Welcome to Elderfield Difficulty Screen: What the First Hours Set Up

The thing worth pausing on in the first few hours is the difficulty screen.

Tattooed Nadia’s first live episode (2h37m, 14 September 2026) captures it in full. What it reveals matters far more than a simple/easy/normal choice: difficulty in this game also sets what dying costs you.

What the difficulty screen actually configures

The streamer reads the panel out item by item. Past the presets there is a custom tier, which she calls “a custom cozy game”. It contains:

Read it as one sentence: the first two set the economic cost of dying, the last two set how hard the fights are.

That explains the split you see in reviews. Some players say the game is not hard while also saying they were on edge the whole time. The tiers differ in failure cost as much as in numbers.

One practical takeaway. If you are planning a long expedition, a full mine descent for example, factor in the rollback and the erased autosave first. An accident then costs you far less.

Character creation and the opening

Creation runs in order: hair, hair colour, skin, body and face, shirt colour, trouser colour, then a rotate option. Not many choices, and you are playing within a couple of minutes.

The opening is a fixed monologue that sets the premise clearly. A few lines are worth keeping, because they explain the setup:

In a peculiar land buried by the forest, a strange wind always blows… The town’s folk shuffle about in a days, numb to the touch of the old gods… Will you run from the secrets of Elderfield or answer their mysterious call?

In plain terms: the townspeople have long since gone numb to the old gods, and the game is asking whether you settle into chores or answer the call.

That is not just atmosphere. It foreshadows the central split in the game. Avoiding exploration and answering the mysteries lead to different outcomes.

The first weapon is in the Old Woods

Out past the farm, the streamer finds her first crate in the Old Woods: Spoiled rations. The next crate gives A wooden stick, and the game prompts Before continuing, equip your new weapon.

Two useful facts come out of that. You genuinely have no weapon at the start - the stick is the first one - so do not push deep early. And crates are a resource source outside the main quest, so open every one you pass. Later in the same episode she pulls a solid loot run out of exactly that habit.

The first tax demand: six wheat and two radishes

At the end of the episode the Tax Man hands her the first round: So, for my next arrival… Six wheat and two radishes. She immediately starts working out how much money she has.

The moment is typical. The first tax payment is how the game teaches you to get the farm running. His full mechanics, blessings and curse values are on the Tax Man page.

Her own verdict

She closes with a line that gets the game right: It's very much a Stardew look outside kind of game and I'm really into it.

Naming Stardew Valley and Look Outside together actually identifies both of its parents: the farm loop comes from the first, the unease comes from the second.

Still unconfirmed

This is a live VOD with no official chapters, so there is no timeline here.

The custom difficulty entries are in the order the streamer read them aloud; the on-screen grouping may differ slightly.

This video has no public comments and no available live chat log. Its comment section is not invented here.

Opening systems and moon rules are in the beginner guide. The edited first episode is walkthrough part 1.

The video

Embedded above: Welcome to Elderfield (Part 1) by Tattooed Nadia.

Facts checked 2026-09-16. Difficulty options and interface wording can change with patches.