I always play in ironman/hardcore/hardest difficulty in any strategy RPG game. This is definitely WORSE than DOS2 or any similar strategy RPG game since this has a LOT of party wipe/instant game over mechanics that haven't been explicitly warned, not to mention it only take 2 of your main party member to die to game-over, which is totally absurd. The difficulty should still be first-runner friendly since not everybody has the time to play the second time.