Sons of the Forest difficulty levels & differences explained

If you're hopping into Sons of the Forest or you've already started but don't know which is the right setting for you, you'll want to learn about the various difficulty levels.

The game offers five difficulty levels with a simple one- or two-word description for each one, which isn't much to go on. So keep reading our guide as we explain every difficulty level in Sons of the Forest. 

Sons of the Forest difficulty levels explained

Sons of the Forest has five difficulty levels: Peaceful, Normal, Hard, Hard Survival and Custom, with Hard Survival being the newest difficulty level added with the recent update. 

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Peaceful difficulty is the easiest one of all. It's meant for players who want to enjoy base building and exploration without worrying about enemies, as there are no enemies in the world. Surviving is also very easy, as you get a ton of loot, including meds, food items, etc.

Normal difficulty is the recommended game mode where enemy spawns are enabled. Apart from that, it's similar to Peaceful mode in terms of surviving, as item spawns are high, and you can one-shot enemies once you get a weapon like the Shotgun.

Hard difficulty was the highest difficulty in Sons of the Forest during the game's early access launch. For solo players, Hard mode is more than just hard as the enemy spawn rate is high and they're stronger. Surviving is difficult as food items, meds, ammo, and items spawn are low, and gathering resources is a nightmare as enemies will jump on you from all sides, instantly killing you. However, in co-op, it becomes manageable and somewhat easy.

Since Sons of the Forest is a co-op survival, to make it challenging even when playing with friends, Endnight Games added a Hard Survival game mode that delivers stronger enemies and rough survival. 

Hard Survival is a punishing mode as there are very few food spawns in wooden crates and other boxes. Even fish and wildlife that you can hunt down for food have fewer spawns. Enemies get ultra instinct as they can dodge your attacks and are more challenging to kill, especially in the final launch version with the higher-tier gold armour for Cannibals. 

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Lastly, Custom, as the name suggests, is a customized difficulty experience where you can adjust different settings for Enemies, Environment, and Survival. You get to tinker with everything from enemy health, aggression and search party to survival damage and starting seasons.

That concludes our guide on Sons of the Forest's difficulty levels. While you're here, check out how to find and use GPS Locators, the keycard locations, how the game runs on Steam Deck, and how to get the rifle.