The Outer Worlds: Which Difficulty Is Right For You: Supernova, Hard, Or Normal?

After you start The Outer Worlds for the first time, you're quickly asked which difficulty you should start on. While the hardcore may consider jumping to Supernova--the game's hardest difficulty (more on that below)--others may linger on whether Normal or Hard is the course they should take.

In our experience, Normal can be pretty easy for the average player, and combat becomes rather trivial later on. There's plenty of ammo and upgrade resources, and enemies tend to not put up an equal challenge. However, the jump from Normal to Hard is pretty steep; with scarce resources and way tougher enemies, you might find yourself in trouble early on. And with the repeated deaths, loading times from dying so much tend to add up, especially on consoles where the loads are quite long.

Thankfully, you can change the difficulty anytime you want. Our best advice is to start on Normal to help yourself get used to the game and how it works, and then switch over to Hard once you feel it's getting too easy. But there's no shame in switching back if you're finding the first five to ten hours more than you bargained.

Once you choose Supernova, there's no switching back to unless you start a new save file, so if you're doing it, know that you must commit. Given how challenging the game becomes in Supernova, we wholeheartedly recommend jumping into it on a second playthrough. But it's up to you!

For more on The Other Worlds, check out our guide detailing how to get the best experience from the game, as well as our guide highlighting what we feel are the best perks. Be sure to check back often as we put up more guides and features in the coming days.

The Outer Worlds is certainly meeting expectations so far. In GameSpot's review, editor Edmond Tran gave the game a 9/10 and said "I finished The Outer Worlds wanting more, eager to jump back into the world to see extra things. It's not a short game, but it's one packed with such a steady stream of wonderful characters to meet, interesting places to explore, and meaningful, multi-layered quests to solve, that it didn't feel like there was any room to get tired of it. I wanted to rewind the clock and do everything in a completely different way. The Outer Worlds is consistently compelling throughout, and it's a superb example of how to promote traditional RPG sensibilities in a sharp, modern experience." You can find out what others think in our review roundup.

Got any input on what you can do to ensure you have the best experience in The Outer Worlds? Let us know in the comments below!