Once the difficulty level is set to hardcore it can not be lowered. With the other levels you can switch back and forth in the options.

Have you tried all of your previous saves? You would have to revert to an earlier save to play at a lower difficulty level. I'm not sure how the level could have been changed if you didn't do it yourself...


If you start a new game, it would be possible to cheat to get up to your current level / stats, and put your characters in the citadel room with the stairs leading to the start of act 2. If you would rather try this than continue with your current save, you should play enough to get the summoning doll, or use the inventory file trick to get it; the act 1 doll is the only one that can equip a ranged weapon (crossbow).

Hex editing - gold, experience, stat/skill points

Inventory files

Teleporting anywhere (via hex editor)


Alternately, you could use one or both of the first two links above to give your current characters a boost to compensate for the difficulty level.


On Hardcore, some of the random encounter, non-plot related NPCs are doubled. For example, there will be pairs of ghosts in the cells close to the arena, rather than one, and more rats in the starting cell block, but the guards there will not be doubled. While the greater number of opponents can make things more hectic, they also provide additional experience points which will level your characters faster than otherwise.

In general, your characters get one skill point each time they gain a level, with one extra skill point whenever the character level is evenly divisible by 5. There is a random bonus when playing on Hardcore, which gives each character a 30% chance of getting an extra skill point each level. This means there is a 9% chance that both characters will get an extra skill point at any particular level up.

In each act you can receive a summoning doll. The doll’s stats are determined by the difficulty setting when they are first summoned, and are better in harder difficulties.

When using permanent potions created by Alchemy, the effects do not depend on the difficulty setting for vitality, magic points or stamina potions. However, the potions for the primary stats do have a minor difference between settings; on Very Easy the bonus is 7, on Action or Tactical it is 8 and on Hardcore it is 10.