How to Set Up Custom Difficulty on Your Sons of the Forest Server

Custom difficulty in Sons of the Forest lets you fine-tune your survival experience piece by piece, adjusting things like enemy strength, animal spawn rates, day length, and hunger effects individually instead of picking a fixed preset. This guide walks you through switching to Custom mode and configuring it.

⚠️ Important Warning
Custom difficulty settings are only read when a new save is created. Setting Game Mode to Custom on an existing world will not apply these settings, you need a fresh world for them to take effect.

Step 1: Start a Fresh World with Game Swap

Since custom settings only apply to a new save, use the Game Swap feature on your MintServers panel first. This saves your current world to the side and gives you a clean instance to set up your custom difficulty on, without losing your existing progress.

Log into your MintServers panel and click Stop to shut down your server.

Use the Game Swap option to save your current world and create a new, empty instance.

💡 Tip
Game Swap is the recommended way to get a clean save without touching your existing world. If you don't need to keep your current world at all, you can instead delete your existing save files from the Files tab to force a fresh save the next time your server starts, but Game Swap is the safer option if you want to keep your progress.

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Step 2: Enable Custom Game Mode and Configure Settings

With a fresh instance ready, set Game Mode to Custom and fill in the individual settings you want inside the CustomGameModeSettings section of your configuration file.

Navigate to the Files tab on the left-hand sidebar.

Open the serverconfig folder, then open the dedicatedserver.cfg file.

Set GameMode to "custom".

Find the CustomGameModeSettings section and add or edit the settings you want to change, using the reference table below.

📄 dedicatedserver.cfg (excerpt)

"GameMode": "custom",
"CustomGameModeSettings": {
  "GameSetting.Vail.EnemySpawn": true,
  "GameSetting.Vail.EnemyHealth": "Normal",
  "GameSetting.Vail.EnemyDamage": "Normal",
  "GameSetting.Vail.EnemyArmour": "Normal",
  "GameSetting.Vail.EnemyAggression": "Normal",
  "GameSetting.Vail.AnimalSpawnRate": "Normal",
  "GameSetting.Environment.StartingSeason": "Summer",
  "GameSetting.Environment.SeasonLength": "Default",
  "GameSetting.Environment.DayLength": "Default",
  "GameSetting.Environment.PrecipitationFrequency": "Default",
  "GameSetting.Survival.ConsumableEffects": "Normal",
  "GameSetting.Survival.PlayerStatsDamage": "Off",
  "GameSetting.Survival.ColdPenalties": "Off",
  "GameSetting.Survival.ReducedFoodInContainers": false,
  "GameSetting.Survival.SingleUseContainers": false
}

ℹ️ JSON Formatting Rules
Text values need quotation marks, true/false and numbers don't, and every line except the last one in a section needs a comma at the end. A single missing quote or comma can stop your server from starting, so double-check the file before saving.

Click the Save Content button once you're happy with your settings.

Navigate back to the Console tab and click Start.

Custom Setting Reference

Enemies & Animals

GameSetting.Vail.EnemySpawn
true/false. Enables or disables enemy spawning entirely.

GameSetting.Vail.EnemyHealth
low, normal, high. Starting health of enemies.

GameSetting.Vail.EnemyDamage
low, normal, high. Amount of damage enemies deal.

GameSetting.Vail.EnemyArmour
low, normal, high. Amount of armor enemies have.

GameSetting.Vail.EnemyAggression
low, normal, high. Aggression level of enemies.

GameSetting.Vail.AnimalSpawnRate
low, normal, high. Spawn rate of animals.

Environment & Building

GameSetting.Environment.StartingSeason
spring, summer, autumn, winter.

GameSetting.Environment.SeasonLength
short, default, long, realistic.

GameSetting.Environment.DayLength
short, default, long, realistic.

GameSetting.Environment.PrecipitationFrequency
low, default, high. Frequency of rain and snow.

Structure.Damage
true/false. Allows player-built structures to take damage.

Survival

GameSetting.Survival.ConsumableEffects
normal, hard. Controls whether low hydration or fullness causes damage.

GameSetting.Survival.PlayerStatsDamage
off, normal, hard. Controls damage from eating bad or rotten food.

GameSetting.Survival.ColdPenalties
off, normal, hard. How much cold affects health and stamina regeneration.

GameSetting.Survival.ReducedFoodInContainers
true/false. Reduces the amount of food found in containers.

GameSetting.Survival.SingleUseContainers
true/false. Containers can only be opened once.

🛠️ Troubleshooting Custom Difficulty

Settings don't seem to be applying

Custom settings only take effect on a brand new save. Double check you used Game Swap (or deleted your existing save files) to start a fresh world before you started the server.

Server won't start after editing

This usually means invalid JSON in the config file, most commonly a missing comma or quotation mark. Compare your edits carefully against the example above.

Want to go back to a normal difficulty

Switch Game Mode back to normal, hard, hardsurvival, or peaceful, and use Game Swap again if you want a fresh world with that preset.

That's everything you need to build a custom difficulty tailored to how your group likes to play.

Still stuck?

Our team is happy to help. Open a ticket through the live chat button in the bottom-right corner of our website, or join our Discord and open a ticket there.

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