Ask for the shape of the challenge.

Weakness targeting is the whole of combat, and the calendar is the real difficulty: a day spent wrong in November cannot be spent again.

The difficulty is logistics — weight, terrain and route planning — with combat as an interruption you are usually allowed to walk around.

Nothing in it is hard to do; almost everything in it is hard to find out that you can do.

Depth and darkness rather than combat. It is careful never to tell you where to go, which is either the appeal or the wall depending on the player.

A build with no points where it matters hits walls it can neither talk nor shoot past. Hardcore mode adds logistics, and the Deathclaws north of Goodsprings teach direction before the game does.

The only real pressure is the clock: every day you spend without a plan is a day the season quietly takes back.

Document checking against a clock, where the rules change every morning and a mistake comes out of the family’s rent.

Creature collection with a base-automation layer underneath it. The difficulty sliders are unusually honest about the fact that the grind is the game.

Difficulty as an inventory problem: every fight you choose to take is ammunition you will not have for the one you did not see coming.

Reflex mode quietly saves every blown infiltration. Turn it off and the enemy adapts to whatever you did last mission, which is where the game gets interesting.