Don’t Feel Guilty for Dropping Divinity Original Sin 2’s Difficulty

Divinity Original Sin II is immersive, rewarding, innovative and definitively one of the best RPGs I have ever played.

It can also be completely overwhelming.

On top of the stress of school, work, family and other responsibilities of daily life, a lengthy and challenging RPG like Divinity Original Sin II can start to feel like a second job. The game’s combat can be brutal, forcing players to die again and again just to overcome a single fight.

While this is a positive for many, it can be a barrier for some. Too often gamers will give up on a game instead of lowering its difficulty, often missing an incredible experience. With Divinity Original Sin II, playing on explorer mode can be a very enjoyable experience and a great learning tool. Here’s why:

In explorer mode, your party members get a boost to health and hit chance while enemies get the opposite. Because of this, you can test out different styles and abilities with less of a concern of getting stuck. Divinity Original Sin II’s combat has many complicated layers. In a single battle, the player must track environmental effects, status ailments, enemy magic, armor and weapon stats and more. If your team isn’t balanced correctly, some battles are nearly impossible to win. If you have limited free time or you just want to learn the game, explorer mode might be for you.

Another use of explorer mode is to allow yourself to focus on the game’s other central pillar: roleplaying. Divinity Original Sin II prides itself on player freedom, allowing you to take your story and characters in whatever direction you’d like. Want your elven rouge to help take down a corrupt government? You can do that. Want your lizard fighter to down some brews in a bar and wind up in bed with a stranger? You can do that too. Making choices and seeing what consequences they bring is easily one of the best parts of the game.

Players who want to focus on roleplaying might feel like the combat difficulty is a hindrance. It can be hard to remember the intricacies of your feud with the magisters after a week-long session of dying in necrofire and loading back quick saves. For someone who wants to focus on their roleplaying experience, explorer mode can make combat feel like an extension of roleplay, rather than a difficult puzzle that will require hours of trial and error.

The best part of Divinity Original Sin II and deciding what difficulty to choose is that the game has a crazy amount of replay value. Every character has a unique story that can play out differently on separate playthroughs. Also, since there are six origin characters, you are guaranteed to have at least two unexplored characters at the end of your first playthrough. This means that even if you play on explorer first, you can start a new game on a higher difficulty and have a fresh, new experience. You can also change the difficulty at any time if explorer ever becomes too easy.

At the end of the day, you should always play whatever difficulty allows you to have the most fun. Divinity Original Sin II is an incredible game that you can experience at whatever intensity you like. If classic mode is pushing you away, always remember that explorer mode is there for you.

For more Divinity Original Sin II advice, check out our tips and tricks for beginners.