All Ghost of Tsushima difficulty settings explained

Ghost of Tsushima, similar to most PlayStation first-party titles, comes with a host of accessibility features to help players enjoy the game regardless of their skill ceiling, and gameplay preferences. While the accessibility features here aren't as robust as something you see in a Naughty Dog title, there are still plenty of options for you to tweak and experiment with.

One of the very first choices you'll get when starting the game is your preferred difficulty preset. Much like any other traditional open-world action-adventure game, you get the option between Easy, Normal, and Hard difficulty presets, with the Normal preset being the default option that most players would want to start with.

However, there are also some additional difficulty options that you can explore if you're looking for that authentic "Samurai" experience, especially on your first playthrough. Here's a comprehensive guide explaining all the difficulty options in Ghost of Tsushima PC, and which one should you choose for your first playthrough.

Note: Parts of this article are subjective and reflect the author's opinions.

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What are the difficulty presets in Ghost of Tsushima?

Ghost of Tsushima lets you choose between all the available difficulty options right from the get-go. There are a total of four difficulty presets to choose from, starting with the Easy mode, which essentially is this game's story mode equivalent, reducing combat difficulty and buffing Jin's defenses, to the Lethal mode, which is the hardest difficulty preset.

Here's a breakdown of the different difficulty presets in Ghost of Tsushima:

• Easy: The quintessential "story" mode, where enemies deal less damage and the parry/dodge windows are much more forgiving.
• Medium: The default difficulty preset, where enemy damage can be quite lethal and parrying attack requires proper timing.
• Hard: The Hard mode is basically similar to Medium but with much more aggressive enemies and tighter parry windows.
• Lethal: The Lethal mode is meant as the authentic "Samurai" experience. The combat difficulty is similar to Hard mode, but both enemies and Jin die in a few hits, replicating the authentic feeling of clashing swords and killing enemies in a single well-timed slash.

As for which difficulty preset you should start your playthrough with, we recommend going with the Medium preset if you're looking for a balanced gameplay experience. However, if you're looking for a more challenging and authentic experience, you cannot go wrong with Lethal mode, despite the higher difficulty curve.

While Lethal is admittedly way more challenging than Medium and Easy, it's still worth choosing for your first playthrough, especially if you're experienced with action RPGs or souls-like games.