Can You Change the Difficulty Settings in God of War?

Many of the fights and encounters in God of War are no picnic. If you chose the normal or hard difficulty, can you change your mind later? We take a closer look.

Obviously God of War is not a stroll in the park. What perhaps should have been a leisurely climb to the top of the tallest peak in all the realms, turns into a battle for survival and discovery of intrigue before it barely even begins. When you first start the game, you’re asked to choose what level of challenge you want to experience. But what if you’ve made a grave mistake and overestimated your skills?

Can you Change the Difficulty Settings?

The quick answer is Yes. The long answer is “it depends”.

New players to God of War are asked to choose between four levels of difficulty:

• Give me a Story: Meant for gamers who enjoy story over challenge, or for gamers who are new to this type of game. Editor’s note: It’s also for gamers who are smart and realize their own limitations and preferences!
• Give me a Balanced Experience: This would be considered the “normal” or standard experience that the developers most intended you to have in God of War.
• Give me a Challenge: This is for veterans of the series and gamers whose skill far exceed the average. Enemies have more health, stronger attacks, and are generally going to make your life a living hell.
• Give me God of War: This is just crazy.

Many players will likely choose the default difficulty setting as that’s what’s already pre-selected and won’t make you have to swallow any of your gaming pride (Editor’s note: It’s not pride, it’s just being smart!)

But what happens if you get a few hours into the game and realize that the challenge is too much? You’re able to change it via the Settings > Gameplay menu options.

Unless…

Unless you chose Give me God of War. Once you choose this difficulty setting, you cannot change it again. Conversely, if you started the game with any other setting, you cannot change it to Give me God of War either. Short of starting the game over from scratch, you have no option available to you to adjust the difficulty settings mid-game in this case.

In the meantime, getting yourself a shiny set of Royal Dwarven Armor might help you in taking down the more difficult enemies in the game, such as the Corrupted Valkyries. For those guides and more, visit our God of War Guide Hub.