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Keep the one-life consequence that makes a run matter, then reduce the secondary pressures that turn every attempt into a restart marathon. Start with incoming and environmental damage, enemy durability or encounter frequency, survival-meter drain, resource scarcity, equipment attrition, and—where the game allows it—the amount of progress erased by a death. Change one axis at a time so you can tell whether combat, survival, or logistics is actually causing your failures.
Permadeath is a consequence, not a single difficulty level
There is no universal Permadeath rule. One game may delete a save after a fatal mistake; another may remove a character, restart a mission, or send you back to the beginning of an act or chapter. The controls around that consequence vary just as widely. Some games expose separate sliders for damage, enemy health, life-support drain, resource yield, crafting cost, and equipment wear. Others lock every difficulty choice once a campaign begins.
That distinction matters because a forgiving challenge does not have to remove the risk of death. You can leave the defining penalty intact while reducing the amount of unrelated friction surrounding it. A run can still end when your character dies, but it need not also demand slow resource farming, repeated traversal, or a full-game replay when the real lesson came from one combat mistake.
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Use this order when a game offers several custom controls. The first rows address sudden, skill-related failure; the later rows address attrition and repetition. If a title lacks one of these controls, leave that axis unchanged and move to the next available option.
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| Pressure axis | Forgiving adjustment | What remains challenging |
|---|---|---|
| Incoming damage | Lower player damage taken and environmental damage | Positioning, timing, and deciding when to disengage |
| Enemy durability | Lower enemy health or armor | Target priority and encounter awareness |
| Enemy pressure | Reduce encounter frequency, hostility, or combat density | The fights that still occur |
| Survival depletion | Slow or disable life-support and hazard-protection drain | Exploration and route planning without constant meter panic |
| Resources and crafting | Increase material yield, stack size, or crafting affordability | Choosing what to carry and build |
| Equipment attrition | Reduce or disable technology damage from combat or the environment | Using equipment intelligently rather than repairing it repeatedly |
| Restart scope | Use a chapter or act checkpoint instead of a whole-game restart | The one-life consequence within that selected scope |
Settings that usually make a run fairer
Lower player and environmental damage
Incoming damage is the cleanest first adjustment when deaths come from a single missed dodge, a surprise ambush, a fall, or a hazard tick. Lowering it gives you time to recognize an error and recover, while the Permadeath condition still punishes a complete failure. Keep enemy attack patterns and your own damage unchanged at first if you want combat knowledge to remain the main test.
Environmental damage deserves its own attention. Fire, vacuum, radiation, poison, falls, and weather can kill a run without testing the same skills as an enemy encounter. If the game separates environmental damage from combat damage, reduce only the environmental value when hazards—not fights—are ending attempts.
Reduce enemy health or hostility
When battles are technically survivable but consume too many healing items, lower enemy health rather than disabling combat. Shorter encounters reduce the chance of an unlucky hit and preserve decisions about target priority. If a game exposes hostility or encounter-frequency controls, reducing those can be preferable to making every enemy a damage sponge with less health. You still have to handle the fights that appear, but the world stops forcing combat every few steps.
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In No Man’s Sky, the custom framework lists hostile health, ground-combat frequency, space-combat frequency, and creature hostility as separate controls. That separation lets you reduce random pressure while keeping deliberate encounters dangerous.
Slow life-support and hazard depletion
Survival meters can create a second timer that overwhelms the one-life challenge. Slowing life-support or hazard-protection depletion gives you room to explore, read the environment, and make a route decision instead of sprinting between refill points. Disable depletion only when the meter itself—not navigation or combat—is the reason runs fail. In a survival-focused game, keeping a gentle drain may preserve the intended planning layer while preventing deaths caused by an unattended bar.
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Increase material yield and inventory flexibility
Scarce materials are most punishing after a death because they force you to repeat low-risk harvesting before you can attempt the difficult section again. Higher material yield, larger inventory stacks, and cheaper crafting shorten that recovery loop without making an encounter automatically safe. Raise one of these settings at a time. If you increase yield, leave stack size alone until carrying capacity—not gathering speed—is the bottleneck.
No Man’s Sky documents controls for resource yield, inventory stack size, and crafting cost, so you can target the logistical pressure that is wasting attempts instead of globally lowering combat difficulty.
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Equipment attrition can turn a successful fight into a delayed death. If a suit, ship, weapon, or tool degrades from combat or environmental exposure, reduce or disable that technology damage when the game provides the option. This preserves the need to manage equipment in the moment while removing a repair chore that otherwise compounds every mistake. Keep durability loss on if maintaining gear is a central part of the game’s identity; turn it down when repairs consume the resources you need for the actual challenge.
Restart scope is a major difficulty setting
The amount of progress erased by death often matters more than a damage slider. The Last of Us Part II documents three Permadeath scopes: the whole game, an act, or a chapter. Whole-game Permadeath offers no second chances across the entire story. The act and chapter variants keep the one-life rule inside a smaller unit, so a death requires replaying only that act or chapter rather than the complete campaign.
Choose the smallest scope that still feels meaningful. A chapter is appropriate when you are learning mechanics or testing a build. An act creates a longer commitment and makes resource conservation matter without exposing you to dozens of hours of restart risk. Whole-game scope is for players who specifically want the endurance test; it is not a requirement for an honest Permadeath experience.
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How the documented games handle forgiving options
No Man’s Sky: a broad custom framework
Hello Games’ Waypoint documentation says the core differences between game modes were reworked into a framework players can adjust. The listed controls cover life-support depletion, damage, resource yield, technology damage, enemy health, combat frequency, crafting cost, inventory stack size, and death consequences. That breadth makes it possible to keep the Permadeath consequence while softening only the pressure that is producing avoidable restarts.
A practical sequence is to lower combat and environmental damage first, then slow life-support depletion if survival meters are responsible for deaths. If recovery between attempts is the problem, increase resource yield or stack size before touching enemy settings. Because the framework separates these categories, record each change and reverse it if the run stops feeling like the challenge you wanted.
The Last of Us Part II: select the replay boundary
Its documented Permadeath options are defined primarily by scope rather than a long list of survival sliders. Select whole-game, act, or chapter Permadeath according to how much replay you can reasonably accept. The smaller scopes are not cosmetic checkpoints: they determine the unit you must replay after death, which changes the time cost of every mistake.
Star Wars Zero Company: decide before the campaign starts
EA’s guide states that choices on the Difficulty Settings screen cannot be changed after you select Start Campaign. With Permadeath enabled, an Operator who suffers three injuries is killed in action and permanently removed from the squad. That creates a roster-management consequence rather than simple save deletion. Treat the pre-campaign screen as a contract: review every difficulty and Permadeath choice before confirming, because a forgiving adjustment made later is not available.
Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown: locked Permadeath saves
Ubisoft documents Custom difficulty controls for enemy damage and environmental damage. It also warns that a Permadeath save cannot have its difficulty changed. Set those damage values before creating the run. If environmental hazards are ending attempts while combat feels appropriate, lower environmental damage alone; if both sources are overwhelming, adjust each separately rather than abandoning Permadeath altogether.
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A step-by-step calibration method
- Define the consequence. Decide whether you want whole-save loss, character loss, a mission restart, an act restart, or a chapter restart. Write that down before touching sliders.
- Identify the failure pattern. Review your last several deaths and classify each as combat damage, environmental damage, survival depletion, resource shortage, equipment failure, or excessive replay distance. Do not change a setting for a problem you are not actually experiencing.
- Change one pressure axis. Lower only the relevant damage value, enemy health, encounter frequency, depletion rate, or attrition setting. Single-variable changes preserve cause and effect.
- Play a representative section. Test the new setting in the same type of encounter that caused the problem. A safer open area does not prove that a boss arena or hazard route is balanced for you.
- Keep the death rule active. If the setting makes the run too easy, restore the previous value before changing another axis. The goal is to remove accidental grind, not to erase consequences.
- Save a written preset. Record the exact labels and values, plus the date and game mode. This is essential when a title hides custom settings behind a new-game screen or prevents mid-run edits.
- Commit only after checking lock-in text. Read warnings beside Start Campaign, New Game, or Permadeath toggles. If the game says settings cannot change, exit without confirming and correct the configuration first.
Three practical forgiving presets
| Preset | Change | Best for | Keep unchanged |
|---|---|---|---|
| Combat safety | Lower player and environmental damage; optionally lower enemy health | Players who understand systems but die to burst damage | Resource yield, crafting cost, and death consequence |
| Exploration safety | Slow life-support or hazard drain; reduce environmental damage | Runs lost while travelling or managing survival meters | Enemy health and combat frequency |
| Recovery-friendly | Increase material yield, stack size, or crafting affordability; reduce technology damage | Runs derailed by preparation and repairs | Combat damage and enemy behavior |
These are editorial starting points, not developer-prescribed values. The reviewed documentation publishes the available categories but no authoritative slider numbers, success rates, or average run lengths. Choose the smallest adjustment that addresses your recorded failure pattern.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.Lock-in warnings and save safety
Three documented rules deserve special attention. Zero Company locks its difficulty choices after Start Campaign. Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown does not allow difficulty changes on a Permadeath save. No Man’s Sky permits broad adjustment through its custom framework but still applies mode-specific restrictions to some Permadeath behavior. Read the on-screen warning in the edition and platform you are playing; do not assume that a setting available in a normal run is editable in Permadeath.
When a game offers separate slots, keep an ordinary practice save outside the Permadeath slot. Use it to learn a boss, route, or crafting loop, then begin the locked run once the configuration is settled. This protects the challenge file without relying on an undocumented backup method.
Troubleshoot the kind of difficulty you are feeling
“I die before I can react.”
Lower player damage taken first. If the deaths come from traps, falls, or hazards, lower environmental damage instead. Do not reduce enemy health until you have confirmed that survivability—not encounter length—is the issue.
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Increase material yield, stack size, or crafting affordability. If repairs are consuming the stockpile, reduce technology damage. Leave incoming damage unchanged so combat still tests positioning.
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“The survival meter kills me during travel.”
Slow life-support or hazard depletion and test the same route. Keep a modest drain if you still want route planning to matter; disable it only when the meter has become a distraction from the game’s main challenge.
“A death makes me replay too much.”
Use chapter or act Permadeath when the title supports it. If only whole-game Permadeath exists, shorten sessions and create deliberate practice checkpoints outside the run rather than weakening every other setting.
“I changed a setting and now the run feels hollow.”
Restore the last change, then adjust a different axis. A forgiving challenge should remove one source of noise while leaving a clear skill test. If no combination preserves that identity, the game’s available controls may not support the exact version of Permadeath you want.
Keep the challenge honest
Custom settings can affect achievements, leaderboards, matchmaking, or compatibility with an existing save, depending on the game. The documented sources do not establish a universal rule, so check the mode description and achievement requirements for your specific title before assuming that a custom Permadeath run counts everywhere. Do not present a personal slider combination as an official difficulty tier.
The most reliable standard is transparency with yourself: name the death consequence, record the secondary adjustments, and change only what addresses a demonstrated failure. Permadeath then remains a meaningful commitment rather than a test of patience with repair chores, meter depletion, or unnecessary replay.
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