When you create a world in Permafrost, the difficulty screen gives you three cards and no numbers. Story and Survival are the two you can click; Custom sits greyed out and will not respond. Each card carries a one-line description, and tapping one drops you straight into the game with no further setup. The gap between the two presets is small on paper and enormous in your first hour of play, and most of it comes down to one thing: whether the cold can kill you on night one.
Quick answer: Pick Story for a first run, because the opening night cannot kill you in the starting clothes and seven raw Edible Roots in a row gave no Parasites. Pick Survival when you want the first night to be a real problem to solve.
What the difficulty screen shows
The world creation menu is headed “NAME AND DIFFICULTY OF THE WORLD.” Story reads, “For players who want to focus on exploration, base-building, and narrative.” Survival reads, “For experienced survivors who want a demanding challenge. Scarcer resources, harsher conditions, tougher consequences.” Custom reads, “For players who prefer a more personalized experience, matching their own preferred playstyle,” but its card cannot be selected.
Clicking Story or Survival loads the world immediately, so there are no sliders to adjust at the start.
Starting stats on Story vs Survival
You begin both difficulties with the same Body Warmth and Health. The differences are in your Hunger, Energy, and Stamina. Story hands you a quarter more Stamina and a slightly fuller stomach.
| Stat at the start | Story | Survival |
|---|---|---|
| Body Warmth | 125 / 300 | 125 / 300 |
| Health | 167 / 300 | 167 / 300 |
| Hunger | 197 / 300 | 183 / 300 |
| Energy | 235 / 300 | 230 / 300 |
| Stamina | 375 / 375 | 300 / 300 |
The first night is where the two split
At the starting cabin, Story runs its nights at -27°C and its days around -21°C. Survival drops to -33°C to -34°C at night and -26°C to -27°C by day. Your starting clothes are rated at about -26°C on both, so the gear that keeps you alive on one difficulty leaves you exposed on the other.
On Survival, the first night brings up the “BONE-CHILLING COLD” alert. Body Warmth drops to 0, after which Health keeps falling until death. During that same night on Story, Body Warmth stayed at 300/300 outdoors; there was no cold alert, and no fire had been started. That contrast is what makes one preset more forgiving. If you are on Survival, you need a heat plan before 19:00: a Campfire, the cabin, or the Horizon settlement.
Food and parasites: raw roots on Story and on Survival
Edible Root restores Hunger 15 and Health 15 per piece. On Story, seven eaten in a row gave the full Health and roughly +14 Hunger each with no Parasites. On Survival, Parasites appeared after just two raw roots.
Parasites carry a “Stamina Gain Rate -30 %” penalty and the tooltip tells you the remedy is medication or alcohol.
Hunger still drains on Story, at about 5 points a real minute whether you stand still or run, roughly 5 to 7 per in-game hour. A full 300 bar lasts about an hour of play, so Story does not switch hunger off.
Resource yields and container contents
Each Trunk piece of a felled tree, picked up with F, gave 3 Wood on Story and 4 Wood on Survival. That is one of the few cases where Survival hands you more, though it comes with far harsher conditions overall.
Some container and trader contents differed between the two worlds, but those gaps may simply vary from world to world rather than being set by difficulty. A wooden crate by the Horizon kitchen held Deer Pelt 1 and Stone 3 on Story, and Boar Pelt 1 and Stone 2 on Survival. The Horizon trader’s first-visit shelf and wallet also read differently (838 Bucks on Story, 796 on Survival). Robyn’s reward box was identical on both: a Dish, 30 Bucks, 6 Cloth, 2 Bandage, and the Survivor’s Backpack.
Recipes, build costs, and tooltips are the same
Crafting and building costs do not change between the presets. The recipes seen on both read the same:
- Campfire: 2 Stone
- Bed: 5 Cloth + 5 Wood
- Stone Axe: 2 Stone + 4 Wood
- Stone Shiv: 1 Stone + 2 Wood
- Rope: 2 Cloth
Item tooltips are also identical across the two presets. The Makeshift Bandage restores HEALTH 70, the Bandage restores HEALTH 90 and stops bleeding, a Dish restores HUNGER 90, and the Stone Axe deals DAMAGE 10.
What Story does not remove
Story is easier, not a sandbox. The core survival systems still apply:
- Hunger remains important: when it hits 0, Starving drains Health regardless of difficulty.
- Tools continue to wear down, and an axe, pickaxe, and shiv are still required.
- Locked doors and No-Build Zones stay in place.
- An in-game hour takes around 1.4 real minutes as day turns to night, making a complete day approximately 33 minutes.
- Energy still depletes, hitting 0 and “Exhausted” after about 62 in-game hours awake.
Which difficulty to pick
Choose Story if this is your first time in the frozen world. The opening night cannot kill you in the starting clothes, seven raw Edible Roots in a row gave no Parasites, and the Stamina bar is a quarter longer, which buys you time to learn the map and the crafting loop before the cold becomes a serious threat. Choose Survival when you want the first night to be a problem to solve. There the cold is the clock: a Campfire, the cabin, or Horizon before 19:00 is the difference between morning and death, and Parasites followed two raw Edible Roots.
The world list shows an EDIT button on a saved world, and it opens the name-and-difficulty screen again; don’t rely on being able to change a preset after world creation. Custom is still displayed, but its card is unselectable, so there is no clickable personalized option at present. For the most straightforward choice, pick Story or Survival as you create the world, according to how strongly you want the cold to challenge you.
