Also, it's very hard to get multiple difficulty settings right. It's much better to have cheats available to make the experience easier and learn to get better at the game through those.
There are many, many mountains to climb. Some are harder than others. Each doesn't need to have an escalator so everyone can climb it.
Developers have limited time and all features, including accessibility features, take away from that time. There are many games I never beat because they were difficult.
I agree with you that in some sense it undermines the achievement, but tending to the ego of players that feel undermined by the existence of accessibility features is not high in my hierarchy of values personally.
It would not undermine the achievement of reaching the peak by foot.
> Also, it's very hard to get multiple difficulty settings right. It's much better to have cheats available to make the experience easier and learn to get better at the game through those.
Somewhat agree there and I especially dislike "harder" difficulties that just bloat HP to the point of wasting your time. But you can also expose some of those cheats in the setting menu which makes them a kind of difficulty option except its up to the player to choose where they need help and they are not forced to choose between e.g. ultra-tight timing or more reasonable timing but your character also tells you all the solution to logic puzzles if you take more than a second to look at them (non-made up example).