Sons of the Forest Difficulty Levels, Explained

Sons of the Forest has several different difficulty levels that change the extremity of the survival experience you’ll face once having crash-landed on the island. Here we’ll be explaining the difference between each of them. Let’s look at all Sons of the Forest difficulty levels.

All Sons of the Forest Difficulty Levels

There are four different difficulty levels in Sons of the Forest:

• Peaceful
• Normal
• Hard
• Custom

You can think of these as the typical easy-extreme difficulties found in other games, though in some cases they do make some specific changes to the experience you should consider.

For example, as we’ve explained in our dedicated guide on the subject, Peaceful Mode actually removes cannibals and mutants from the island. It makes the game much more focused on simply surviving and building. That said, you’ll still face mutant enemies if you descend into the many caves and bunkers found across the island.

Normal and Hard difficulties ramp up the extremity of the survival experience. The higher you set it, the more punishing the environment becomes. In terms of the specific changes, animals are less plentiful to hunt, hunger, thirst, and sleep are more extreme, and food and drink replenishes much less. Here’s a rough overview of each one:

Peaceful Difficulty

As we’ve highlighted already, the Peaceful mode reduces the number of enemies and puts a stronger focus on survival and building. That said, the survival mechanics themselves are pretty tame, so this is a perfect starting point for newcomers to the genre.

Normal Difficulty

Essentially Peaceful Mode but with enemies switched on, this difficulty level is the recommended setting. It offers a balance between survival and combat encounters, providing decent leeway to players so that it’s challenging without being overly punishing.

Hard Difficulty

This is the mode for those who are playing Sons of the Forest to experience its most extreme survival mechanics. Resources are scarce, and enemies spawn more often and hit harder. Not to mention, the effects of starvation, thirst, and tiredness are more severe.

Custom Difficulty

The custom difficulty is as it sounds; it allows you to tweak the settings according to your preference. It’s probably our pick of the bunch since you can hone in on what you want out of the game.

That does it for our round-up of what all the difficulty levels are in Sons of the Forest and what they mean. For more useful tips and guides on the game, check out the best mods to use and the best base location.