Less experienced players now have a way to experience Horizon Zero Dawn’s immersive world and narrative.
While development on the Horizon Zero Dawn expansion The Frozen Wilds is in full swing, we’re still finding time to add improvements to the main game. Last month’s Patch 1.30 added a new difficulty setting called ‘Ultra Hard’ which, as the name suggests, provides a greater challenge for hardcore Horizon Zero Dawn players. Today’s patch adds a difficulty level that does quite the opposite: ‘Story’ difficulty allows you to immerse yourself in the narrative of Horizon Zero Dawn and the exploration of Aloy’s world without having to worry too much about combat.
Among the most noticeable changes, ‘Story’ difficulty boosts the player-inflicted damage and reduces the player-received damage considerably, making the combat encounters manageable for less experienced players. It is our hope that the new difficulty setting will help us welcome more players into Aloy’s quest to discover her identity and the mysteries of the world she inhabits. In addition to the ‘Story’ difficulty, Patch 1.32 includes several fixes as outlined in the patch notes.
If you have a chance to try out ‘Story’ difficulty, we’d love to hear your thoughts! We’ll have more information on The Frozen Wilds soon, but in the meantime, keep an eye on the official Guerrilla Twitter and Facebook pages for all the latest Horizon Zero Dawn related news and developments.
I think this is a great idea for this game. The combat is one of the weakest aspects Horizon’s game play.
Wtf? No it’s not. It’s one of the strongest. It’s literally the main part of the game lol. The two biggest parts of the game are combat and story. If you want to say the combat is weak you need to be more specific like talk about the melee combat which could have been more fleshed out by adding combos or something but that’s not what game is about. It’s not Devil May Cry. The game is a third person shooter before a hack and slash.
Is this a joke, I gravely disagree with you….
When you say ‘great idea’ and ‘weakest aspect’ together in one sentence I’m getting the impression that the combat was simply too difficult for you and it was in fact the strongest aspect since you couldn’t manage killing any robot dinosaurs.
I loved the combat, kind of want to check out the ultra when the dlc finally arrives then.
wait wha??? Combat might just be one of the strongest parts of the game. It’s so intense, especially later on when you encounter badass machines. You may just be a pleb getting your ass handed over time and time again
The whole thing is you have a bow and you have to fight machines whose only attack is to run straight at you. So this makes every freakin’ fight into shoot once, run away a bit, shoot again, run away a bit.. Most fights end up like Dark Souls where you swing once, roll away, etc until they are defeated. Its one sided and poorly planned out. Also, pretty much pointless since I am maxed out on almost all pick ups from quests and drops!
The combat isn’t hard its just infuriating and pointless.
If all you’re using is your bow then you’re doing it wrong.
@OctoWhopper,
You’re doing it wrong :p
@OctoWhopper, while I respect everyone’s opinion, yours concerning the combat in HZD is seemingly blasphemous! I truly mean no harm in saying this, however HZD’s combat is utterly fantastic! In one of your comments you made mention of the bow as if it was your only weapon of choice, which does pain me to think that you never decided to mix it up with Aloy’s impressive arsenal.
I personally got into some serious outnumbered scrapes requiring me to pull out all stops in order to best the variety of robotics beast coming at me from all sides as they will often work together. When you say combat you also have to think about the hack ability which gives Aloy the upper hands at times. Try hacking a Thunderjaw and follow the big guy into battle against some other larger than life beast and the fireworks are incredible. It’s all about how you approach the experience.
Excellent idea! I know i get frustrated when you are stuck to the point of not being able to finish a game that you paid full price for. This story mode difficulty will ease you into the full feel of the game and gives the game a higher replayability.
The whole thing is you have a bow and you have to fight machines whose only attack is to run straight at you. So this makes every freakin’ fight into shoot once, run away a bit, shoot again, run away a bit.. Most fights end up like Dark Souls where you swing once, roll away, etc until they are defeated. Its one sided and poorly planned out. Also, pretty much pointless since I am maxed out on almost all pick ups from quests and drops!
oops I replied to the wrong thread
This sounds like an interesting move… how would it affect trophies I wonder?!
honestly, Horizon Zero Dawn’s platinum was one of the easiest platinums i’ve ever gotten. it’s achieved very naturally through normal gameplay and i actually played the game on Very Hard. so, i can’t really see it making too much of a difference – besides helping people believe a platinum trophy is obtainable where they’d usually ignore it.
Can’t remember if there’s a difficulty trophy but if there is not then. Shouldn’t change anything.
Great addition. I believe all story-driven games should have this option.
Seems unnecessary but maybe it helps psychologically for people that psych themselves out or look for easy difficulty without even trying the game.
noobs, git gud
Learn how to spell. Noobs get good, is how you spell your incomplete sentence
Know your meme bro, it’s spelt that way intentionally
I’m not your bro, bro.
Aww I can’t post emojis on here :(
Bless you! I think the combat is well done – probably the most interesting in gaming to date. However, I’m not as good at it as I would like and really think that I’ll now be able to better experience and enjoy Aloy’s story. Thanks guys!
Where did your Spider-Man avatar come from? I’ve been hoping for some additional Spider-Man avatars, to replace the older one I sport now, but nothing thus far. I was thinking perhaps we’d see some new ones when Insomniacs Spider-Man game comes out. Now I see your Homecoming avatar and must get it.
Seems really unecessary, since this great game is already very easy… And I think it´s too late too, the game is not new anymore.
Size of the patch!? Not to be rude and I know you guys have good intentions by my hdd space isnt for game devs to monkey around with their games. The way patching works with the PS4 makes this inconvenient for people who dont need or want it. If the size is too big then I wont download and if being behind a patch makes my game incompatible with future dlc then you just lost an opportunity to get my purchase.
Then expand your memory. The first thing I did was replace the 500GB HDD with a 2TB HDD same rpm. As for not being able to download the update, that’s your problem not the game or the makers. I only have 7MB internet 6MB download/ 1MB upload and the update did just fine. It only took 15 minutes for me for a 300MB+ download
I am also sure that losing one person’s purchase is something to laugh at for them, as they get hundreds if not thousands of them a day. So go whine somewhere else.
did you even read the patch notes? This patch does way more than just add story difficulty. It also fixes some bugs with the game so you’re doing yourself a huge disservice if you don’t download it. Also, every game has to be patched before DLC is compatible with it these days.
Definitely a welcome addition, as Horizon Zero Dawn has an exceptionally deep and emotional story; easily one of the best in years.
I don’t know how I really feel about a difficulty easier then easy. Sure Uncharted 4 had explorer mode but I didn’t touch that difficuly because I wanted somewhat of a challenge while playing. Horizon is no different.
Thank you, Guerrilla, for creating and continuing to support an incredible new IP.
Normal was pretty easy , I can see less experienced players dying early on but once you start to buy better armour it gets easier
Once you unlock the special amour it’s like god mode
I always appreciate developers allowing more customization, whether difficulty settings, control configurations, skill trees, etc. Then, everyone can experience the game the way they want to and enjoy it, while still allowing others to play it how the developers intended with the default settings. Thanks, Guerrilla!
While I agree with others, that a “Story” difficulty level seems unnecessary, it would appear the feedback Guerrilla has received would suggest otherwise. To that end, I appreciate the continued support for the game, for all players and level of gamers.
Cool! Maybe I’ll finish the game now. I didn’t find the combat too challenging, just too much of it. Really slowed the pace of the game down for me.
I personally hate difficulty levels. Lower difficulties messed my pride, and higher difficulties messed my sleeping time. I think games should just come out with the difficulty that developers intended them to be. Notice how most jrpg doesn’t have difficulty levels; if a boss is hard, it’s goddamn hard for everyone.
But yeah. I could see this move work for the more casual gamers who haven’t even pick the game up. Great move from guirella. As for the more challenged gamers like me who love his pride more than his sleep, this doesn’t mean much.
The difficulty control is built into the game mechanics with JRPGs. More grinding/leveling up = less difficulty and vice versa.
I think this is great for people who don’t have the same amount of time to put into games as others. I really like horizon, but doing any type of exploring or side quests leads to tons of battles. Looking forward to the patch.
I do have to say that some parts of the combat are a little weak like the melee, even with it maxed out I found the only time I could really ever use it was against the watchers. Same goes for the rattler (even the shadow rattler) I never found it useful in any situation, even in close quarters which it was made for. Also, some of the elementals, such as shock, freeze, and corruption we’re not very effective against most if not all enemies even though they were weak against a given element. Mind you I have been playing this game since the game launched and I haven’t seen much change with those parts of combat. Finally, I do agree that the new “Story” mode is going to be great for players just beginning the game and want to play the game all the way through.
I love to explore. I think for the explorer’s this is great.