All Difficulty Levels in Sniper Elite 5, explained

Sniper Elite 5 offers a variety of difficulty settings, and each option is quite detailed. The game has preset difficulties ranging from Civilian (very easy) to Authentic (hardest), and the options are modified depending on what difficulty you select. You can change the difficulty in the Difficulty menu, and you can create your own difficulty if you wish. Below, we explain what each option means, how it changes based on your difficulty choice, and how you can customize it.

What each difficulty option means in Sniper Elite 5

Below is a list of all of the difficulty options available with each setting, along with what they mean:

• Friendly Fire: Controls whether you deal damage to friendly players and whether that damage is reduced.
• Co-op Respawning: When enabled, dead players in co-op in the campaign can Respawn. When disabled, campaign co-op games will end when one player dies. Even when this is disabled, you always respawn at the end of a wave in Survival or a round of Axis Invasion.
• Health Regeneration: Controls how much of your health will regenerate and how fast.
• Revival: Controls how much health you have after Revival. On Authentic, you need a Med Kit to Revive another player.
• Ammo and Searching: Controls how many items and how much ammo you find when searching.
• Automatic Swapping: When enabled, you automatically switch weapons or items when empty.
• Throw Away Clip: When enabled, ammo remaining in your clip is discarded when you reload.
• Player Resilience: Controls how resilient you are to damage, including bleeding wounds.
• Enemy Resilience: Controls the resilience of enemies.
• Enemy Aggression: Controls the aggression with which enemies search for and attack you.
• Enemy Accuracy: Controls the accuracy with which enemies shoot.
• Enemy Skill: Controls the intelligence of enemies.
• Enemy Sniper Skill: Controls the intelligence and accuracy of enemy snipers.
• Enemy Perceptiveness: Controls the hearing and vision of enemies.
• Enemy Responsiveness: Controls the speed with which enemies spot and respond to you.
• Damage Ends Empty Lung: When enabled, taking damage forces you out of Empty Lung.
• Damage Ends Focus: When enabled, taking damage forces you out of Focus.
• Focus: When enabled, you can use the Focus ability to highlight unseen enemies.
• Bullet Drop: When enabled, bullet trajectories will be affected by gravity.
• Active Reloading: Controls how large the window is for Active Reloading and Active Rechambering.
• Wind: When enabled, bullet trajectories will be affected by the wind.
• Empty Lung Assists: When enabled, Empty Lung zooms in, slows down time, and displays a marker for when your shot will hit.
• HUD: Controls how much of the HUD is displayed. When set to Reduced, Heartrate, Health, Ammo, Objectives, and Indicators are all hidden.
• Radar: Controls how much information is displayed on your Radar.
• Tagging: Controls how long tagged enemies remain tagged. On harder settings, tags are only visible through binoculars or on the Radar.
• Authentic Zoom: When enabled, you Control Zoom when aiming down your scope.
• Extra Information: Controls the additional information that may be shown on the HUD. This includes highlights for interactable objects and icons for the Alarm.
• Defusal Radius: Controls how large the region for defusing a placed explosive is.
• Awareness Audio: When enabled, plays audio cues as enemies become aware of you.

Related: Sniper Elite 5: How to get Shoulder Aimed Kills

How each difficulty works

Below are the difficulty settings and how they affect the options.

Civilian (very easy)

• Friendly Fire: Off
• Co-op Respawning: On
• Health Regeneration: Fast (Full Health)
• Revival: Greatly Increased
• Ammo and Searching: Very Easy
• Automatic Swapping: On
• Throw Away Clip: Off
• Player Resilience: Greatly Icreased
• Enemy Resilience: Reduced
• Enemy Aggression: Reduced
• Enemy Accuracy: Greatly Reduced
• Enemy Skill: Reduced
• Enemy Sniper Skill: Greatly Reduced
• Enemy Perceptiveness: Reduced
• Enemy Responsiveness: Reduced
• Damage Ends Empty Lung: Off
• Damage Ends Focus: Off
• Focus: On
• Bullet Drop: Off
• Active Reloading: Greatly Increased
• Wind: Off
• Empty Lung Assists: On
• HUD: Normal
• Radar: Increased
• Tagging: Very Easy
• Authentic Zoom: Off
• Extra Information: Normal
• Defusal Radius: Easy
• Awareness Audio: On

Cadet (easy)

• Friendly Fire: Off
• Co-op Respawning: Off
• Health Regeneration: Fast (One Bar)
• Revival: Increased
• Ammo and Searching: Easy
• Automatic Swapping: On
• Throw Away Clip: Off
• Player Resilience: Increased
• Enemy Resilience: Normal
• Enemy Aggression: Reduced
• Enemy Accuracy: Reduced
• Enemy Skill: Reduced
• Enemy Sniper Skill: Reduced
• Enemy Perceptiveness: Normal
• Enemy Responsiveness: Reduced
• Damage Ends Empty Lung: Off
• Damage Ends Focus: Off
• Focus: On
• Bullet Drop: On
• Active Reloading: Increased
• Wind: Off
• Empty Lung Assists: On
• HUD: Normal
• Radar: Normal
• Tagging: Easy
• Authentic Zoom: Off
• Extra Information: Reduced
• Defusal Radius: Easy
• Awareness Audio: On

Sharpshooter (medium)

• Friendly Fire: Off
• Co-op Respawning: Off
• Health Regeneration: Normal (One Bar)
• Revival: Normal
• Ammo and Searching: Medium
• Automatic Swapping: On
• Throw Away Clip: Off
• Player Resilience: Normal
• Enemy Resilience: Normal
• Enemy Aggression: Normal
• Enemy Accuracy: Normal
• Enemy Skill: Normal
• Enemy Sniper Skill: Normal
• Enemy Perceptiveness: Normal
• Enemy Responsiveness: Normal
• Damage Ends Empty Lung: On
• Damage Ends Focus: On
• Focus: On
• Bullet Drop: On
• Active Reloading: Normal
• Wind: On
• Empty Lung Assists: On
• HUD: Normal
• Radar: Normal
• Tagging: Normal
• Authentic Zoom: Off
• Extra Information: Reduced
• Defusal Radius: Normal
• Awareness Audio: On

Sniper Elite (hard)

• Friendly Fire: Reduced Damage
• Co-op Respawning: Off
• Health Regeneration: Slow (One Bar)
• Revival: Hard
• Ammo and Searching: Hard
• Automatic Swapping: On
• Throw Away Clip: Off
• Player Resilience: Reduced
• Enemy Resilience: Normal
• Enemy Aggression: Increased
• Enemy Accuracy: Increased
• Enemy Skill: Increased
• Enemy Sniper Skill: Increased
• Enemy Perceptiveness: Normal
• Enemy Responsiveness: Increased
• Damage Ends Empty Lung: On
• Damage Ends Focus: On
• Focus: On
• Bullet Drop: Reduced
• Active Reloading: Reduced
• Wind: On
• Empty Lung Assists: On
• HUD: Normal
• Radar: Reduced
• Tagging: Hard
• Authentic Zoom: Off
• Extra Information: Reduced
• Defusal Radius: Hard
• Awareness Audio: On

Authentic (hardest)

• Friendly Fire: Full Damage
• Co-op Respawning: Off
• Health Regeneration: Disabled
• Revival: Authentic
• Ammo and Searching: Authentic
• Automatic Swapping: Off
• Throw Away Clip: On
• Player Resilience: Greatly Reduced
• Enemy Resilience: Normal
• Enemy Aggression: Increased
• Enemy Accuracy: Increased
• Enemy Skill: Greatly Increased
• Enemy Sniper Skill: Greatly Increased
• Enemy Perceptiveness: Normal
• Enemy Responsiveness: Increased
• Damage Ends Empty Lung: On
• Damage Ends Focus: On
• Focus: Off
• Bullet Drop: On
• Active Reloading: Reduced
• Wind: On
• Empty Lung Assists: Off
• HUD: Reduced
• Radar: Disabled
• Tagging: Authentic
• Authentic Zoom: On
• Extra Information: None
• Defusal Radius: Hard
• Awareness Audio: Off

Related: Can you disable Axis Invasion in Sniper Elite 5?

How to customize your difficulty in Sniper Elite 5

You can adjust individual settings and create your own difficulty. Go to Difficulty from the menu, and instead of adjusting anything, you can press X (Xbox) or Square (PlayStation). A new menu will pop up showing you every option in detail. Go to the setting you want to modify and change it to how you want to play the game. Remember that none of these affect the other player's abilities in Axis Invasion. Enemy players will be as good as they normally are.

For more on Sniper Elite 5, check out How many missions are there in Sniper Elite 5? Complete Mission List or Sniper Elite 5 Tips: 5 Essential things to know before playing here on Pro Game Guides!