Difficulty
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Difficulty is an option in Minecraft that has a direct impact on the ease of gameplay, allowing the game's challenges to be tailored to the player's skill level.

World settings

The difficulty button in the options menu.

There are four difficulty levels in the game: Peaceful, Easy, Normal, and Hard. These can be changed when creating a world, in the pause menu options, as well as with the /difficulty command.

While the difficulty settings modify the challenge in Survival mode, they also affect hostile mobs in Creative mode the same as in Survival; for example:

Hostile mobs cannot spawn naturally in Creative Peaceful.
Zombies have the same difficulty-dependent chances as in Survival to convert villagers into zombie villagers (0% in Creative Easy, 50% in Creative Normal, 100% in Creative Hard).
Hostile mobs killed by mob grinders in farms drop higher-value items in Creative Hard.

Survival mode is affected by difficulty as described in the sections below.

Peaceful

No hostile mobs can spawn naturally, except for shulkers, hoglins, piglin brutes‌^{[BE only]}, and the ender dragon. No spiders, cave spiders, zombified piglins, endermen, or drowned – neutral rather than hostile mobs – can spawn naturally. When any of these mobs attempt to spawn (whether naturally, through monster spawners, spawn eggs, or commands), they are removed from the game instantaneously. Skeleton horses are also not able to spawn naturally.^[1] All mobs that can spawn (such as shulkers, piglins, or wolves) are completely peaceful and unable to harm the player - with the exception of the ender dragon. Additionally, sculk shriekers do not give the Darkness effect because it can't spawn the warden. When the difficulty is switched from any other setting to Peaceful, all mobs that are not allowed to spawn on Peaceful are removed from the world. Players regain health rapidly over time. Despite this, it is still possible to die if damage is received quickly enough. TNT deals no direct damage to the player, but it does give knockback still, meaning a player can be killed by it if it launches them too far upward. The hunger bar never depletes; in Java Edition, players therefore cannot eat anything except golden apples, chorus fruits, milk buckets, honey bottles, and suspicious stew, unless the player switched to Peaceful when their hunger bar was below the maximum. Players can eat normally in Bedrock Edition. Additionally, if the hunger bar is below the maximum, it regenerates quickly.

If a player is in a village with Raid Omen and the effect ends, raids cannot be triggered at all as illagers (including evokers and vindicators) cannot spawn in peaceful difficulty.

Because of the gameplay changes and the absence of many mob types, many blocks and items are unavailable to the player. A list can be found at Non-renewable resource#Peaceful difficulty. In addition, the player is unable to get many advancements and achievements.

Dispensers are unable to place wither skeleton skulls even if the required blocks for summoning a wither are available.

One major effect of the lack of certain resources is that end portals cannot be activated by the player in Peaceful difficulty, because it is impossible to acquire the eyes of ender necessary to activate an end portal.^{[note 1]} However, it is possible to switch to a non-Peaceful difficulty, let blazes spawn, kill enough for crafting eyes of ender, and switch back to Peaceful. It is also possible for an end portal to be activated by naturally generating with an eye of ender already embedded within all 12 end portal frames. For any given end portal, there is a 1 in a trillion chance of this happening.^{[note 2]} However, because of the huge number of possible seeds, over 8 million seeds are known to generate such end portals.^[2]

Easy

Hostile mobs spawn, but they deal ¹⁄₂ of the damage they would on Normal difficulty plus 1HP or the same damage they would on Normal difficulty, whichever is lower. The hunger bar can deplete, damaging the player until 10HP remain if it drains completely. Cave spiders and bees cannot poison players on Easy difficulty, and the wither does not cause the Wither effect, although wither skeletons do. Lightning sets only the struck block on fire, not surrounding blocks. Zombies do not break down doors, and do not turn villagers into zombie villagers. Zombies and skeletons do not wear full sets of armor. Hostile mobs like zombies, skeletons, spiders, husks, and strays deal about 1HP or 2HP damage.

If a player is in a village with Raid Omen and the effect ends, it triggers a raid that consists of 3 waves (4 waves if a player with a Raid Omen effect that is higher than one level enters a village.)

Normal

Hostile mobs spawn and deal standard damage. The hunger bar can deplete, damaging the player until 1HP remains if it drains completely. Zombies do not break down doors, but villagers killed by zombies have a 50% chance of turning into zombie villagers. Zombies and skeletons rarely wear sets of enchanted armor. Vindicators can break doors.

If a player is in a village with Raid Omen and the effect ends, it triggers a raid that consists of 5 waves (6 waves if a player with a Raid Omen effect that is higher than one level enters a village.)

Hard

Hostile mobs deal approximately 1¹⁄₂ times the damage they would deal on Normal difficulty, and in some cases drop higher-value items when killed. The hunger bar can deplete, not only damaging but also killing the player if it drains completely. Zombies and zombified piglins[JE only] can break through wooden doors and can spawn reinforcements when attacked. In Java Edition, spiders can spawn with a beneficial status effect (Speed, Strength, Regeneration, or Invisibility), with these effects having an infinite duration. Villagers killed by zombies always turn into zombie villagers. Pillagers spawn near the player, with their attacks dealing 4HP damage. In Bedrock Edition, if the world type is infinite, they deal 5HP damage.

If a player is in a village with Raid Omen and the effect ends, it triggers a raid that consists of 7 waves (8 waves if a player with a Raid Omen effect that is higher than one level enters a village.)

Hardcore mode

Icon for Hardcore mode.

While in the world creation screen, selecting Hardcore from among the game mode options causes the player to spawn in Hard difficulty, does not allow it to be changed, and allows the player only one life. In a single player world, a player who dies can choose to respawn in Spectator mode or return to the title screen. In multiplayer, upon death, the player's game mode is automatically set to Spectator mode.

The only way to change the difficulty of Hardcore is to use the Open to LAN feature in the pause menu to enable commands, or to use an .NBT editor on the world's .NBT file.‌^{[JE only]}

Moon phase

The phase of the moon has effects on the spawning of slimes in swamp biomes, and contributes to the calculation of regional difficulty. The fuller the moon is, the greater the effect.

The moon does not actually have to be in the sky for this effect to take place, since the moon exists in daytime and across dimensions.

Moon phase	Value	Percentage
Full	1.0	100%
Gibbous	0.75	75%
Quarter	0.5	50%
Crescent	0.25	25%
New	0.0	0%

Regional difficulty

Regional difficulty or local difficulty is a value between 0.00 and 6.75 that the game calculates by considering the world difficulty setting, the inhabited time of a chunk, the total daytime in the world, and the phase of the moon. This value is shown on the debug screen as the first value listed after the heading "Local Difficulty". This value determines several aspects of the difficulty of gameplay (see below).

The inhabited time of a chunk increases for each tick a player spends with the chunk loaded. This is a cumulative measure of time—if 50 players spend a single hour in a chunk, it counts the same as if one player spent 50 hours there. The effect of inhabited time on regional difficulty is capped at 50 hours.

The total daytime in the world is the value from /time query daytime added to the "Day" on the F3 debug screen converted to ticks, i.e. daytime + (dayNumber * 24,000). This is not the same as the actual playtime in the world (the value from /time query gametime). It affects the regional difficulty after the first 3 in-game days, and has no additional effect after 63 in-game days.

In pseudocode, the calculation of regional difficulty is:

# DaytimeFactor, ChunkFactor, and RegionalDifficulty are floating-point variables
# MoonPhase is as in the table above.

if (difficulty is Peaceful) return 0

if (TotalDaytime > 63 in-game days) DaytimeFactor = 0.25
else if (TotalDaytime < 3 in-game days) DaytimeFactor = 0 
else DaytimeFactor = (TotalDaytimeInTicks − 72,000) / 5,760,000

if (ChunkInhabitedTime > 50 hours) ChunkFactor = 1
else ChunkFactor = ChunkInhabitedTimeInTicks / 3,600,000

if (difficulty is Normal or Easy) multiply ChunkFactor by 0.75

if (MoonPhase ÷ 4 > DaytimeFactor) add DaytimeFactor to ChunkFactor
else add (MoonPhase ÷ 4) to ChunkFactor

if (difficulty is Easy) multiply ChunkFactor by 0.5

RegionalDifficulty = 0.75 + DaytimeFactor + ChunkFactor

if (difficulty is Normal) multiply RegionalDifficulty by 2
if (difficulty is Hard) multiply RegionalDifficulty by 3

return RegionalDifficulty

The raw regional difficulty therefore is always 0.0 on Peaceful and ranges from 0.75 to 1.5 on Easy, 1.5 to 4.0 on Normal, and 2.25 to 6.75 on Hard.

Clamped regional difficulty

The clamped regional difficulty (also known as special multiplier) also is a value between 0.00 and 1.00 based on regional difficulty. This value is shown on the debug screen as the second value listed after the heading "Local Difficulty". This is yet another value that affects the difficulty of gameplay (see below).

The regional difficulty value is clamped as follows:

if (RegionalDifficulty < 2.0) value = 0.0;
else if (RegionalDifficulty > 4.0) value = 1.0;
else value = (RegionalDifficulty − 2.0) / 2.0;

Thus, on Easy, where regional difficulty is never higher than 1.5, the clamped value is always zero. On Normal, where regional difficulty is between 1.5 and 4.0, the clamped value can be anywhere from 0.0 to 1.0. On Hard, where the regional difficulty is never lower than 2.25, the clamped value is always at least 0.125.

On Normal, the effects reach the maximum after 63 in-game days (1512000 game ticks) in a fully-inhabited chunk on a full moon; and on Hard after 63 in-game days the effects reach the maximum in chunks inhabited 4 ¹⁄₆ hours during a full moon and remain at maximum in chunks inhabited over 16 ²⁄₃ hours.^[verify]

Effects

Mob damage

The damage mobs deal to players is affected by the difficulty setting of the world they are in. The values below represent the amount of damage taken per hit.

For most attacks, the damage is scaled as follows: if a mob deals D damage on Normal difficulty, then it deals 1.5D on Hard difficulty and min(D, 0.5D+1) on Easy difficulty.
A mob attacking another mob always deals its Normal difficulty damage regardless of the current difficulty setting.
The values for a creeper, ghast, and wither assume the player is directly adjacent to the respective explosion.
The damage of slimes and magma cubes depends on their size. Tiny slimes, while hostile, are unable to inflict damage directly.
Mobs deal no damage to players on Peaceful difficulty.

Mob	Difficulty			Status effect(s)
Mob	Easy	Normal	Hard	Status effect(s)
Agent	5HP			No
Axolotl	2HP			No
Bee	2HP	2HP	3HP	Poison for 10 seconds on Normal difficulty and for 18 seconds on Hard difficulty
Blaze (melee)	4HP	6HP	9HP	No
Blaze fireball	5HP + fire for 5 seconds			No
Bogged arrow	3HP to 5HP			Normally: Poison for 4 seconds If holding a tipped arrow or a spectral arrow in its off-hand: The effect of the arrow
Bogged (melee)	2HP		3HP	No
Breeze wind charge	1HP		1.5HP × 0.75	No
Cat	3HP			No
Cave Spider	2HP	2HP	3HP	Poison for 7 seconds on Normal difficulty and for 15 seconds on Hard difficulty
Creaking	2.5HP × 1.25	3HP	4.5HP × 2.25	No
Creeper explosion (normal)	22.5HP × 11.25	43HP × 21.5	64.5HP × 32.25	When exploding: No If having a potion effect when exploding, it leaves an effect cloud with the effect, like a lingering potion.
Creeper explosion (charged)	43.5HP × 21.75	85HP × 42.5	127.5HP × 63.75
Dolphin	2.5HP × 1.25	3HP	4.5HP × 2.25	No
Drowned	2.5HP × 1.25	3HP	4.5HP × 2.25	No
Drowned trident (ranged)	7HP	9HP	12HP × 6	No
Drowned trident (melee)‌^{[BE only]}	6HP	11HP × 5.5	16HP × 8	No
Elder Guardian (laser)	5HP	8HP	12HP × 6	Inflicts Mining Fatigue III for 5 minutes on nearby players
Elder Guardian (spikes)	2HP		3HP
Elder Guardian Ghost (spikes)	2HP
Ender Dragon (melee)	6HP	10HP	15HP × 7.5	No
Ender Dragon (wings)	3HP	5HP	7HP	No
Ender Dragon (breath)	3HP per second			Area effect cloud of Instant Damage
Ender Dragon Dragon Fireball	6HP per second			Area effect cloud of Instant Damage
Enderman	4.5HP × 2.25	7HP	10.5HP × 5.25	No
Endermite	2HP		3HP	No
Evoker fangs‌^{[JE only]}	4HP	6HP	9HP	No
Evoker fangs‌^{[BE only]}	6HP			No
Fox	2HP		3HP	No
Frog	Target despawns after being pulled			No
Ghast fireball (impact)	4HP	6HP	9HP	No
Ghast fireball (explosion)	9.5HP × 4.75	17HP × 8.5	25.5HP × 12.75	No
Giant‌^{[JE only]}	26HP × 13	50HP × 25	75HP × 37.5	No
Goat	2HP		3HP	No
Goat (baby)	1HP		1.5HP × 0.75	No
Guardian (laser)	4HP	6HP	9HP	No
Guardian (spikes)	2HP		3HP	No
Hoglin‌^{[JE only]}	2.5HP × 1.25 to 5HP	3HP to 8HP	4.5HP × 2.25 to 12HP × 6	No
Hoglin‌^{[BE only]}	3HP	6HP	9HP	No
Hoglin (baby)	0.5HP × 0.25		0.75HP × 0.375	No
Husk	2.5HP × 1.25	3HP	4.5HP × 2.25	Hunger when attacking any mob for 7 × floor of RD seconds
Illusioner arrow‌^{[JE only]}	2HP to 5HP		3HP to 5HP	Throws Blindness spells on the player, if regional difficulty is 2 or greater
Iron Golem	4.75HP × 2.375 to 11.75HP × 5.875	7.5HP × 3.75 to 21.5HP × 10.75	11.25HP × 5.625 to 32.25HP × 16.125	No
The Killer Bunny‌^{[JE only]}	5HP	8HP	12HP × 6	No
Llama spit	1HP		1.5HP × 0.75	No
Magma Cube (big)	4HP	6HP	9HP	No
Magma Cube (medium)	3HP	4HP	6HP	No
Magma Cube (small)	2.5HP × 1.25	3HP	4.5HP × 2.25	No
Ocelot	3HP			No
Old Zombie Villager	2.5HP × 1.25	3HP	4.5HP × 2.25	No
Panda	4HP	6HP	9HP	No
Phantom‌^{[JE only]}	2HP		3HP	No
Phantom‌^{[BE only]}	4HP	6HP	9HP	No
Piglin arrow‌^{[JE only]}	2HP to 5HP		3HP to 5HP	No
Piglin arrow‌^{[BE only]}	2HP - 4HP		2HP to 5HP	No
Piglin (melee with sword)‌^{[JE only]}	5HP	8HP	12HP × 6	No
Piglin (melee with sword)‌^{[BE only]}	5HP	9HP	13HP × 6.5	No
Piglin (melee without sword)‌^{[JE only]}	3.5HP × 1.75	5HP	7.5HP × 3.75	No
Piglin Brute‌^{[JE only]}	7.5HP × 3.75	13HP × 6.5	19.5HP × 9.75	No
Piglin Brute‌^{[BE only]}	6HP	10HP	15HP × 7.5	No
Piglin Brute (unarmed)	4.5HP × 2.25	7HP	10.5HP × 5.25	No
Pillager arrow	3.5HP × 1.75	4HP	5HP	No
Pillager (melee)‌^{[BE only]}	2HP	3HP	5HP	No
Polar Bear	4HP	6HP	9HP	No
Pufferfish (semi-puffed)	2HP		3HP	Poison for 3 seconds
Pufferfish (fully puffed)‌^{[JE only]}	2.5HP × 1.25	3HP	4.5HP × 2.25	Poison for 6 seconds
Pufferfish (fully puffed)‌^{[BE only]}	2HP		3HP	Poison for 10 seconds
Ravager (melee)	7HP	12HP × 6	18HP × 9	No
Ravager (roar)	4HP	6HP	9HP	No
Shulker bullet	3HP	4HP	6HP	Levitation for 10 seconds
Silverfish	1HP		1.5HP × 0.75	No
Skeleton arrow‌^{[JE only]}	2HP to 4HP	3HP to 4HP	4HP to 5HP	Normally: No If holding a tipped arrow or a spectral arrow in its off-hand: The effect of the arrow
Skeleton arrow‌^{[BE only]}	1HP to 4HP, varies with proximity		1HP to 5HP, varies with proximity	No
Skeleton (melee)	2HP		3HP	No
Slime (big)	3HP	4HP	6HP	No
Slime (medium)	2HP		3HP	No
Slime (small)	0HP			No
Snow Golem snowball	3HP to blazes			No
Spider	2HP		3HP	No, but can spawn with effects
Stray arrow‌^{[JE only]}	3HP to 5HP			Normally: Slowness for 30 seconds when their tipped arrow hits any mob (including another stray) If holding a tipped arrow or a spectral arrow in its off-hand: The effect of the arrow
Stray arrow‌^{[BE only]}	Damage varies with proximity
Stray (melee)	2HP		3HP	No
Trader Llama spit	1HP		1.5HP × 0.75	No
Vex	5.5HP × 2.75	9HP	13.5HP × 6.75	No
Vex (unarmed)	3HP	4HP	5HP	No
Villager's firework rocket	5HP	8HP	12HP × 6	No
Vindicator	7.5HP × 3.75	13HP × 6.5	19.5HP × 9.75	No
Vindicator (unarmed)	3.5HP × 1.75	5HP	7.5HP × 3.75	No
Warden (melee)	16HP × 8	30HP × 15	45HP × 22.5	No
Warden (ranged)	6HP	10HP	15HP × 7.5	No
Witch	Deals damage by throwing potions			Throws splash potions of Poison, Instant Damage, Slowness, and Weakness
Wither Skeleton	5HP	8HP	12HP × 6	Wither for 10 seconds
Wither Skeleton (unarmed)	2HP	2HP	3HP	Wither for 10 seconds
Wither Skeleton arrow	2HP to 4HP + fire for 5 seconds	3HP to 4HP + fire for 5 seconds	4HP to 5HP + fire for 5 seconds	Normally: No If holding a tipped arrow or a spectral arrow in its off-hand: The effect of the arrow
Wither (birth explosion)	35.5HP × 17.75	69HP × 34.5	103.5HP × 51.75	No
Wither Skull	5HP	8HP	12HP × 6	Wither II for 10 seconds on Normal difficulty and 40 seconds on Hard difficulty
Wither Skull (explosion)	5HP			No
Wither (dash attack) ‌^{[BE only]}	15HP × 7.5			No
Wolf	3HP	4HP	6HP	No
Zoglin	3HP to 5HP	3HP to 8HP	4.5HP × 2.25 to 12HP × 6	No
Zoglin (baby)	0.5HP × 0.25		0.75HP × 0.375	No
Zombie	2.5HP × 1.25	3HP	4.5HP × 2.25	No
Zombified Piglin	5HP	8HP	12HP × 6	No
Zombified Piglin (unarmed)	3HP	5HP	7HP	No
Zombie Villager	2.5HP × 1.25	3HP	4.5HP × 2.25	No

Other effects

Attribute	Notes	Condition
Attribute	Notes	World difficulty	Regional difficulty (RD)	Clamped regional difficulty (CRD)	Moon phase only
HP Mobs and explosions do higher damage to players.	Peaceful: No damage Easy: ¹⁄₂ of Normal damage + 1 (never higher than Normal damage) Hard: 1 ¹⁄₂ times Normal damage	Yes	No	No	No
Guardians (both types) have higher laser magic damage.	Hard: + 2HP, added before calculating the difficulty-scaled mob damage	Yes	No	No	No
Starvation more harshly affects health.	Easy/Normal/Hard: starvation brings health down to 10/1/0 HP	Yes	No	No	No
Mobs that spawn with armor are more likely to have more armor.	Easy & Normal: 75%/56%/42% of having 2/3/4 pieces; Hard: 90%/81%/73% of having 2/3/4 pieces	Yes	No	No	No
Zombies are more likely to spawn with weapons.	1% on Easy and Normal, 5% on Hard	Yes	No	No	No
Zombies are able to spawn reinforcements.	Hard only	Yes	No	No	No
Zombies are more likely to be able to break wooden doors.	A zombie having the ability to break a door: (10×CRD)% The door actually breaking: Hard only	Yes	No	Yes	No
Villagers killed by zombies have a greater chance of becoming zombie villagers.	0% on Easy, 50% on Normal, 100% on Hard	Yes	No	No	No
Zombified piglins spawn from nether portals in the Overworld more often.	¹⁄₂₀₀₀ per block tick on Easy, ¹⁄₁₀₀₀ on Normal, ³⁄₂₀₀₀ on Hard	Yes	No	No	No
A skeleton or stray's cooldown between attacks is shortened	Easy/Normal: 2s cooldown Hard: 1s	Yes	No	No	No
A bogged's cooldown between attacks is shortened	Easy/Normal: 3.5s cooldown Hard: 2.5s	Yes	No	No	No
A skeleton or stray is more accurate in ranged attacks with its bow.	Easy/Normal/Hard "inaccuracy" value is 10/6/2	Yes	No	No	No
Damage from arrows slightly increases.	Easy/Normal/Hard damage bonus = +0.11 / +0.22 / +0.33	Yes	No	No	No
Phantoms spawn more frequently.	A spawn attempt succeeds if the local difficulty is greater than a random value between 0.0 and 3.0.	No	Yes	No	No
Phantoms spawn in larger groups.	Easy: 1-2 Normal: 1-3 Hard: 1-4	Yes	No	No	No
Spiders can naturally spawn with status effects.	Hard (10×CRD)%	Yes	No	Yes	No
The Poison effect given by a cave spider lasts longer.	Normal/Hard: 7s/15s	Yes	No	No	No
The Poison effect given by a bee lasts longer.	Normal/Hard: 10s/18s	Yes	No	No	No
The Wither effect given by a wither skull lasts longer.	Normal/Hard: 10s/40s	Yes	No	No	No
A wither shoots wither skulls when idle.	Normal/Hard only	Yes	No	No	No
A wither spawns 3–4 wither skeletons when brought below half health.‌^{[Bedrock Edition only]}	Normal/Hard only	Yes	No	No	No
Lightning can cause fires in the surrounding blocks, not just the block struck.	Normal/Hard only	Yes	No	No	No
Fire lingers for a bit longer.	The raw encouragement value of blocks surrounding fire gets a bonus of (Easy/Normal/Hard) +47 / +54 / +61, before being adjusted for fire age, humidity and rain.	Yes	No	No	No
Mobs are more willing to take fall damage when pursuing a target.^{[note 3]}	Easy: 33% + 8HP Normal: 33% + 4HP Hard: 33%	Yes	No	No	No
Lightning strikes are more likely to spawn a skeleton trap horse.	Chance = (RD)% (0.75–1.5% on Easy, 1.5–4% on Normal, 2.25–6.75% on Hard)	No	Yes	No	No
Burning zombies are more likely to set their target on fire, and the burn duration is longer.	Chance = (30×RD)% Burn time = 2 × RD seconds	No	Yes	No	No
The Hunger effect caught from being attacked by a husk lasts longer.	Effect time = 7 × RD seconds	No	Yes	No	No
Illusioners can cast blindness.	If RD > 2.	No	Yes	No	No
Skeletons and zombies are more likely to have the ability to pick up dropped items.	Having the ability: (55×CRD)%	No	No	Yes	No
Zombies are more likely to have a greater follow distance.	If (random # in range 0–1.5) × CRD is greater than 1, that becomes a bonus multiplier on the follow distance. Therefore, this is impossible when the CRD is less than 0.67^{[note 4]}; when the CRD is 1.0, there is only a ¹⁄₃ chance of it happening.	No	No	Yes	No
Zombies are more likely to be "leader zombies" (gaining a bonus to max HP, a bonus to the chance to spawn reinforcements, and the ability to break doors).	Any given zombie being a "leader": (5×CRD)%	No	No	Yes	No
Mobs are more likely to spawn with armor.	Chance of getting any armor at all: (15×CRD)%	No	No	Yes	No
Mobs that spawn with weapons are more likely to have enchantments.	Chance for the main hand item = (25×CRD)%	No	No	Yes	No
Mobs that spawn with armor are more likely to have enchantments.	Chance per armor item = (50×CRD)%	No	No	Yes	No
Mobs that spawn with enchanted equipment have higher levels of enchantments.	Level = 5 + randInt(0,18)×CRD where randInt(0,18) is a random integer between 0 and 17. So, the level is 5 when CRD is 0.0, and it can be as high as 22 when CRD is 1.0.	No	No	Yes	No
Slimes are more likely to be bigger.	Small: ((33×(1-CRD)/2)+16.5)% Medium: 34% Big: ((33×(1+CRD)/2)+16.5)% in other words: Small/Medium/Big: 16.5%–33% / 34% / 33%–49.5%	No	No	Yes	No
Slimes are more likely to spawn in swamp biomes.	See above	No	No	No	Yes
Raid has more waves	Easy: 3 waves Normal: 5 waves Hard: 7 waves	Yes	No	No	No
Illager patrol size	RD + 1 illagers (rounded up)	No	Yes	No	No
Illager patrol can spawn vindicator‌^{[Bedrock Edition only]}	Easy and Normal: 100% pillager Hard: 80% pillager, 20% vindicator	Yes	No	No	No
Illager patrol can spawn on any light level‌^{[Bedrock Edition only]}	Easy: Light level 0-7 Normal and Hard: Any light level	Yes	No	No	No
Vindicator and Pillager spawn from raids having higher chance to drop special loot.‌^{[Bedrock Edition only]}	Normal: 65% chance Hard: 80% chance	Yes	No	No	No
Vindicator are able to break down Wooden Door	Peaceful and Easy: unable to break door Normal and Hard: can break door	Yes	No	No	No

Video

History

[hide]Java Edition Classic
May 21, 2009							Difficulty modes were mentioned including: "Walk in the Park" being the easiest, "Easy" which was added, and "Armageddon" being hard even with 32 people.
June 14, 2009							Notch discussed how his vision for Survival mode would incorporate the concept of difficulty: "When generating a new level or loading a creative mode level, you also select a difficulty. Difficulty levels will probably vary from 'challenging' to 'impossible', since I want the game to be difficult. If it's not fun to always be challenged, I'll add easier difficulties."
[hide]Java Edition Indev
0.31			20100205				Added the option to change difficulty to Peaceful, Easy, Normal, or Hard.
[hide]Java Edition Alpha
October 22, 2010							Notch tweets stating that he is "changing 'difficulty' to 'realism'". Lowest setting = Creative. Highest setting = starve". This was never implemented; however, a "Hardcore" mode was added along with a Creative gamemode.
[hide]Java Edition
1.0.0			Beta 1.9 Prerelease 2				Hardcore mode added.
1.6.1			13w16a				Regional difficulty added.
1.8			14w02a				Difficulty is now saved per-world, instead of globally; difficulty can no longer be changed from the title screen.
							Difficulty defaults to Normal instead of Easy.
							Difficulty can now be locked.
							Added `/difficulty`.
1.16			20w17a				Difficulty can now be chosen on world creation.
[hide]Pocket Edition Alpha
v0.4.0							Added Peaceful difficulty.
v0.12.1							Added Easy and Hard difficulties.
v0.16.0							Difficulty is now saved on a per-world basis instead of globally, and is now controlled via world settings.
[hide]Pocket Edition
1.0.5			alpha 1.0.5.0				Added `/difficulty`
[hide]Bedrock Edition
?							Added regional difficulty.
1.21.40							Hardcore mode added
[hide]Legacy Console Edition
Xbox 360	Xbox One	PS3	PS4	PS Vita	Wii U	Switch
TU1	CU1	1.00	1.00	1.00	Patch 1	1.0.1	Difficulty added.
TU11	CU1	1.00	1.00	1.00			Added a message when the player tries to spawn a hostile mob from a spawn egg in Peaceful difficulty.
TU19	CU7	1.12	1.12	1.12			Regional difficulty added.
TU25	CU14	1.17	1.17	1.17			It is now possible to change the difficulty via the host options menu if host privileges are enabled.

First image of the difficulty lock.

Issues

Issues relating to "Difficulty" are maintained on the bug tracker. Issues should be reported and viewed there.

Java Edition

MC-272872 – Constantly teleported players have difficulty placing blocks
MC-155269 – Villagers have difficulty pathfinding to workstations that have blocks located above them
MC-1788 – Ocelots do not spawn naturally on peaceful difficulty in jungle and bamboo jungle biomes
MC-227168 – Shulkers don't attack back in peaceful difficulty
MC-229347 – Untamed cats, ocelots & foxes no longer run away on peaceful difficulty
MC-255898 – Damage by evoker fangs is unaffected by difficulty
MC-257814 – Axolotls occasionally have difficulty entering water from corners
MC-267587 – Some mobs attached to fences via leads don't pathfind or have difficulty pathfinding to players that are tempting them
MC-272624 – Locked difficulty and difficulty lock cannot be narrated
MC-73881 – Summoning monsters in peaceful difficulty spawns monster for 1 tick
And 15 other open issues.

Bedrock Edition

MCPE-187794 – Wither effect duration is 40 seconds instead of 10 in Normal difficulty
MCPE-55270 – Phantoms are not despawning in Peaceful Difficulty
MCPE-83247 – Shooting yourself with a tipped arrow gives no effects in peaceful difficulty
MCPE-89170 – Having a repeating command block set the game difficulty, causes extreme entity lag (Nintendo Switch)
MCPE-135446 – Pufferfish do damage in Peaceful difficulty
MCPE-180945 – Wolves have difficulty attacking
MCPE-187734 – Hard difficulty summary in Turkish is incorrect
MCPE-189535 – Certain mobs can have difficulty inflicting recurring hits on non-moving or too-close players

Notes

↑ An eye of ender requires blaze powder to craft, which can be crafted only from blaze rods; but a blaze rod can be obtained only as a drop from a blaze, which is a hostile mob that cannot spawn in Peaceful.
↑ Since each end portal frame has a ¹⁄₁₀ chance of being filled, there is a (¹⁄₁₀)¹² = ¹⁄_{1 trillion} chance of all 12 end portal frames being filled.
↑ Mobs accept fall damage if their health would not be reduced below 33% of their maximum health (rounded up to the nearest 1HP), plus a constant reserve based on difficulty. This even applies to ground-based mobs immune to fall damage.
↑ This value is actually¹⁄₃.

References

↑ MC-230843 — resolved as "Invalid".
↑ https://github.com/hube12/SSGOutput/releases/tag/1.1

Navigation

[2] An eye of ender requires blaze powder to craft, which can be crafted only from blaze rods; but a blaze rod can be obtained only as a drop from a blaze, which is a hostile mob that cannot spawn in Peaceful.

[3] Since each end portal frame has a ¹⁄₁₀ chance of being filled, there is a (¹⁄₁₀)¹² = ¹⁄_{1 trillion} chance of all 12 end portal frames being filled.

[5] Mobs accept fall damage if their health would not be reduced below 33% of their maximum health (rounded up to the nearest 1HP), plus a constant reserve based on difficulty. This even applies to ground-based mobs immune to fall damage.

[6] This value is actually¹⁄₃.

[1] MC-230843 — resolved as "Invalid".

[4] ttps://github.com/hube12/SSGOutput/releases/tag/1.1

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[hide] v t e Gameplay
General mechanics	Add-ons Attribute Commands Distance Effect Potency Explosion Game rules Interaction range Inventory Creative inventory Saved Hotbars Generated loot Hitbox Multiplayer Server Server list Realms Splitscreen Oxidation Rarity Redstone circuits Conductivity Renewability Renewable Non-renewable Rotation Snowlogging South-east rule Spawn protection Tiers Waterlogging
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Combat	Blocking Damage Attack cooldown Critical hit Knockback Sprint-knockback Drops Monster infighting
Environment	Biomes Daylight cycle Dimensions Light Seeds Structures Weather World generation
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User interface	Action bar Bossbar Chat Death messages Game mode switcher Heads-up display Narrator Locator Bar^[upcoming] Scoreboard Toasts Tutorial hints Tooltip
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Outdated	Sword blocking Materials Update Suppression

Difficulty
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