Difficulty, scenarios, and sandbox

The official FAQ describes multiple difficulties, a Sandbox with no story pressure where you pick the map and the difficulty, story scenarios across biomes, and endless challenges. Replay comes from procedural ore layers, vein positions, storms, and attack routes. That is the whole official mode list.

First Step — finish the story on any difficulty — was at 12.9% of players. First Try was at 4.9%. Struggle was at 7.9%. Trial by Fire, clear on Challenge, was at 0.2%. Flying Blind was at 0.1%. The descriptions name those tiers; completion percentages do not establish their ranking or numeric multiplier.

A player trying the first scenario on maximum difficulty wrote that they could place two advanced turrets and still died to the second wave before a tier-2 lab existed. One source. An 8-hour review describes the second scenario as a wall of shortages, rock throwers, drought, homeless population over 100, no lab, and a meteor shower. One source. These are separate complaints about the first and second scenarios, not proof of one shared difficulty spike or a numeric multiplier.

“Perpetual Night” is a player discussion title describing prolonged darkness, solar panels stopping, and rain or snow. The thread does not establish a selectable game modifier. The top weather chart still forecasts day by day. One long reply says the first two days are usually clear, so solar plus a battery has to exist before the dark stretch, and that hovering the green energy bar shows remaining hours. One source. The reported condition is also a row on the events table.

One player said the story-clear achievement popped after the first map even though two maps remained. One source, and it does not contradict the 12.9% First Step rate. I file it as a report about achievement timing, not as the official ending rule. Scene count and hours-per-map were not published.