Starfield difficulty settings explained

Starfield‘s difficulty settings will satisfy those needing a challenge or just wanting to breeze through the game. Here, we’ve explained all the available difficulty settings in the game.

Like the majority of RPGs, Elden Ring aside, there are several difficulty options in Starfield for players to choose from at the beginning of their journey across the stars.

These settings allow you to tailor your Starfield experience, so if you simply want to enjoy the story you can go for the easier settings, or if you fancy a tough challenge you can bump up the difficulty.

Starfield difficulty settings explained

There are a total of five difficulty options you can select in Starfield that you can change at any time by opening the Main Menu, navigating to ‘Settings’ and selecting the ‘Gameplay’ tab. These are:

• Very easy
• Easy
• Normal
• Hard
• Very Hard

Update 1.11.36 expands on this basic difficulty by allowing players to customize the difficulty on a more minute level. Choosing harder difficulty settings allows you to gain higher XP and level up skills faster.

Making the difficulty easier has the opposite effect, reducing XP gains and making leveling skills slower. The different gameplay settings you can customize the difficulty of are:

• Enemy Combat Damage
• Player Combat Damage
• Enemy Ship Damage
• Player Ship Damage
• Aim Assistance
• Ammo Weight
• Carry Capacity
• Cargo Access Distance
• Vendor Credits
• Medial Item Healing
• Food Healing
• Sleep Healing
• Sustenance
• Combat Affliction Gain
• Affliction Treatment
• Affliction Prognosis
• Environmental Damage & Afflictions
• Environmental Damage Restoration
• Save on Rest
• Save on Wait
• Save on Travel

The game will automatically get you started on Normal mode which provides a nice balance as combat can be challenging but enemies won’t deal huge amounts of damage unless you’re in a fight against foes at a much higher level.

If you simply want to experience the game’s story and exploration elements without having to worry about combat, you can always dial the difficulty down to Easy or Very Easy. On either of these difficulties, enemies won’t deal as much damage and you’ll have more HP.

On the other hand, for those who want a tough challenge, either the Hard or Very Hard setting will be ideal as you’ll have much less HP, and enemies will deal a lot of damage and act more aggressively towards you.

That’s everything you need to know about difficulty settings in Starfield! For more on the game, check out our guides below:

Starfield all main story missions | All skills | All factions | All romance options | Level cap | How to remove bounty | How to fast travel