How To Change Difficulty On Your Unturned Server

Changing the difficulty on your Unturned server is a great way to tailor the gameplay to your community. Whether you want a relaxed zombie survival experience or a punishing, hardcore challenge, swapping your server's mode only takes a few quick steps in your configuration files.

Important Warning: Always make sure your server is completely stopped before making configuration changes. Editing files while the server is running will cause your changes to be overwritten!

Editing Your Commands.dat File

To configure your server's difficulty, we need to edit the core commands file directly in your panel.

1. Log into your MintServers panel and click the Stop button.
2. Navigate to the Files tab on the left sidebar.
3. Click through the file manager to locate your Commands.dat file.
📁 Servers
📁 unturned (or your custom instance name)
📁 Server
📄 Commands.dat (Click to edit this file)
4. Click on Commands.dat to open the text editor.
5. Since it is a freshly generated server, this file will likely be completely empty. Simply type Mode Easy, Mode Normal, or Mode Hard on the very first line of the file. Do not use colons or equal signs; just use a single space between the command and the setting.
6. If you have already configured the server and the file has text in it, look for an existing line that says Mode and change it. If the line is missing, add your mode to a brand new line at the bottom. Here is an example of how your file might look:

Name My Awesome Server
Map PEI
Mode Easy
MaxPlayers 24
Perspective Both

7. Click the Save Content button at the top of the editor.
8. Return to the Console tab and Start your server.

Unturned Difficulty Modes Explained

If you aren't sure which setting to choose, here is a quick breakdown of how each mode affects the game:

• Easy: Ideal for casual players. Resources and loot are plentiful, zombies deal less damage, and player health regenerates faster. Bullet ballistics are simplified.
• Normal: The standard, balanced Unturned experience as the developer intended.
• Hard: Designed for veteran survivors. Loot is incredibly scarce, UI elements are hidden, zombies hit much harder, and survival mechanics are far more punishing.

If your difficulty still hasn't changed after following these steps, double-check your Commands.dat file to ensure you didn't accidentally misspell the mode or add duplicate lines. If you are still stuck, open a support ticket and our team will jump in to help you out.