Life in the “Realistic” Difficulty of Black Ops 3

I love playing games on hardest difficulty:

Halo, Call of Duty, Skyrim, Deus Ex–you name it, I instantly put them as difficult as possible when I start a campaign.  Insane, Legendary, Veteran, the titling doesn’t matter, I scroll down and select it. Obviously with some games, you actually unlock the hardest difficulty after playing through it on the previous hardest difficulty, and so I have to do multiple playthroughs.
I also like challenging games–Dark Souls, Bloodborne, Max Payne 3 on that stupid timed and insane difficulty–even when I get extremely mad at them.

There are definitely times where I have walked to my console and turned it off (well moreso just holding the respective button and selecting ‘turn off’ from the comfort of my chair with my controller), and times where I’ve literally (I’ve even done this on a livestream) just stood up and walked away for several moments. But still, the drive to complete the games is there, and psychologically, it is more rewarding to complete something difficult.
Such is the case with this hell in Black Ops 3.

Now I’m a competitive gamer–I go to LANs, compete, and generally have some sort of winnings (its the reason I am 18 and can afford multiple systems, thousands of dollars of gaming equipment, etc.), and my K/D in most multiplayer games is usually a high 2.9 or something (if we’re talking SWAT, it’s an easy 5).
This difficulty makes a mockery of me.

Now there are some missions I’ve done where it’s been easy–I’m naturally avid in taking cover and strategically taking down my enemies, and might end my missions with as little as 5 deaths. But some of these missions I’ve died 90+ times; I know this because Treyarch was thoughtful enough to have a scoreboard on the campaign you can access by pressing select (or back, tab, your preference), showing: kills, incapacitations (your deaths), and two other scores that are irrelevant for solo campaign.

To show as to ‘why’ I died so many times, in the fourth (I think) level, you are tasked with destroying some coolant tanks whilst under fire from a horde of robots that consistently spawn, in an area with bad cover placement, and it only takes the slightest shot to die; the AI being able to see and shoot you through walls that you are unable to shoot through. Oh, did I add that you have to shoot the enemies with at least 7 bullets? When you peak to shoot at them, you might get 5 before they shoot their 1 to end you.
Anyways, that one part (which on veteran I might have died two or three times) which would be about 5-10 minutes long, I witnessed my deaths climb from the number they were at, 21, to the number they went to before I finished the phase, 97. The amount of kills I had? 121.

The game time is set to be around 12 hours for normal campaign play, yet I’m sitting at over 50 and still not yet completed (I’m really close though!), which should give you a stark idea of the hell that is this difficulty.

This means, my K/D for a campaign was 1.25 (rounded). That’s worse than my multiplayer K/D ratio!
I was getting rather frustrated at the game, but I was unable to tell myself ‘enough’ and stop for a bit.  Eventually, I succeeded the mission and was overjoyed, and felt really good about myself having completed it. And I think it was worth the suffrage. Whether I die every second or barely die at all in a mission, I feel happy knowing that against all odds, against hundreds of enemies who can end me faster than I can end them, I won.

So if you’re playing Black Ops 3 on realistic, or thinking about it, let me explain to you the various emotions you are going to feel during the average mission:

“Yes! The first mob of enemies was easy! This is going to be good!”
“That one was tricky, good thing I can see enemies with my techno-thingy!”
“Damn, I died a few times, at least I know all the surprises that wave of enemies is going to bring.”
“Well, I guess I didn’t know all the surprises…”
“Finally! I beat that mob!”
*Dies at the next one*
“What?! I have to repeat that mob because there wasn’t another checkpoint?”
“Oh not one of these guys” *Sees a WarLord*
“After dying a dozen times, I finally killed the WarLord! Only to die to the rest of the mob.”
“WHERE’S MY AMMO!?!?!”
“This seems like it could be the end of the mission. Good. Sick of this.”
“Oh, I see, we’re just having like an exit thing now.”
“Guess not, this is a whole new area and we’re still in the mission.”
“I’m sick of dying, I just want this to end.”
“Is this the end?”
“Nope.”
“Oh! A cutscene! Maybe it is the end!”
“Shit. Must have been the halfway mark.”
“Died again. Oh look, I have 200 kills and 50 deaths, I feel oh so happy about my K/D right now, thanks Treyarch, love this *bleep*ing game!”
“Wait–so the level just ended in the most confusing place ever?”
“Man that was awesome! I did it! Next mission!”

And really it’s remarkable. I would dare say this is actually the most challenging game I’ve played–your opponents can one shot you from across the map, when you can barely see them, nonetheless have to get several hits on them.
But I can’t even say anything bad about it, I’ve loved it, and I won’t even complain about it. The campaign is fun, and even though there seems to be impossible odds at times, and you will get frustrated, you will actually like it. You won’t loathe the campaign, the game, or the devs–you’ll love them.