Difficulty settings in The Blood of Dawnwalker
Four presets, and they do not simply scale everything up. Duelist, the hardest, actually gives enemies less health. Here is what each one changes, and the settings you can adjust on their own.
1 of 4 · The easiest
Story
Enemies do not move much and you have more stamina. Auto block and using consumables straight from the inventory are switched on by default.
2 of 4 · The default
Fair
The default preset. Like Story and Challenging, it does what you would expect.
3 of 4 · Harder hits
Challenging
Enemies hit harder and attack more often, and you have less stamina to block with.
4 of 4 · High risk, high reward
Duelist
Enemies have less health but are very aggressive and hit for more. Your stamina is much lower. Some of the on-screen attack indicators are removed.
The four presets
These are the four starting presets, and they are where difficulty begins rather than ends, because there is no class or character to build around first. The four are Story, Fair, Challenging and Duelist, with Story as the easiest and Fair as the default. Story is reportedly very easy — accessible enough that the boss fights on it may feel simple.
The one that surprises people is Duelist. It is not Challenging with bigger numbers. Enemies have less health, but they reportedly attack constantly and hit for more, and your stamina is much lower. Because their health is low, the hits you do land count for more: a high-risk, high-reward preset that is a bit different from the others. The in-game description says it “reduces enemy health but makes them more aggressive”.
Settings you can change on their own
Every preset can be customised with a whole set of options on top of the baseline, including how quest markers are shown and whether you see which direction an attack is coming from. The options split into RPG difficulty, for numbers such as enemy health and damage, and Action difficulty, for aggression and reaction timing — so you can play with Duelist-style combat but Fair enemy health. Two settings are worth knowing about before your first fight:
- Auto block
- A block held in the wrong direction still stops the hit as if you had guarded all round. It still costs stamina. On by default only on Story; above that it starts switched off. It sits under the Gameplay tab, and a block in the right direction can reportedly still parry.
- Use consumables from inventory
- Lets you drink a potion in combat without it being on your quick slots. Also on by default only on Story.
- Attack direction indicators
- Duelist removes some of the on-screen indicators. You can turn the directional indicators back on, which may help when crowds get hard to read, but see the achievement below before you do it.
The achievement that locks you in
Uphill Battle
“Complete the entire game by saving people of Laslea on Duelist Difficulty preset.”
0.4%
of Steam players, first week
The safe reading of the requirement is strict: you cannot customise any individual difficulty setting, and you have to start and finish on Duelist. That means no switching auto block on, and no dropping to Challenging for one boss. It also has to be a run where you save the people of Laslea, so the endings that leave early do not count; what you can lose for good and the endings page cover those. If this achievement matters to you, decide before the prologue, not after it.
Can you change difficulty later?
Yes. The preset is not locked when you create a save: you can start lower and raise the difficulty as the combat clicks, or play Duelist with the directional indicators switched back on. The catch is the achievement above — on the strict reading, any change rules it out, so do not switch down even for a moment if you want it.
Which one to pick
- Here for the story and the choices: Story, or Fair with auto block switched on.
- A normal first run: Fair. It is the default.
- You want the achievement: Duelist from the start, untouched. There is no New Game Plus yet (the director has said one is planned), so a second run for it means starting from nothing.
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