History Main / UnlockableDifficultyLevels

* ''VideoGame/HatsuneMikuProjectDiva'': You must play a song on Medium difficulty to unlock its Hard chart, and beat its Hard chart to unlock its Extreme chart. The arcade game and its UsefulNotes/PlayStation4 port have Hard unlocked from the start, but you still need to unlock Extreme.

* The November 4, 2022 update of ''VideoGame/MiniMotorways'' adds Expert Mode, which is unlocked after reaching a certain score for each city. It presents harder challenges such as permanently placed road tiles like in ''VideoGame/MiniMetro'' and limited upgrades.

* ''VideoGame/BloodstainedRitualOfTheNight'': Only Normal difficulty is available from the start, but you unlock Hard Mode after beating it.
* ''VideoGame/BloodstainedCurseOfTheMoon'': Only Normal difficulty is available from the start, but you unlock the other two depending on how you played the game. If you recruit all 3 party members, you unlock Nightmare mode. If you kill all 3 party members and take their soul powers, you unlock Ultimate mode.

* ''[[VideoGame/ModernWarfare Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2]]'': The difficulty level depends on how fast you can complete The Pit in the [=S.S.D.D.=] tutorial level. If you complete it under 40 seconds, you can unlock the Harderned difficulty, and if you complete it under 35 seconds, you can unlock the Veteran difficulty. Otherwise, these two difficulty levels are locked.

* ''Franchise/DeadSpace'': All 3 of the games offer a HarderThanHard mode once you've beaten the game.
** ''VideoGame/DeadSpace'' keeps the Impossible difficulty locked until you've beaten the game.

* ''VideoGame/GameAndWatchGallery'': Every game in the collections has two difficulties of easy or hard (excluding those with a multiplayer function). If one gets 1000 points on either difficulty for the modern version of a game, a very hard star mode is unlocked for that game (again with the exception of games with a 2-player).

* ''VideoGame/FireEmblemTheBlazingBlade'': Hector's story is unlocked after completing Eliwood's story, and has four extra chapters (two main and two gaiden chapters) while being harder overall. This can be kicked up a notch with "[[HarderThanHard Hector's hard mode]]".
* ''VideoGame/FireEmblemAwakening'': Completing the game on [[HarderThanHard Lunatic Mode]] unlocks Lunatic+, which is similar to Lunatic, but every enemy is given two extra skills, chosen at random from a special pool. Thess skills are enemy exclusive and extremely unbalanced -- such as one that makes all attacks hit -- or regular skills with their activation requirements removed so they always work.
* ''VideoGame/FireEmblemHeroes'': Each Story Mode chapter can only be played on Normal initially, but completing the chapter unlocks the Hard and Lunatic versions of their maps. The bonus maps also have HarderThanHard difficulties in Infernal and Abyssal that require beating Lunatic to unlock.

* ''VideoGame/{{Kirby}}'':

* ''VideoGame/MarioKart'':
** ''VideoGame/SuperMarioKart'' has two difficulty levels at first (50cc and 100cc). Obtaining Gold Cup in the three standard Cups will unlock Special Cup, and obtaining Gold there will unlock 150cc ([[EasyModeMockery obtaining Gold Cups in 50cc won't unlock anything, not even Special Cup]]).
** All games from ''VideoGame/MarioKart64'' onwards, with the exception of ''VideoGame/MarioKartSuperCircuit'', have four difficulty levels: 50cc, 100cc, 150cc and Mirror Mode (the latter known as Extra Mode in ''64'' itself). The first three are available from the start, while Mirror is unlocked once you win all Gold Cups in 150cc. ''VideoGame/MarioKart8'' received an extra level (200cc) via a post-release update, and can be unlocked at the same time as Mirror.
* ''VideoGame/MarioParty'': Later games in the series have each a Brutal or Intense AI level that adds to the standard Easy, Normal and Hard; the method of unlocking it depends on the game itself (in ''VideoGame/MarioParty5'', you have to complete Story Mode in Hard; in ''VideoGame/MarioParty7'', you can purchase it in the Duty-Free Shop with the mileage points you accumulate in the other modes; and so on).

* ''VideoGame/MegaManBattleNetwork2'': After achieving HundredPercentCompletion, you can input a code when starting a new file to play the game on Hard Mode. Hard Mode increases enemy HP by half and [=MegaMan=] also takes 50% more damage.
* ''VideoGame/MegaManLegends'': The easy mode is unlocked by completing the hard mode (which itself, is unlocked by beating the game on normal difficulty), making it a BraggingRightsReward.
* ''VideoGame/MegaManZero'': in all 4 games, the hard difficulty is unlocked after beating the game in normal mode once. There's also the special "Ultimate" difficulty (only in second game onward), which requires GottaCatchThemAll to unlock (all Cyber Elves in Zero 2, all Secret Disks in Zero 3, all enemy parts in Zero 4). Said difficulty lets you play with most of the good stuff unlocked from the start, plus enabling instant ChargedAttack by button commands (ala fighting games).

* ''VideoGame/Progressbar95'': Progressbar 95, the system you start with, only has the Normal mode and the two special game modes available. Relax mode and Progress Defender are playable once you install Progressbar 95 plus and Hardcore mode is playable once you install Progressbar 98. The unlocked difficulties stay for all later systems and the four unlockable ones before Progressbar 95.

* ''VideoGame/SonicAdventure2'': Each stage has has a hard mode version. Unlocking them requires clearing the first four missions of said stage with hard mode serving as the fifth mission.
* ''VideoGame/SonicHeroes'': Once every emblem is collected and every stage and boss is cleared with an A rank, Super Hard Mode is unlocked. While the stages are more difficult, the bosses are not fought.

* ''VideoGame/WarioLand4'': The game starts out with two difficulties available to select when starting a file, "Normal" and "Hard". Beating a file set to the "Hard" difficulty for the first time unlocks a third difficulty option, "S-Hard".
* ''VideoGame/WolfensteinTheNewOrder'' features four custom difficulty settings, each of which is unlocked by recovering fragments of code from within the game and entering them in a special menu screen. Game modes unlocked include "999",[[note]]"Uber" (highest) difficulty, but unlimited ammo and health which begins at 999 but slowly decays to 100 even if the player is never injured[[/note]] "Walk in the Park",[[note]]"I am Death incarnate!" (2nd highest) difficulty with no HUD elements except action prompts[[/note]] "Hardcore",[[note]]"Uber" difficulty and no health or armor pickups[[/note]] and "[[FinalDeathMode Ironman]]".[[note]]"Uber" difficulty and no checkpoints or manual save games - death means starting the entire game over[[/note]]
* ''VideoGame/WolfensteinIITheNewColossus'': The "Mein Leben!" difficulty [[FinalDeathMode disables saves and forces the player to start from the beginning if they die.]] It must be unlocked by completing the game on the next highest difficulty, "I am death incarnate!"

* ''{{VideoGame/Yakuza}}'': In each of the games, the Legend/Ex-Hard difficulty is unlocked after beating the game once.
* ''VideoGame/YoshisSafari'': The hardmode unlock code is given out at the end of the game.

* ''VideoGame/Doom3'': After beating the game for the first time on any difficulty, players can unlock Nightmare difficulty, but if the player know their way around command-line arguments or changing a certain game setting in its config file, they can unlock it immediately without the work.
* ''VideoGame/Doom2016:'' Beating the game on Hurt Me Plenty or higher unlocks Ultra-Nightmare, which is the same as the already brutal [[NintendoHard Nightmare]] difficulty but makes the player go through the entire game in a single life [[CheckpointStarvation without saving or checkpoints]], and if they die at any point on Ultra-Nightmare, they start back over from the beginning. Similarly to ''Doom 3'', however, it can also be unlocked early via a command-line argument or config edit.

* ''VideoGame/BackpackHero'': There are various game modes that change the difficulty of the game by modifying your HP or the enemies', changing which items can be found in dungeons, or immediately taking you to the BossRoom.

* The November 3, 2022 update of ''VideoGame/MiniMotorways'' adds Expert Mode, which is unlocked after reaching a certain score for each city. It presents harder challenges such as permanently placed road tiles like in ''VideoGame/MiniMetro'' and limited upgrades.