Difficulty can be toggled via the Options menu in Minecraft. Changing this option has a direct impact in the gameplay itself. There are currently four difficulties in the game.
| Difficulty | Description |
|---|---|
| Peaceful | Player regains health over time. No hostile mobs spawn. This is with the exception of the smallest size Slime which will attack but cannot deal damage. All hostile mobs will disappear when switching to this mode and neutral mobs will return to their harmless state upon provoked. |
| Easy | Hostile mobs spawn. Enemies have less health and deal less damage than on normal difficulty. Creepers will cancel their explosions after moving only a short distance away. |
| Normal | Hostile mobs spawn. Enemies deal standard damage and have standard health. |
| Hard | Hostile mobs spawn. Enemies deal much greater damage than in Normal Mode, and Creepers will not cancel their attack unless a big distance is between them and the player, making the explosion much harder to avoid. |
Possible difficulties
Notch said in his blog that he would add the "hardcore" difficult. The rules would be You die, the world is deleted and it is created a new world. The idea came to Notch from a Minecraft gameplay blog in the PC Gamer site (blog)
Trivia
- Notch made a tweet on October 22nd, 2010 where he states that "I'm changing "difficulty" to "realism". Lowest setting = creative. Highest setting = starve"