Games

The game defaults to the hardest difficulty and describes it as the intended experience but it also says "But go ahead and play on a lower difficulty if that's what it takes you to finish the game."

And that's literally the simple answer to all this supposed controversy. Doing it this way makes it a no-lose scenario. People who want the developers intended vision can have it. People who need or would like it more accessible still get to play it. The developer gets to be confident that people who can play it as intended will probably do so while more people who never would have been able to play otherwise, still get to experience it too, if a little bit lighter of a version than the "intended" one.

But the "git gud" crowd still bleats and moans and acts as if mere knowledge that an easier mode exists would somehow negatively effect their experience. Which reveals that for most of them it's actually a lot more about them wanting to be gatekeepers than it is about some supposed artistic purity. They should be happy with difficulty settings because if anything it's an additional feather in a person's cap to be able to say "yeah, I beat such and such game on hard mode.!" Like, I get to feel pride to be able to say I 100%'ed Aeterna Noctis, contender for the hardest metroidvania, on its hard mode setting. (For the record, I'm not very good at games in general but I loved that one and so I enjoyed practicing it. I was also privileged enough to have the time to do so). It has an easier mode, and I'm glad it does, for altruistic reasons: I'm happy that more people get to enjoy it, and for selfish reasons - I can puff out my chest and boast about how I beat it on the hard mode.

There is no good argument that any difficult game can't do as Pathologic 2 and Aeterna Noctis ended up doing. Make it clear that the game is "meant" to be played on the hard mode, but give people the option to play it on easier, more accessible modes.