Which difficulty do you play on ?

[Buurt]

I mostly someone who plays on harder difficulty but the start of this game feels pretty annoying on hard I have to say, normal feels right a good sweetspot atm for the length of this game etc.
Which one do you play on ? I am thinking of switching later again if it feels to easy or something

[OZZO]

I play on Ultra Hard for an extra challenge. It IS difficult, indeed. Most machines one shot me and with 3-4 machines I am sometimes overrun even by smaller machines.
Ultra Hard brings a whole new level of difficulty where you need to approach most battles using the smarts and machine weaknesses.

[bigbenisdaman]

Played ultra hard first playthrough, pretty rough until you start to get decent bows, i tended to avoid encounters much more, and let the ai fight the big fights.

[Beyondgrave]

Started on ultra hard since I did the same for the last game. Getting 1 shot is nothing new to me since the last game was the same as well. Until I get better gears, every fight was intense. I remember it took me over 2hr of dying and repeating to kill my first thunderjaw in the last game because I kept on getting 1 tapped lol

[Average Cox Gaming]

Hard

[Raider Deci]

Ultra hard. Because I am stubborn as hell.... & problaby a masochist

[Helifax]

Hard/Ultra-Hard are very good IF you know what you are doing. Meaning, exploiting machine weaknesses, critical points, elemental dmg, etc.
IF you are new to Horizon, I wouldn't recommend anything beyond Normal. (Normal can be brutal as well if you don''t know what you are doing or what you should do).
On Ultra-Hard you need to min-max equipment (bows, gear, upgrades, coils, stats). It can be extra challenging because of this, more so on the 1st play ;)

[Tziva]

I think I'm doing Normal. I always choose something easy for games like this on initial play-thru since what I care about most is story/exploring, and I'm a pretty mediocre gamer. In some games I might set it all the way down to a storymode, but I didn't here since I felt I was familiar enough from the first game that Normal would end up playing similar.

In subsequent games (NG+ for this ip), I will do harder each time so I get something new (in this case, challenge) out of additional playthrus.

[Parry Hotter]

Normal. The game is very long and I don't wish to make it any longer than it needs to be.

[Soulkey]

Ultra Hard, because I like the challenge, but it might have been a mistake the game is just tedious on non-NG+ on this setting.

[Unimarobj]

Originally posted by Grandad Magic:

Ultra hard, I believe the game locks the difficulty but I didn't read the prompt. It's ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ aids, do not recommend. Everything can - and will - one bang you. I repeat, do not recommend

The difficulty of the game can be changed at any time in the settings menu.

Personally, I play on Custom. I can tailor the difficulty settings of damage as I'd like to keep it challenging while also adjusting QoL stuff like looting being less of a grind.

[It´sAllAimAssist]

Very Hard is the sweet spot for me, learned my lesson from Zero Dawn.
Still a fair bit of one hit kills but it´s not to bad.

[Kosevich]

Originally posted by Unimarobj:

The difficulty of the game can be changed at any time in the settings menu.

Unless you play Ultra Hard. Game even worn you "game difficulty can't be changed, start Ultra Hard on your own risk".

Took me about 20 attempts on Ultra Hard to complete final battle in prologue
Completing the Dawn was extraordinary chaotic and painful, untill I understand how to vanish in bushes (break line of sight) during 5+ machines combat. It allow to use several silent strikes + valor silent kills in about every 5-10 seconds.
And oh man purchasing Shadow Carja armor from Plainsong vendor allow to heal with berries with 120% efficiency and speed (as for now consumed over 400 sweet sweet berries ).