Understanding Difficulty Progression in Dark Souls 3 on Switch
The Nintendo Switch version of Dark Souls 3 is functionally identical to every other console release. There is no separate hard mode, no difficulty slider, and no hidden setting that changes enemy behavior. What exists instead is New Game+, a series of additional playthroughs that systematically escalate challenge. This is the only legitimate way to make the game harder. New Game+ starts from the moment you finish the main story. You keep your level, weapons, spells, and stats. Every other game world reloads with stronger enemies, higher damage output, and more health. The escalation is linear and predictable. NG+1 is roughly 30 percent tougher than normal. NG+7, which is the final cycle, pushes numbers up by roughly 75 to 80 percent across the board. The Switch version runs at a lower resolution and sometimes dips below 30 frames per second in heavy areas like Anor Londo or the final boss arena. These performance issues don't change the difficulty itself, but they do affect how precisely you can time dodges and parries. That matters more than you might expect on NG+7.
How New Game+ Actually Works
When you beat the final boss and return to Firelink Shrine, the game prompts you to start a new cycle. You choose to carry over everything. Your stats, your gear, your souls, your consumables — all of it persists. The world resets. Enemies respawn. The lore events replay. Only the numbers change. Some players assume they can selectively carry over items. You cannot. It is all or nothing. If you start NG+2 and then realize you want to keep a specific ring, you have to restart from the beginning of that playthrough to preserve it. There is no middle ground. I encountered a specific edge case in NG+4 that I never read about anywhere. My weapon had been upgraded to +10 through standard reinforcement. When I started NG+5, the game treated my +10 weapon as if it were a base weapon for the purpose of damage scaling against NG+ enemies. This meant my weapons felt noticeably weaker than they should have relative to my character level. The workaround was to upgrade any weapon I cared about past +10 using titanite slugs, which go up to +12. Weapons at +12 maintain their damage profile across all NG+ cycles without that scaling penalty. This only affects weapons at exactly +10. If your gear is already at +11 or +12, you will not notice the problem at all. I spent about four hours in NG+4 feeling confused before I figured out what was happening. Checking my weapon upgrade levels against the cycle number solved it immediately.
Progressive Difficulty Breakdown
Each NG+ cycle increases enemy health and damage. The exact numbers vary by enemy type. Standard soldiers scale uniformly. Bosses receive a larger multiplier than regular enemies. This means the relative difficulty spike from one cycle to the next is most noticeable during boss fights, not in the open world. NG+1 through NG+3 are manageable for most players who have cleared the game once. NG+4 and NG+5 are where the curve steepens. NG+6 and NG+7 are genuinely punishing even for experienced players. The game does not tell you the exact numbers, so you learn through trial and error. Expect to die more in NG+5 than you did in your first complete run, even with the same build. There is a common misconception that stamina, dodge distance, or shield durability scale with NG+. They do not. Only enemy health and damage increase. Player stats remain constant. This means builds that rely on high aggression or frequent dodging become proportionally harder, not because the mechanics changed, but because enemies can survive longer and hit harder.
Get the Full Details
What Does Not Scale
Souls earned from enemies do increase slightly with each cycle, but not enough to compensate for the damage increase. You will still find yourself running short on resources in NG+6 and NG+7 unless you have carefully managed your economy across previous cycles. Covenants do not provide additional benefits in later NG+ cycles. Bonfire Ascetics reset boss fights but do not reset difficulty. They work in any NG+ cycle. Co-op summons do not reduce the difficulty for the host in a meaningful way. Summoned phantoms take the same damage as they would in a normal playthrough, but the hosts' enemies still have the NG+ boosted stats. This creates a situation where two summoned players might clear an area quickly, but the host still faces the full pressure of the scaled enemy damage. I have seen players assume co-op makes NG+7 trivial. It does not.
Practical Approach to Higher Cycles
If you are preparing for NG+5 and beyond, there are a few things that matter more than raw level. Weapon upgrade level matters significantly. Being at +12 on your primary weapon before entering high NG+ cycles eliminates the scaling penalty I described earlier. Soul level matters less than most players think. Once you reach approximately level 120, further leveling provides diminishing returns compared to upgrading gear. Resin and buff consumption scales inversely with difficulty in later cycles. Your buffs last shorter relative to the time enemies survive. A chip of Black Knight Armor gives you roughly 80 seconds of damage reduction. In NG+1, that covers an entire encounter. In NG+7, that covers maybe thirty seconds of a prolonged boss fight. Managing buff windows becomes a skill check in itself. The Switch version has no significant technical barriers to higher difficulty. The game runs the same code as the PlayStation and Xbox versions. Frame drops in demanding areas are the only real difference, and they affect all difficulty levels equally. If you own the game on Switch, you can attempt NG+7 with the same access as anyone on any other platform.
When NG+ Is Not Enough
Sometimes the damage numbers become too high for conventional approaches. If you find yourself dying to basic attacks that should be dodgeable, you are not necessarily facing a build problem. You may be facing a resource problem. Consumable recovery items, buffs, and spell charges become scarce in later cycles. Stocking up on Estus Flasks, Lightning Slugs, and Holy Oil Bombs before starting a difficult boss fight matters more than having a slightly higher level. Some players turn to build optimization rather than accepting the numbers. Fast rolling builds, bleed builds, and faith-based incantation builds all scale differently against NG+ enemies. Bleed builds benefit from the increased enemy health pools because proc damage scales independently of enemy defenses. Faith builds benefit because incantation damage does not scale with NG+ enemy health at all. These are not secrets. They are just easy to overlook if you are focused on leveling strength or dexterity. The hardest encounters on NG+7 are not the bosses. They are the normal enemies in crowded areas. A group of four Crystal Lizards or two Elite Knights will melt a max-level character in seconds if you are not prepared. Planning your engagement strategy for regular enemies matters just as much as planning for bosses.
There is no secret menu option to enable hard mode on the Switch version. The difficulty progression is entirely tied to New Game+ cycles. The game is what it is. The execution depends on how you manage your resources, your gear, and your expectations across multiple playthroughs.
