Are there any benefits of playing Minecraft at hard difficulty?

Like every other game, Minecraft also offers players the option to choose from different difficulty levels. When players create a new world, there are loads of options and customizations to choose from, including the difficulty of the survival world. While most players will choose normal, some go for easy, hard, or even hardcore modes.

These difficulty levels are quite straightforward to understand but they change quite a lot of the mechanics inside the game. Of course, players can enjoy the game in a similar way on any level of difficulty, but there are some benefits of playing on the hard difficulty. It not only challenges players to improve their skills, but prepares them for the most difficult gamemode in Minecraft as well.

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Benefits of playing Minecraft in hard difficulty

A more thrilling challenge

Hostile mobs in Minecraft will be much more powerful on hard difficulty (Image via Mojang)

As mentioned above, the game changes a lot of aspects when a player changes the difficulty level. For starters, all the hostile mobs in the game will become more powerful. They will deal more damage to the players and have more health. This will make fights more thrilling and challenging, pushing players to improve and change their combat style.

Additionally, hostile mob spawning will be more frequent in low light areas. This means that a higher number of hostile mobs will spawn if the game detects a low light area. When players enter a dark cave, they will encounter a hoard of hostile mobs attacking them all at once.

Players will get extra damage from all kinds of external factors in Minecraft (Image via Mojang)

Finally, damage or reduction of hearts due to external factors like burning, fall damage, or hunger will be more pronounced in the hard difficulty. Hence, if players want a tougher challenge and want to improve their gaming skills, they can set the world's difficulty level to hard. Gamers who have been playing Minecraft in normal or easy mode will definitely feel the increase in difficulty.

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Preparing for Hardcore mode

Players only have one life to survive in hardcore mode (Image via Mojang)

Another great reason to play on hard difficulty is if players are preparing or planning to jump into the hardcore gamemode. For years, the hardcore mode in Minecraft Java Edition has been famous for the rules it sets for a world. When gamers play in a hardcore world, they will not respawn once they die. This means that they only have one life in their entire journey.

Additionally, the hardcore mode is set to hard difficulty mode by default. Hence, if players want to jump to hardcore mode but want to practice their survival skills without losing the world with one death, they can choose hard difficulty mode in a normal survival world.

This way, players can experience what the hardcore mode will feel like in terms of fights and death risks. When players enter the hardcore mode after getting comfortable in hard difficulty, it will most definitely benefit them.