Ask for the shape of the challenge.

Every problem has a build that solves it, so the difficulty is whether you think to make one. The Depths are darker and meaner than anything in Breath of the Wild.

Ordinary play is gentle. The route the game remembers you taking turns two of its fights into some of the strictest bullet hell in the catalogue.

Kinder than the first in every way that matters — the instant-death platforming is gone — and the map is still built to be read rather than followed.

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

Hazard 5 with four dwarves is a coordination problem. Solo with Bosco is a slower, different game that the hazard tiers do not really account for.

An action game wearing horror, and the resource economy is the horror. Ammunition is the real health bar, and the game quietly adjusts how much of it you find based on how well you are shooting.

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.

Souls-shaped in its checkpoints and parry windows without souls-shaped stakes. Grandmaster punishes the block-heavy habits the lower difficulties let you keep.

Limb severing means aiming at the right thing rather than the middle of it. Impossible mode allows one save slot and no second chances at all.

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.