Sunken Realms: the difficulty option, and what happens to your loot when you die

The three difficulty settings the developer published in the first week, what each one does to your loot, gear and essence, and where the setting actually lives.

Answer: The published v1.09 and Week 3 notes describe three difficulty settings under Settings > General. Normal loses all loot and gold from the run and pays one essence per section. Story loses nothing, respawns you at camp with your load, and pays two essences. Hardcore loses everything including equipped weapons and potions, and pays no essence at all.

Version scope

Official posts of 4 Oct and 16 Oct 2026, read 22 Oct 2026

Game status

Released

Platforms

PC

Hub directory

Sunken Realms

Verified

2026-10-22

Updated

2026-10-23

What the three settings do

The developer's own week three post defines them:

• Normal - The intended way to play the game. You lose all the loot and gold from that run if you die, and completing a section grants you a single essence.
• Story - You lose nothing upon death, respawning back at camp with everything you were carrying. You also get Two essence upon completing a section.
• Hardcore - Not for the faint of heart. Upon death, you lose everything on your person. So on top of losing materials and gold, you lose all your weapons and potions. And you receive no essence at all, requiring you to run the whole dungeon every time.

The v1.09 patch note of 4 October describes the three in a different wording, and the difference matters: Story - When you die, you lose nothing, you keep everything you were carrying. You also get 2 Essences after each boss fight; Normal - Same as it has been, you keep anything equipped, but lose everything else and get one essence; Hardcore - You lose everything, even items you have equipped. You get no essences at the end of each section.

So the publisher has not said the same thing twice. The patch note says Normal keeps what you have equipped and loses the rest of the run, and pays essence per boss fight. The week three post says Normal loses all the loot and gold from that run with no exception for equipped gear, and pays essence for completing a section. This page does not pick a winner between two official texts. The safer reading of the pair is that on Normal you keep your equipped gear and lose everything else, but a reader should know the two posts differ and that which one is right is not something this site can settle.

Two details are easy to read past. On Story the cost of dying is time, not gear, because you respawn at camp with your load intact. And the essence difference is not cosmetic: Normal pays one essence for a completed section, Story pays two, and Hardcore pays none, which is why the developer describes Hardcore as requiring you to run the whole dungeon every time.

Where it lives and which version added it

The setting is in Settings > General, and it tunes the consequence for death rather than the enemy difficulty. The v1.09 patch of 4 October 2026 is the version that introduced it; the week three post of 16 October 2026 explains it in full, after the developer said the update was coming a little late because he was travelling.

The developer's reason for adding it is in the same post: I know a lot of people were really turned off by the idea of losing all your loot upon death, so now they have an option to turn that off. And some of my veteran players are looking for a new challenge, so there's something for them there too.

What players were asking for

The same request is in the game's own Bugs & Feedback Thread, and it is what the option answers. One demo-era post, in the thread that has 85 replies, complains that the idea of having to fight through previous levels once bosses are defeated is a turn-off, and asks whether defeating the first boss one time would be enough to move past it permanently or for the cost of treasure.

A second thread from the same era, also read, points out that the game gives no clear way to tell whether a potion or food will heal enough, because the health, stamina and mana bars show no numbers, and asks for the option to display them. The v1.07 patch of 29 September 2026 made the stat bars flash with an audio cue when an action cannot be completed, for example attacking with too little stamina or casting a spell with too little mana.

A third, separate thread answers a related question: a community member states that bosses drop an extract you can use to skip their section, and that you use it at the statue near the door at the start of each run. That is a player answer, not a publisher one, and this site does not present it as official.

What this page does not claim

No frame rate, drop rate, run time or performance result is claimed here. The option is quoted from the developer's own posts, and the two patch notes that describe it are named, so the version in which the setting appeared is checkable. This site has not played the build, and it does not say which setting is better, or that one of them fixes the loot-loss complaint for every player.