Difficulty is the first setting most players change and the one they regret most. Pick too high and you spend the opening hours fighting the interface instead of the game; pick too low and the 30-day structure stops feeling like pressure. This page walks all five settings, says what the incoming fifth tier actually is, and gives you a decision you can make in two minutes.
The Short Answer
Start on Challenging if you have played a Soulslike. Start on Story if you have not. Fair sits between them and is the correct choice for most people who dislike being punished for exploring. Duelist is a second-run or boss-farming preset, not a first-run setting.
The Four Settings That Exist Now
As of version 1.0.5, the game ships four difficulty tiers. They are ordered easiest to hardest.
| Setting | Who It Is For | What Changes |
|---|---|---|
| Story | Players who want the narrative | Lowest enemy damage and health; still requires combat to progress |
| Fair | The default for most first runs | Moderate enemy pressure; exploration rarely kills you outright |
| Challenging | Players who want the systems to matter | Enemy damage and aggression scale up; mistakes cost real time |
| Duelist | Experienced players and second runs | Highest enemy health and damage; no forgiveness at all |
The important detail in that table is the Story row. The current Story preset is not combat-free. It reduces enemy health and damage, but you still fight every encounter. Many players assume otherwise and bounce to Fair or Challenging within an hour because Story feels harder than its label suggests.
The Fifth Setting Is Coming
Rebel Wolves confirmed in late September that a fifth, easier tier was in development alongside the first major post-launch patch. Game director Konrad Tomaszkiewicz told Eurogamer the new tier takes over the Story name, and the existing Story preset gets renamed. He floated Demanding as a working name for the renamed tier at the time. The studio’s Update 1.1 announcement of October 16, 2026 settled it: the renamed tier is Forgiving, landing the week of October 19, 2026.
That gives you this progression after the patch ships:
| Before the patch (4 tiers) | After the patch (5 tiers) |
|---|---|
| Story (easiest) | New Story (new, even easier) |
| — | Forgiving (the current Story mode, renamed) |
| Fair | Fair |
| Challenging | Challenging |
| Duelist (hardest) | Duelist (hardest) |
Two things are worth being precise about here, because coverage of this patch has gotten them wrong:
The fifth tier is confirmed but not yet in your hands. Update 1.1 is dated for the week of October 19, 2026, and the announcement names Forgiving and the new Story tier, but the full numbered changelog lands on patch day. Until it is installed, you are still playing the four-tier version above, and the five-tier table describes what is coming rather than what you can select today. See Update 1.1 for the announcement detail.
“Easier” does not mean “combat removed.” Tomaszkiewicz described the new mode as being for people who “just want to learn the story and go through the game without this gameplay challenge.” The 1.1 announcement is consistent with that: the new Story tier is described as having additional combat assist, not as a toggle that deletes fights or a prompt to skip bosses. What the assist actually does has not been specified. If that distinction matters to you, wait for the patch-day changelog.
What Actually Changes Per Tier
Difficulty in Dawnwalker is not a single multiplier. The presets touch several systems, and they do not all move in the same direction.
- Enemy health scales most aggressively. This is the main reason Duelist duels take longer, not because enemies deal more damage per hit.
- Enemy damage scales more gently than health. A Duelist enemy does not hit twice as hard as a Fair one; it hits harder and takes far longer to put down.
- Stamina pressure increases on higher tiers because fights last longer, which compounds with tighter parry windows.
- Resource availability is broadly unchanged. Difficulty does not remove Cure, Memory Fragment, or shrine access.
That third point is why Duelist feels different from Challenging rather than merely larger. A longer fight spends more stamina, and stamina is the resource your parry timing lives on.
How To Choose
Answer these in order and stop at the first match.
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Have you completed a Soulslike or a comparable punishing RPG? If no, stop at Story. The 30-day time limit in the time mechanic guide already creates pressure, and adding Challenging on top of it is how first runs get abandoned in week one.
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Do you plan to see all seven endings and every Court activity? If yes, use Fair. You will spend a lot of time in optional encounters rather than the main path, and Fair punishes wandering least.
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Are you replaying for endings or for boss practice? If yes, Duelist. This is where it is appropriate.
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Otherwise, Challenging. It is the setting the combat was balanced against, and it is where the four-directional parry timing actually matters.
The Uncomfortable Part: You Will Probably Change It
There is no in-game penalty for lowering difficulty, and there is no unlock gate behind the higher tiers. If you pick Challenging and bounce off the second boss, dropping to Fair costs you nothing except the hours you already spent.
The trap is the reverse: picking Story, finishing on it, and concluding the game was easy. The best build tier list assumes a difficulty where mistakes cost time, because that is where build decisions start to matter. A Story playthrough tells you very little about whether your Witchcraft charge loop is actually working.
A reasonable first-run path, if you have no strong preference: Challenging for the main story, drop to Fair whenever an optional Court activity is eating your time, and try Duelist on a second save after the credits.
Honest Gaps
- The five-tier structure is confirmed; the numbers are not. Update 1.1 (announced 2026-10-16, due the week of 2026-10-19) confirms Forgiving and the new Story tier. What it does not confirm is any per-tier multiplier, so the descriptions below remain read from observed difficulty rather than from a published tuning table.
- The renamed tier is Forgiving, and that is now confirmed. The September interview floated “Demanding or something like this” as a working name. Rebel Wolves’ Update 1.1 announcement of October 16, 2026 uses Forgiving. We have corrected the table above.
- We have not measured the numeric deltas between tiers. Rebel Wolves has not published per-tier multipliers, so the descriptions above are read from observed difficulty, not from a tuning table.
- This page assumes version 1.0.5. Any hotfix touching enemy health or damage shifts the practical gap between tiers.
Related
- The 30-Day Time Mechanic Explained - The other source of pressure, and the reason difficulty interacts with the calendar rather than standing alone.
- Best Builds and Tier List - Skill choices that assume a difficulty where mistakes cost you time.
- First 30 Days Survival Guide - Where to go and what to do once you have picked a tier.
- Launch Day Known Issues and the Day-One Patch - If combat feels wrong rather than hard, check this first.