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.

All Sons of the Forest Difficulty Levels Explained

There are four different difficulty levels in the game:

• 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 the cannibals and mutants from the island. It makes the game much more focused on simply surviving and building — though you’ll still face mutant enemies if you descend into the many caves and bunkers found across the island.

Normal-Hard difficulties basically 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, we don’t yet have the sort of hard figures that are available for the game’s predecessor, The Forest. What we can say is that animals are less plentiful to hunt; the effects of hunger, thirst, and sleep are more extreme and food and drink replenishes much less. Here’s a rough overview of each:

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, and 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 more 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 really 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, search Twinfinite or check out some of the related content listed below.