Ask for the shape of the challenge.

Story missions checkpoint constantly and aim assist does most of the shooting. The spikes are the driving and the gold medal objectives, which nobody is obliged to take.

Largos and tarrs will wreck a careless corral overnight, which is as close as this gets to a fail state.

Every individual mechanic is trivial; the difficulty is entirely another human being who cannot hear what you are shouting.

Rewind, a braking line and drivatar tuning let anyone finish anything. The difficulty is entirely opt-in, and turning the assists off makes it a different game.

Class decides how hard the game is. Insanity turns every squad into a shield, armour and barrier check that punishes the wrong power loadout far more than bad aim.

Level gating does the work encounter design would: a mercenary four levels above you is unkillable, and the game’s answer is more hours rather than a better plan.

The build carries the game. A netrunner or a sandevistan trivialises fights that a scattered stat spread makes unwinnable, and the difficulty setting only changes the numbers underneath that.

The shooting is forgiving and Dead Eye forgives the rest. The difficulty is deliberate friction — animations you cannot cancel, a horse you have to keep alive, and mission failure for stepping outside the script.

Difficulty is a slider, and the systems are exploitable enough that a determined player can break the game open by hour five. What is left is a very long walk.

The genre’s shape at a fraction of its hostility — and the only one on this shelf that ships with a menu that will hand you a gun and skip the fight.