Multiple gameplay options are available to choose from thanks to the Assassin's Creed Odyssey difficulty settings, with the Normal difficulty arguably offering the best player experience. This setting will keep the combat balanced, feeling challenging enough to not give players an easy win but also won't make progression seem unnecessarily difficult. Minimal benefits are offered for playing on higher difficulty levels like Hard or Nightmare, further lessening their appeal.
Combat is found in many different forms throughout the game. Whether it's completing a conquest battle in Assassin's Creed Odyssey, clearing out a fortress crawling with guards, taking the fight to the sea with a naval battle, or even battling fantastic and imposing foes one-on-one, combat plays an important role. Choosing the best Assassin's Creed Odyssey difficulty setting for these situations will help players enjoy these fights rather than be worn down, or even possibly getting bored, by them.
Assassin's Creed Odyssey difficulty has a fairly steep curve. At higher levels of difficulty, players will see many more enemies at hostile locations. These enemies will boast increased maximum health, making them feel more like damage sponges during combat and taking much longer to go down. Their damage dealt will also increase, limiting the number of mistakes a player is able to make before desynchronizing. The highest Assassin's Creed Odyssey difficulty level will even allow most enemies to have a chance to one-hit kill the player.
Effects Of Increased Assassin's Creed Odyssey Difficulty
Beyond the gameplay in Assassin's Creed Odyssey, the level floor is also affected by the difficulty setting. In Easy Mode, finding enemies four or so levels below the player will be common depending on location, but on the higher difficulty settings, every enemy will be at the player's level or higher. This can make the combat in Nightmare or Hard feel stale very quickly, when players are always punching up they may never feel like the powerful hero they are meant to embody.
The higher Assassin's Creed Odyssey difficulty settings seem especially gratuitous as they do not provide any special bonuses or rewards to the player. No unlockable trophies are available for beating the game on any of its harder modes. There may be a small increase in earned XP, though the XP earned in this game is paced well enough that this benefit will likely not outweigh the added time spent fighting arbitrarily difficult enemies, like the Kalydonian Boar fight in Assassin's Creed Odyssey.
Of course, every player will get to make the choice of which difficulty setting is right for them as they play. The difficulty settings can be changed anytime through the in-game menu, found under the gameplay tab in the settings options, and will update after the game is reloaded. Offering many different gameplay settings is one way Assassin's Creed Odyssey difficulty caters to its players.