Hello everyone, today I want to talk about Uncharted's harder difficulties, what I find its faults are and what are some ways it could be improved.
Let's begin with what I feel are the aspects to a good hard mode in a game. To me, a good hard mode isn't just a mode where enemies do more damage and/or you have less health. It's a mode that demands the player really learn the ideal systems of the game and those systems are more fun at that higher level for the people playing the game. And that if the player then plays the game on an easier difficulty, they can sweep through the game even easier. To use an analogy, it's like weighted clothing in Dragon Ball. It makes the experience itself harder when using them but it improves your own performance so if you take them off, you're better at the game.
To use examples from other games, Devil May Cry's "Dante Must Die" has enemies be much faster and more aggressive, even having transformations if the player takes too long. And the player can't cheese through it by spamming stinger or something. This suits DMC's gameplay of having the player do stylish combos and fighting enemies since the difficulty requires the player be more aggressive and active themselves as well avoiding sloppy play or getting hit since that also makes fights less stylish. If a player completes Dante Must Die and then plays on normal, they'll tear through enemies easily since Dante Must Die really thought them how to fight well and avoid getting hit.
Splinter Cell Chaos Theory has its harder difficulties make enemies have better senses and deal more damage so you have to get better at sneaking which also means the easier difficulties become easier since you're better at sneaking. Same for Doom on higher difficulties since it demands the player get better at moving around and dodging or the Arkham games which require the player get better at attacking and countering and dealing with different enemy types quickly. Even with Pokemon, Rom Hacks that make enemy trainers have better teams and AI and require the player be on Set Mode or Nuzelockes changes how players approach battles and team building since now the player would need to have to switch their Pokemon around more to predict attacks and not rely on a single Poke sweeping with a single move.
This brings us to Uncharted. Typically, Uncharted's main challenge comes from combat sections consisting of standard 3rd person cover shooting but also fun movement and melee systems. At its best, Uncharted's combat can have a player run through the battlefield, weaving through gunfire, jumping and climbing stuff, shooting enemies, meleeing them, jumping enemies then take a "break" by taking cover and waiting for your health to recharge. Games from Uncharted 3 and onwards have taken steps to make arenas less linear and to encourage the player to move around more by having enemies try and ambush the player and have some cover start to break like an action movie. On Uncharted's easier difficulties of Explorer (Very Easy), Easy and Moderate, combat sections can be quite fun with these movement mechanics and the wait times for health regen aren't too long in a fight. But on the harder difficulties, Hard and Crushing, that's not the case. Enemies are far more accurate with their shots and do so much damage that the player will die very quickly if they're in the open. This makes all the fun movement mechanics completely unviable so players are stuck with only the 3rd person cover-based shooting. And the time players have to spend healing is often most of a firefight since even popping out for a second to shoot will result in the player taking a lot of damage quickly. You don't even get better at the game upon completing it on Crushing since none of the skills from effectively camping translate to making you better at movement aside from making you better at headshots. This makes the harder difficulties boring to play since instead of providing you with that typical Uncharted/action movie adventure during a firefight, it just becomes a drag. Now there are games like Metro that also have difficult firefights behind cover where you die if you're exposed for a second on higher difficulties, but the game is typically built around that kind of gameplay and rewards the player for playing smart. But Uncharted doesn't do this kind of difficulty doesn't complement Uncharted's design, turning it into a worse game. I have similar criticisms to other games with a similar design like the Call of Duty titles. It's like if in Splinter Cell, enemies were fun to sneak through on normal, but on hard they have x-ray vision so you have to shoot them to have a chance at completing the level. It's like if in Batman Arkham, enemies were fun to fight on Normal but on hard, the only way to play is to kick them in the shin, run away and then repeat the process.
You may say "then just don't play on anything harder than normal" and fair point. But I say if you're going to include harder difficulties, why not design them to be fun and reward the skills the game normally requires or are cool at least? It would certainly increase replayability at least and may even make the easier difficulties more fun in the process.
So what are some ways to improve Uncharted's harder difficulties to bring it more in line with my idea of an ideal difficulty?
The main one I have is a rework to the way health works. Normally in Uncharted, health works like in every other shooter. But what if there was a system that gave the player a shield (framed by opponents missing more of their shots) or just healed the player faster depending on how they fight in combat. So if a player does a melee attack, then a headshot, then a diving attack, they instantly get full health and/or have enemies miss their shots during the sequence. I think this would be an improvement for a few reasons. If a player doesn't care about this and just wants to play it as a cover-based shooter, that option is still there. If a player wants to be more creative, the system facilitates that and rewards them by extending the time they can stay out in the open before needing to take cover to recover. And it rewards skillful play because more skillful players can extend this time for longer during fights. And it makes fights play like a cool action movie which is what Uncharted is going for.
In conclusion, Uncharted's harder difficulties aren't very fun or rewarding to play since they don't test nor encourage the interesting mechanics of Uncharted's combat, turning the game into a boring cover shooter with lots of waiting thereby defeating the point of the harder difficulties. My proposal to improve this would be to make it so the player gets a shield/instant recovery for playing in cool ways which would both make combat more skillful and interesting, reflect the game's "Action Movie" vibe and complement the existing level design and even encourage the easier difficulties to try being cool.
So yeah, what are your thoughts?
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