Difficulty

Overview

Difficulty is chosen when a campaign starts, and can be changed at any time outside combat, from the menu between missions. Nothing is locked in by the opening choice, so a campaign begun on Normal can be raised or lowered later without restarting. It changes more than enemy numbers: the higher settings withdraw a recovery option that the Den otherwise provides, which reshapes how injuries are managed across a whole run.

Settings

The four names come from the completion trophies, which ask for the campaign on each setting or higher; see Trophies & Achievements. Reviewers who played the finished game on the standard setting reported finishing without losing an Operator, and recommended that anyone with XCOM experience begin higher.

What Hard and Expert Take Away

The Bacta Tank is the Medbay’s instant-recovery option: it clears an Injury for Credits without costing a Cycle. On Hard and Expert it is unavailable, so every Injury has to be slept off in a standard bed, one Cycle each.

That single change is what makes the higher difficulties bite. An injured Operator is either benched for a Cycle or deployed carrying the Chance-to-Hit penalty, and with a small early roster there is often no third option. It also raises the cost of a bad turn: Injuries are the currency permadeath is counted in, and on these settings they clear slowly.

Beskar Mode

Beskar Mode is the game’s ironman toggle, set alongside the difficulty at campaign start. It commits the run to a single save, so outcomes cannot be undone by reloading: a lost Operator stays lost, and a failed mission stays failed.

Outside Beskar Mode the game keeps two autosaves worth reckoning with: one at the first round of every battle, and one at the start of each Cycle. The battle autosave means a disastrous fight can always be restarted from the top, but a loadout mistake spotted in the field costs a return to the Cycle save and the Den admin along with it. A mission can also be restarted outright from the game menu, keeping the same Operators.

References

If information is missing, it has not yet been confirmed. Corrections are welcome.