With Hollow Knight: Silksong’s huge launch in full swing, community debate about its qualities and flaws has gone back and forth, with some players insisting their criticisms about things like the game's difficulty are valid and shouldn’t be instantly dismissed as "hate."
Hard to say. We have many examples of games with only one difficulty that are glorified for their challenging combat. We have an example of God of War with cool and challenging combat on max difficulty that for some reason did not receive such status like Souls games. I think Elden Ring can be an example of a challenging game with “difficulty setting” that was did receive other Souls treatment. So I think “difficulty settings” can work if done not as an option at the start of the game but by adding game mechanics or strategies that make it easier. Technically that’s what Silksong does for the most bits with a crest for easier platforming, usable tools for combat and boss specific weaknesses(Moorwing fight is trivial at the right corner of the arena, Widow can only hit you with one attack if you stand at the corner, and so on).
To you. It was for players who liked it that way. There are even popular rogue likes today.
would they still like it if there was a difficulty setting?
Hard to say. We have many examples of games with only one difficulty that are glorified for their challenging combat. We have an example of God of War with cool and challenging combat on max difficulty that for some reason did not receive such status like Souls games. I think Elden Ring can be an example of a challenging game with “difficulty setting” that was did receive other Souls treatment. So I think “difficulty settings” can work if done not as an option at the start of the game but by adding game mechanics or strategies that make it easier. Technically that’s what Silksong does for the most bits with a crest for easier platforming, usable tools for combat and boss specific weaknesses(Moorwing fight is trivial at the right corner of the arena, Widow can only hit you with one attack if you stand at the corner, and so on).