Difficulty Modes: Easy, Normal & Hard Explained
How to Fish shipped with a single fixed difficulty, but Patch 1.0.9 (August 24, 2026) added three modes: Easy, Normal (the default, identical to the game before the patch), and Hard. This page covers the exact stat modifiers, where to change the setting, and which mode makes sense for your playthrough.
Exact Stat Modifiers per Mode
| Mode | Creature Health | Creature Damage | Best For |
|---|---|---|---|
| Easy | −25% | −50% | Casual play, tough boss walls, younger players |
| Normal | Baseline (100%) | Baseline (100%) | The intended experience — same as launch version |
| Hard | +25% | +25% | Veterans, challenge runs, more tense boss fights |
Note the asymmetry: Easy cuts incoming damage in half but only trims health by a quarter, so fights end faster on both ends. Hard raises both equally, which makes boss mistake windows far less forgiving — spike waves and dive bombs that chip you down on Normal can two-shot your crew on Hard.
How to Change Difficulty
Two places, both added in Patch 1.0.9:
- Main menu — set your preferred mode before loading a save.
- In-game — switch mid-session through the pause menu, no restart required.
The default setting is Normal, which plays exactly like the game did before the patch. If you started playing before August 24 and never touched the option, you are on Normal.
Which Mode Should You Pick?
Pick Easy if…
A boss has stalled your progress for several attempts. The Magma Whale finale and the Pufferfish spike barrage are the usual walls. Halved damage means you survive an extra mistake per phase.
Pick Normal if…
You want the tuned experience the developers balanced around — every phase threshold and survival tip in our walkthrough and boss guides assumes these numbers.
Pick Hard if…
You cleared the game on Normal and want the bosses to respect you again. Pair it with a full co-op crew and role assignments for the best results.
Difficulty and Achievements
The official 1.0.9 patch notes do not mention any achievement restrictions tied to difficulty — no achievements are documented as Easy-exclusive or Hard-only. That said, the rarest completion runs (like Bean, finishing the game within one hour, held by 1.0% of players) were set before difficulty modes existed, so their leaderboard context is Normal-only. If Dazed Games documents difficulty-gated achievements in a future patch, we will update this section.
Boss Tips by Difficulty
- Easy: Boss health drops 25%, so burst windows matter less — you can win through patience alone. The Pufferfish Phase 3 dive-bombs become survivable even without Hull Armor.
- Normal: Follow the loadout advice in each boss guide — Hull Armor Tier 1 before the Pufferfish, Heat-Shielded Hull before the Magma Whale.
- Hard: +25% boss HP stretches every fight by roughly a quarter, so bring more cooked fish than the guides suggest and never enter a finale without full engine upgrades. The Titanium Harpoon stops being a luxury.
Sources & Verification
- PATCH 1.0.9 — official Steam announcement — Difficulty mode modifiers and where to change them, quoted from the patch notes
Data on this page is re-verified against the sources above after each official patch. See our editorial policy for how we source and correct game data.