Crimson Moon Difficulty: The Six Levels & Hellish

The facts that are documented

• Six levels. “Each run can be completed in one of 6 levels of difficulty; the higher the difficulty, the higher the risk and reward” (support article What is a Mission?).
• Chosen at the War Table, alongside challenge modifiers, before you deploy.
• Locked per run. “The difficulty you select remains in force until the run is completed and the final boss is defeated.” You can change it only after the run ends in victory or death.
• Rewards scale. The July Loot & Progression post: “higher difficulty levels offer increased rewards, including more opportunities to earn higher-rarity gear”. The wiki’s purification page adds that “the Tier of equipment drops depends on the difficulty level of each Run”.
• Hellish is a named tier. The achievement Hellish — “Complete a District Mission on Hellish difficulty or higher” — sits at 0.5% of players as of 2 September 2026, the second-rarest in the game.
• Co-op scales separately. Party size adjusts enemy composition and difficulty dynamically; co-op “amplifies intensity rather than reducing it”.

What is not documented anywhere official: the names of the other five tiers, the exact rarity odds per tier, and whether Hellish is the top. We are not going to invent them; this page will be updated when a patch note or the wiki fills the gap.

How the developers want you to use it

The Core Gameplay Loop article gives the intended rhythm after every run: “If you are struggling to clear runs, consider a lower difficulty to progress and slowly upgrade. If you find runs too easy or are looking to upgrade faster, consider a higher difficulty, but be warned, the Hellgrowth will not show you mercy.”

That is also the game’s endgame model. Permanent power comes from character level (stats, lives, Angel forms), purified gear and Blacksmith upgrades — and the Blacksmith’s ceiling is level-gated (Rare at 4, Epic at 12). Higher difficulties feed the same loop faster by dropping better tiers. The Completionist achievement — every primary mission and boss across runs — was at 0.4% after day one.

Reading the launch-day numbers

One day after release the Steam completion funnel looked like this: Prologue 90.9%, The Forsaken Streets 49.2%, Archspire Cathedral 19.7%, No Deaths in a district 13.9%, Hellish 0.5%. A “to hard?” thread and several “IA game for 20 euro” style complaints on the Steam forums sit next to reviews saying the game “does not deserve to be sitting at mostly negative” — the split is between players who lowered the difficulty after the Prologue and players who did not. The support team’s advice above is the answer to the thread.

Modifiers

The War Table also lets you “apply challenge modifiers” (support article Hub: Church / Sanctus Clypeus), and the store page promises “each triumph earning you new missions, modifiers, and skill achievements”. No list of modifiers has been published; the wiki has no page for them yet.

Related

• How runs work — the life pool and what a failed run costs.
• Level unlocks — the drop-tier floors at levels 6, 11 and 13.
• Achievements — every unlock rate, including Hellish and No Deaths.