The First Descendant World difficulties explained

The First Descendant has an option for players to change world difficulties between Normal and Hard, with the latter changing how difficult gameplay is for more rewards. 

Here is everything you need to know about World difficulty in The First Descendant, including how to change it. 

How to change World difficulty

You can change your World difficulty after you’ve cleared a Field on Normal mode in The First Descendant. 

At the top left corner under the name of the area you’re in, you’ll see what difficulty the world is set on right now. Follow these steps to change it: 

1. Click on ‘World Difficulty.’
2. Select the difficulty you want.
3. Click ‘Apply’ at the bottom of the menu.

Should you play on Normal or Hard?

Hard mode in The First Descendant is meant for players who have reached endgame content, so you should start playing on Normal mode.

Normal gives you an opportunity to learn the basics of the game, get through story and field missions, and unlock new Descendants without worrying too much about failing. You can fail missions and you only have a certain amount of retries to get it right.

Playing on Hard mode in the endgame will give you more rewards, and importantly, rare resources you need to unlock Descendants. You can check out the rewards you’ll get for each mission before you start it. 

How do you unlock Hard mode?

You unlock Hard mode in The First Descendant by completing a Field in Normal mode. 

This essentially means that you’ll need to play through the main mission, and the first Field you’ll unlock is Kingston. There aren’t that many missions to play before you get access to the whole area, so you’ll be able to unlock Hard mode fairly quickly.

There are a total of eight Fields on the map, and each one is unlocked by progressing the main quest. You can move between the Fields through fast travel points on the map. 

Before you try it out, though, make sure you know how to unlock every Descendant and what all of their abilities are. And, once you’re ready, you can also check out everything you need to know about Void Intercept Battles.