10 Times You Secretly Made The Game Harder (And Didn't Even Realize)

Difficulty in games is more or less a set thing. You pick your difficulty setting at the start of the game, and then you play the way you want to.

Sometimes, video games let you change the setting mid-game, but did you know that there are also situations where you can increase the difficulty without knowing?

Yes, sometimes the difference between hard and easy isn't tied to your settings only. It can also come from the things you do in the game, and this often isn't as obvious as checking the menu.

You might pick up an item that makes enemies more aggressive, use a dialogue option that permanently changes the game for the worse, or create a character that is doomed to an uphill battle from the start without the game letting you know ahead of time.

Each choice like the ones above increases the difficulty without you knowing, and you'll only realize you've made a mistake when you feel their consequences on your own skin.

For this reason, if you don't want to step into a trap or you're actually curious how to increase the difficulty beyond the game's predetermined settings, the following list will be of help to you.

Deus Ex’s world is a dystopian future where secret organizations control everything and everyone from the shadows.

In fact, they can also take control of your game’s difficulty without you knowing!

In Deus Ex: Human Revolution, it is possible to make one of the latter boss fights more challenging by unknowingly picking the wrong choice earlier in the story.

At one point in the starting stages of the game, your character, Jensen, experiences some visual bugs and glitches related to his cybernetics. Shortly after, he receives a message telling him that he can get a free replacement at a LIMB clinic as a form of apology on the company’s behalf.

Since the procedure is free and gets rid of annoying glitches while simultaneously giving you a slight upgrade to your optics, the choice feels like a no-brainer.

However, in reality, the replacement is a trap. Later in the game, when you have to fight Jaron Namir, it is revealed that your free replacement actually allows the villain Zhao to control your cybernetics, and before the combat begins, she completely disables all of Jensen’s augments, making it significantly more difficult!

There’s no such thing as free stuff in cyberpunk dystopias!