Updated:
The basic form
/difficulty peaceful
/difficulty easy
/difficulty normal
/difficulty hardBedrock also accepts single letters (p, e, n, h) and numbers 0–3. On Java, /difficulty on its own shows the current setting.
What changes
| Difficulty | Main differences |
|---|---|
| Peaceful | No hostile mobs (existing ones vanish); hunger does not drop and health regenerates. |
| Easy | Weaker attacks; starving stops at 5 hearts. |
| Normal | Standard; starving stops at half a heart. |
| Hard | Stronger attacks; starving can kill; zombies can break wooden doors. |
Some enemies such as the Ender Dragon stay in Peaceful. Mob drops such as gunpowder and bones become hard to get, so some players switch back only while farming.
Differences worth knowing (Java)
| Effect | Easy | Normal | Hard |
|---|---|---|---|
| Villager killed by a zombie becomes a zombie villager | Never | Half the time | Always |
| Cave spider poison | None | About 7 s | About 15 s |
| Zombies break wooden doors | No | No | Yes |
If you want to cure zombie villagers, switch to Hard so the conversion never fails.
Local difficulty
Even at the same setting, mobs get tougher the longer players spend in an area and around the full moon. This "local difficulty" raises the chance of mobs carrying armor and enchanted weapons. On Java it is shown as Local Difficulty on the F3 screen.
On a server
An operator runs it in game, or in the console without the slash (difficulty hard). After a restart, the server uses difficulty= from server.properties (default easy), so change that too to keep it.
When it cannot be changed
- Hardcore worlds: locked to Hard.
- Locked difficulty (Java): locking it in the settings is permanent for that world.
- No permission: cheats are off or you are not an operator; single-player worlds can change it in the options.
- Resets after restart: check server.properties.
Good to know
- Changing difficulty alone does not disable achievements, but turning on cheats on Bedrock does.
- Villagers and animals stay in Peaceful; only hostile mobs disappear.
- Difficulty is per world, not per player.
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