Hard Mode
A realm you have already cleared can be run again on Hard. Enemies carry more health, hit harder, and their strike timers come round sooner. The realm adds a hazard of its own to your board, and the road to the boss runs longer with its echo planted where every route has to cross it. That one cannot be turned down, and there is no free retry waiting if you fall — a defeat ends the run. Beat the boss and you keep a bronze key on top of the usual spoils.
In detail
Offered on run setup for any realm you have already cleared, and locked for the whole run, so Continue resumes the difficulty it started on. Enemies carry 35% more health, hit 50% harder and swing 25% sooner. Every realm adds a board hazard on Hard and raises whatever it already does to your runes; the realm's own difficulty panel lists its exact rules. The map runs two rows longer, 12 against 10, carries one more ? node, and seats the realm's echo on a node every route must cross rather than hiding it at random. That echo cannot be declined: its approach offers no retreat, because leaving would only return you to a map whose one open node is the one you left. A normal run carries one free retry, spent from the defeat screen to refight the node you fell on; Hard carries none, so a defeat is the end of the run. Clearing the boss pays a bronze key on top of the usual spoils, every time; falling or abandoning the run pays nothing. Loot tables, drop rates and shop prices are identical at both difficulties. Daily and weekly challenges already fight at Hard but generate their own maps and pay their own ladder, so neither the forced echo nor the bronze key applies to them. Co-op requires both players to have cleared the realm.
More in glossary
From the current development build. Content and balance may change before release. This public reference includes discoveries and does not reflect your personal unlocks.