially now as the conversation around fair difficulty keeps evolving?
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