The four modes as shipped
| Preset | What it is for | Known behaviour |
|---|---|---|
| Story | Lowest tier at launch, for players who want the narrative without combat pressure | Combat minimised |
| Fair | Standard | Balanced combat and exploration |
| Challenging | Enemies hit harder, encounters want tactics | Stronger enemies |
| Duelist | Top tier | Reported to remove the directional parry indicators, so attack direction must be read from animations |
You are not locked in — the preset can be changed at any time. The thing you are locked into is skill points, so difficulty and build choices are separate problems. See the no-respec build guide.
The two options people miss
Custom sliders on top of the preset. Rebel Wolves confirmed additional settings layered over the base difficulty, adjustable individually: incoming damage, outgoing damage, health pools and similar. So "Story but enemies still hurt" is a valid configuration, and you do not have to accept the preset wholesale.
Omnidirectional blocking. The game's default parry is directional, in the style of Kingdom Come: Deliverance. There is an enable-able omnidirectional block that removes the need to face the incoming attack, at the cost of higher stamina consumption. If your failures are "I blocked the wrong way", this is the specific switch to look for, not a lower preset.
What the October patch changes
This is the first major update, described by game director Konrad Tomaszkiewicz as scheduled for early October. Confirmed intent:
- A fifth difficulty, easier than anything currently in the game. The new lowest tier takes over the name "Story". The current Story mode moves up a tier and gets renamed, with the team saying something meaning "Demanding" is likely.
- Targeting rework. Today, using a stun attack in a group makes Coen's lock-on jump to another enemy, which is why three hits are currently needed to clear the stun state. The patch gives more direct control over switching targets instead of forcing it.
- Easier disengagement. A smoother way to break out of a fight you have no business being in — currently enemies keep chasing over long distances.
- PC performance work, with PS5 explicitly flagged as unconfirmed for the same level of improvement.
- Camera adjustments alongside the targeting changes.
New Game Plus is confirmed as planned but it is not confirmed to be part of this patch. Do not write it up as though it shipped.
Which to pick on a first run
Fair, with the omnidirectional block on if parry direction is what keeps killing you. Reason: the game's real difficulty is not enemy damage, it is the 30-day clock and the fact that skill points do not stretch across all three trees. Story mode makes fights easier while leaving both of those pressures fully intact, so it removes challenge without removing the decisions that actually matter.
Use Duelist only if you are deliberately farming the hardest trophy, which requires clearing the game on that tier — and note that this is the tier where the parry indicators are gone.
Unresolved as of 4 October 2026
⚠️ Three things I cannot answer honestly yet:
- The exact release date of the October patch. "Early October" is all Rebel Wolves has committed to.
- How the new easiest tier reduces combat. The director's wording implies it caters to players who want to skip fights almost entirely, but no mechanism was specified, so any page claiming it has a "skip combat" button is guessing.
- Whether Duelist's indicator removal is truly the only difference. The pre-launch claim about an "omnidirectional block" and the launch claim about Duelist removing indicators come from community summaries of interviews rather than a patch note, so both are still awaiting in-game confirmation on this site.
People also ask
- How many difficulty settings does the game have right now?
- Four, as shipped: Story, Fair, Challenging and Duelist. You can change the choice at any time.
- Is difficulty just a damage multiplier?
- No. On top of the base preset there are fine-grained custom settings, including incoming and outgoing damage values and health pools, and a separate omnidirectional blocking option that trades stamina for not having to read attack direction.
- What does Duelist actually do differently?
- It is reported as the top preset and the one that removes the directional parry indicators, so you have to read attack direction yourself instead of relying on on-screen prompts.
- When does the fifth difficulty arrive?
- The first major update was announced for early October with no firm date. As of 4 October 2026 it had not shipped, so treat any date you see quoted elsewhere as a prediction, not a fact.
Sources & version history
External claims on this page trace to the items below. Anything we could not confirm is written as a question, not a fact.