Resident Evil 7 Biohazard Difficulty Settings Explained - Easy, Normal, Madhouse
Resident Evil 7 difficulty settings explanation guide offers an insight into the differences between the three difficulty levels. What makes them unique, what you can expect, what makes each setting special… Choosing a difficulty level at the start of the game is important, because once you start the game, you can’t change it.
Easy Difficulty Level
As the name says, this is the level that offers the horror experience with the least amount of pain involved. If you don’t want to struggle with the perfectly aimed shots, collecting everything there is, searching for every item – this is the mode for you.
| Elements | Description |
|---|---|
| Checkpoints | They are quite often and useful, especially when you are in the new setting. The cassette recorders can be used indefinitely for saving the game manually. |
| Health Regeneration | You’ll regain health faster and in greater amounts. |
| Enemies | Slower, do less damage, slow to notice you, can be escaped more easily, their reaction level is lethargic, they attack less… |
| Items | There is a fixed amount of items that can be found, for example 18 antique coins. |
| Other | Perfect difficulty level for the first playthrough. Experience the story without needing to collect everything. |
Normal Difficulty Mode
This is the highest mode available right off the bat, if you haven’t pre-ordered the game. Enemies found within are a bit harder to deal with. Collecting items is important, as well as good aiming.
| Elements | Description |
|---|---|
| Checkpoints | Still present in this mode, but far less frequent than the ones on easy level. Using the cassette recorders is the same. |
| Health Regeneration | The amount of health regenerated is decreased, and it comes at a slower pace. |
| Enemies | Enemies are now slightly faster, do increased amounts of damage, they will patrol more and spot the players more easily… |
| Items | You’ll need to do a bit of exploring, as the items are important at this level. |
| Other | This is a good foundation for Madhouse Mode. You’ll experience all the aspects of the game combined together. Healing and precise shooting is important. |
Madhouse Difficulty Chaos
This is the highest difficulty of them all. If you’ve pre-ordered the game, you can begin the game on this level from the start. If not, you’ll need to complete the game to unlock it.
| Elements | Description |
|---|---|
| Checkpoints | There are no automatic checkpoints. You’ll need to save the game using the cassette recorders, but there is a trick to it now. You’ll need to find cassette tapes. They take up space in your inventory and they go away when you use them. There is a limited amount of them to be found. |
| Health Regeneration | You do not regenerate health on your own, you have to use the First Aid Med to heal up. |
| Enemies | They do significantly more damage, will come at you faster, while the notice time is almost instant, making them more aggressive. The amount of damage they’ll suffer before going down is increased. The increased number of enemies means there will be new locations from where they’ll come at you. Some of the old spawn locations are also changed. |
| Items | Items are harder to find. Their locations are not the same as in other modes. There are more of them as well; for example, you can now find 15 more antique coins. New items are bound to pop up. They are exclusive to the Madhouse difficulty and offer some special boosts. |
| Other | This is the mode for the veterans of the Resident Evil franchise. Combined with the VR experience, it almost feels like you’ll need those adult diapers. The ones you get if you pre-order game from Belgian retailer Game Mania. |
Difficulty Levels in Resident Evil 7 Summary
Once you turn on the game, after you’re done with the options (setting the graphics, brightness, languages… ), you can hit the “start the game” button. This is when the difficulty level pops up. Once you choose, you’ll need to finish the game on the same level; that is if you don’t want to start over.
Considering that the game has different endings, you can experience them by going through a few playthroughs, and why not do so on different difficulty levels?
