hard mode

Noun

hard mode (countable and uncountable, plural hard modes)

1. A game mode with a higher difficulty than the standard gameplay.
   • Even then, once the main game is cleared – it has to be clocked in one play session, but it’s far from lengthy – hard mode is unlocked (plus a pair of affable bonus modes) which doesn’t just up the difficulty, but completely rewrites the dungeon structures and enemy patterns.2008 April, “Dark Mist”, in Edge, Bath, Somerset: Future Publishing, →ISSN, →OCLC, page 96, column 4
   • Currently, to increase accessibility as well as replayability of the game, we added two difficulty levels. On easy mode, most players should have little trouble reaching the end of a level. On hard mode, extra obstacles offer bigger challenges.2013, Rafael Bidarra, Dien Gambon, Rob Kooij, Dylan Nagel, Maaike Schutjes, Ioanna Tziouvara, “Gaming at the dentist’s – serious game design for pain and discomfort distraction”, in Ben Schouten...
2. (figuratively) A task or situation made deliberately more difficult than usual, often as a test of skill or endurance.
   • But just when I thought I’d gotten the hang of things, a snake chased me into a deeper level of the labyrinth! Everything’s on hard mode down here.2018 March, Okina Baba, translated by Jenny McKeon, So I’m a Spider, So What?, volume 2, New York, N.Y.: Yen Press, →ISBN, back cover
   • I moved across the country twice the year I finished my dissertation because I like to live on hard mode, apparently.2019, Rachel Neff, “Is It a Dragon or a Windmill?”, in Chasing Chickens: When Life after Higher Education Doesn’t Go the Way You Planned, Lawrence, Kan.: University Press of Kansas, →ISBN, page 74
3. Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see hard, mode.
   • Notwithſtanding this melancholy and hard mode of living, they are ſeldom or ever ſick, and all arrive at extreme old age.1785, [Georges-Louis Leclerc,] Count de Buffon, translated by William Smellie, “Of the Varieties of the Human Species”, in Natural History, General and Particular, […], 2nd edition, volume III...
   • A hard mode in the form of a written document is often referred to as a “hard copy.”2004, William H. A. Johnson, “How Hard Can It Be to Communicate? Communication Mode and Performance in Collaborative R&D Projects”, in Susan H[ayes] Godar, Sharmila Pixy Ferris, editors, Virtual and...