How to Change the Difficulty on Your Sons Of The Forest Server

Sons Of The Forest lets you decide how tough survival should be. Whether you want a relaxed experience focused on building and exploring, or a brutal fight for survival against relentless enemies, the difficulty setting shapes the entire session. You can change it any time from the RiverHosting panel without editing any files manually.

Before you start

• You need an active Sons Of The Forest server with RiverHosting. If you do not have one yet, visit riverhosting.com to get started.
• Log in to the RiverHosting panel at panel.riverhosting.com.
• Stop your server before making changes to avoid any conflict with the running game. You can do this by clicking the Stop button at the top of your server page.

1. How to change the difficulty from Server Config

The easiest way to change difficulty on a Sons Of The Forest server is through the Server Config page in the panel. This is a built-in settings editor, so you do not need to find or edit any configuration files yourself.

1. Open the RiverHosting panel and select your Sons Of The Forest server.
2. In the left-hand menu, click Server Config.
3. Look for the difficulty setting. It is usually labelled something like Game Difficulty or a similar option within the config editor.
4. Click the field and choose the difficulty level you want. Sons Of The Forest typically offers options such as Peaceful, Normal, Hard, and Hard Survival.
5. Save your changes using the Save button on the page.
6. Start your server again by clicking the Start button at the top of your server page.

2. How to verify the difficulty is applied

Once the server is back online, you can confirm the difficulty is working correctly by joining the server and checking in-game. The difficulty level is shown during the pause menu or in your save details screen inside the game.

1. Start your server from the panel and wait for it to show as Running.
2. Open Sons Of The Forest on your PC and join your server.
3. Once in-game, open the pause menu. The current difficulty is displayed there.
4. If the difficulty shown matches what you set, everything is working correctly.

Troubleshooting

• The difficulty did not change after saving. Make sure you stopped the server before making changes and started it again after saving. If the server was running when you saved, the old settings may still be active.
• I do not see a difficulty option in Server Config. Try refreshing the page. If it is still missing, open the File Manager from the left-hand menu and look for the main server configuration file. The difficulty setting may be stored there under a field like GameDifficulty or similar. Edit the value, save the file, and restart the server.
• The server is not starting after the change. Go to the Console tab to read the startup log and look for any error messages. A typo in a config field can prevent the server from starting. Correct the value in Server Config or the file and try again.
• Players are reporting difficulty feels wrong in-game. Some difficulty settings only fully apply to a fresh save. If your save was created on a different difficulty, the in-session behaviour may reflect the original setting. Consider starting a new save with the new difficulty for the best results.

Need help?

If you run into an issue that is not covered here, the RiverHosting support team is happy to help you get sorted.