Nights & Difficulty

Choose how many nights to survive, and how hard the game leans on you while you do it.

Night options

Both Survive Alone and Host Co-op let you pick a target: 3, 5, 7 (default), 10, 15, 20, or Endless (stored internally as 0). Once you survive the final required night, the chains come off the front doors and you can walk out for a bonus — or keep playing for score, since Endless never opens the doors on its own until you choose to stop... actually the doors open the morning after the last required night even outside Endless. In Endless mode there is no required-night count, so the doors never open and the run continues until everyone is caught.

Difficulty table

Bob is a threat from night 1 in every difficulty — difficulty does not delay him. What difficulty actually changes is how long you have each day and night, and how much resentment Grump accrues automatically every night.

How things scale with the night number

Nothing in the game reads difficulty beyond the table above; almost everything else scales off the current night number instead:

• Bob's patrol speed: 1.5 + min(0.7, (night−1) × 0.12) — caps out around night 7.
• Bob's chase speed: 3.6 + min(1.0, (night−1) × 0.16) — caps around night 8.
• Bob starts turning lights off behind him from night 2 onward.
• Bob's chance to find you if you're hiding nearby when he investigates: clamp(0.18 + night × 0.025, 0.18, 0.42).
• Generator fuel burn is multiplied by 1 + min(9, night−1) × 0.10 — up to 1.9× by night 10. See The Generator & Power.
• Messes per day: clamp(3 + night, 3, 10) — 3 on night 1, capped at 10 from night 7.
• Toddlers per day: clamp(2 + floor(night/2), 2, 5) — 2 on nights 1–2, capped at 5 from night 7.
• Loot scarcity: the "nothing found" weight in every loot table multiplies by 1 + min(7, night−1) × 0.32, so searches get leaner every night up to night 8. See Loot Tables.
• Grump's hunt speed (once turned): clamp(3.3 + night × 0.18, 3.3, 5.2), further ×0.85 during daylight hours — caps around night 11.
• Grump's tolerance for standing under lights (once turned) before he retreats: 4 + min(10, night) × 0.6 seconds.

Night modifiers

From night 5 onward, every night rolls one twist. From night 10 onward, it rolls two (picked without repeats). Modifiers are chosen deterministically from the seed, so the same seed always rolls the same modifiers on the same night.

Escaping

The morning after you survive the final required night, the chains come off the front doors ("The front doors are open") and you can walk out through them (hold E for 2 seconds) to end the run as a win, or keep playing for more score. In co-op, one player escaping ends the run as a win for everyone still alive. In Endless mode there is no final night, so the doors never unlock.

Getting caught by Bob does not end a run by itself — after his jumpscare he drops you (and some of your things) in Lost & Found and knocks you to 100% fear. Grump catching you deals heavy damage and can end the run if it drops you to 0 health while downed timers run out. See Bob the Janitor and Grump for what each catch actually does.