Hi!

Could someone please explain to me how difficulty works in Shadow Warrior 2 multiplayer.

There seem to be four difficulty settings, easy, normal, hard, hardest (they got their own names, every one with a different color). You have to decide when you create a new character / start a new game.

1. You can't start a new character without chosing a difficulty level. Is this bound to the character in some way? Or does it happen only because you have to start a new game to start a new character?

2. Also there seem to be difficulty levels only for multiplayer, something like "scaling for three players"? Can you change that? Is this additionally to the other difficulty types or is this the only difficulty setting in multiplayer?

3. How does insane work, is this replacing that multiplayer scaling or the usual difficulty levels?

4. When I join a multiplayer game through a friend invite, can I see the actual difficulty? As far as my friends and I found out, we have to close the game and keep Gog Galaxy open. Then one friend has to start the game (actually "resume" his game as multiplayer game). After he has done that, he can send out friend invites. We accept those invites in Galaxy and the game starts automatically and opens a screen where we can join the game. After joining, any way to check actual difficulty? I haven't seen it.

5. Is it possible to change the difficulty mid-through? We are 4 friends on our first play-through. We tried first easy, which was too easy and I think we went for hard (second-hardest or third difficulty). Some missions are still pretty easy (some side missions from npc's), while others were very hard (us constantly dying, this happened in a bounty mission a lot). I guess we'd like the option to reduce the difficulty for some missions, while increasing it for others. However, it seems to me that changing difficulty only is possible when starting a new game, not resuming one? Except maybe that multiplayer scaling? I am not the one running the game, so I am not sure how the interface looks for the friend running the game.

I am very confused. We were just in for a casual play-through mainly for the story, I don't think we will do a second run for looting and leveling, but just skip to another game when we finished it once, although it really is a good and fun game and in general I can recommend it for players who want to play co-op with some friends. I whish some stuff were better explained, though, especially as there doesn't seem to be a manual.

I'd appreciate any answer, although my post has gotten a lot longer than I intended and I apologize for that.

Difficulty can be changed whenever you start or resume a game. A character is not locked into a difficulty for the entire run.

Multiplayer scaling is only for multiplayer games, to ensure that things don't swing wildly if players constantly enter and leave.

Insane 1-7 are difficulty levels above Hard.

To change difficulty in the middle of a playthrough, you need to stop the session and restart it with the new difficulty, just select a different difficulty in the dropdown before resuming.

As far as Bounty Missions go, they were implemented quite a while after the game's launch as additional content for people who had already done everything. Some of them are certainly going to be difficult if you try them as soon as they unlock on your first playthrough.

Thank you very much!

I totally missed that you can change the difficulty in the resume game screen.

Good to know those Bounty Missions are supposed to be hard!