Stalker 2 Difficulty settings, their differences, and how to change them mid-game

It’s no secret that surviving in the Zone is a hardcore experience, even when everything goes in your favour. The difficulty levels in Stalker 2 can be changed to somewhat tilt the balance, but even on lower settings, the game’s hardly a walk in the park. There are three difficulty options to pick from and we’ll go over them and explain their differences.

All difficulty settings in Stalker 2

There are three distinct difficulty settings to pick from in Stalker 2:

Difficulty	Who is it for?
Rookie	Designed for players who’d rather follow the narrative and enjoy the scenery. Still not easy by any means.
Stalker	The intended way to play Stalker 2; balanced for the most part – but mistakes and poor planning will be punished.
Veteran	Meant for true veterans and gluttons for punishment. The game is unfair, sometimes unintentionally so.

✓ Veteran bugs

Players have spotted two unintended (as far as we’re aware) bugs when playing on Veteran difficulty. One makes enemy patrols spawn behind you out of thin air. There are ambushes, and then there’s teleportation, and this one’s plain unfair in a game that has the “A-Life system” baked into it. The second makes mutants massive bullet sponges. It’s not just that they have more health – it seems like they just won’t die, so something might be off with their health scaling. Both of these could be a deal-breaker if you decide to step into Veteran difficulty.

Stalker 2 Difficulty level differences

One maxim bears repeating across all difficulties in Stalker 2 – no matter what, you should be prepared, be aware of your surroundings, and take notice of the behaviour of the world and its denizens. Building upon your experience will make your tenure in the Zone much easier to bear, be that on Rookie, Stalker, or Veteran. Enemies will become harder to deal with on higher difficulties, with those invisible foes being particularly nasty, for example. These parameters will change based on your chosen difficulty, increasing/decreasing to make the game harder the higher one you choose:

• Enemy aggression level – the higher the difficulty, the more aggressive the AI becomes.
• Quest reward amounts – you will get fewer rewards on higher difficulties.
• Equipment deterioration rates – your equipment will break apart faster on higher difficulties.
• Player damage – you deal more damage on lower difficulties.
• Enemy ranged accuracy – enemies are more accurate and chuck grenades from further away on higher difficulties.

How to change the difficulty mid-game

If you’ve chosen a difficulty level but find it to be too easy or too hard for your liking, you can change it on the fly. You don’t have to start a whole new run to swap difficulties, instead here’s what you can do while playing:

• Pause the game (Esc on PC) and go to Options.
• Under the Game tab find Difficulty – it’s the fourth option from the top.
• Change the difficulty to the one you want to try: Rookie, Stalker, or Veteran.
• Don’t forget to press Apply (F on PC) to save changes and then go back to the game.

With that, your difficulty settings will be changed to the new value. If you want to change it again, simply follow the same steps. For example, if you’re in a tough spot to finish a quest without dying, consider lowering the difficulty to get through it, then switch it back up once you’re in the clear.

While on the topic of settings, check out our guides for the best graphics settings for Stalker 2 on PC, as well as our suggested best keybind settings. Also, you can find out more about playing the game on GeForce NOW.