Don’t Starve Together has five game modes, and the crucial difference is what death does to both the character and the shared world. Relaxed removes much of the environmental danger, Endless keeps a world running indefinitely, Survival is the standard high-stakes cooperative mode, Wilderness makes each character life disposable, and Lights Out turns Survival’s darkness into a permanent condition.
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What the five modes actually change
When you host a Don’t Starve Together world, the mode determines more than a difficulty label. It establishes the rules for character death, ghost resurrection, personal progress, world persistence and environmental pressure. Those rules decide whether a mistake costs a little health, a character’s entire history, or the whole server.
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- Relaxed: a forgiving environment with reduced damage and protection from several environmental causes of death.
- Endless: a persistent sandbox where the world never resets and ghosts can repeatedly return through the Florid Postern, at a maximum-health cost.
- Survival: the standard cooperative experience, with ghosts after death and a possible world reset if every player remains dead.
- Wilderness: a mode where death ends that character’s life permanently, but the shared world continues.
- Lights Out: a Survival variant in which night never ends.
Game modes compared at a glance
| Mode | What happens when a character dies? | Resurrection | Does the world persist? | Personal-progress loss | Environmental pressure |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Relaxed | The mode is designed to prevent or soften common deaths. | Available through the Florid Postern without the maximum-health penalty described for Endless. | Not stated as a reset-focused mode; its defining changes are reduced danger and easier recovery. | No personal wipe is specified in the mode description. | No death from starvation, freezing, overheating or darkness; incoming damage is reduced. |
| Endless | The player becomes a ghost. | The ghost can use the Florid Postern repeatedly, but each resurrection applies a maximum-health penalty. | Yes. The world never resets. | No character-progress wipe is specified; the stated cost is maximum health. | Normal world pressure remains; the mode’s safety comes from persistence and repeatable resurrection. |
| Survival | The player becomes a ghost. If everyone is dead, a 120-second timer begins. | Ghosts must be revived before the all-player timer expires. | Only while the group keeps someone alive or revives a player in time. If the timer expires with nobody revived, the world resets. | No personal-progress wipe is specified for an ordinary death. | Standard Don’t Starve Together hazards and the clearest shared-world stakes. |
| Wilderness | The character does not become a ghost. The player returns to character selection. | No resurrection for the dead character; the player chooses a character and respawns as if joining the server again. | Yes. The shared world never resets. | That character’s map progress, prototypes, blueprints and survived-day counter are wiped. | Normal survival pressure, plus random spawning and the loss of a character’s accumulated knowledge. |
| Lights Out | It follows Survival’s death rules. | It follows Survival’s resurrection rules. | It follows Survival’s all-player-death reset rule. | It follows Survival’s personal-death behavior. | Night is permanent, making visibility management a constant challenge. |
Relaxed: the low-pressure onboarding mode
What Relaxed removes
Relaxed is intended for players who want to learn the game without ordinary environmental mistakes ending a run. Characters do not die from starvation, freezing, overheating or darkness. Incoming damage is also reduced, so hostile encounters and other sources of harm are less punishing.
How resurrection works
Resurrection is always available through the Florid Postern. Unlike Endless, Relaxed does not apply the maximum-health penalty described for portal resurrection. That means the mode’s recovery system is forgiving without attaching the specific health trade-off used by Endless.
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Who should choose it
Choose Relaxed for low-pressure onboarding, younger or inexperienced groups, or a server whose main purpose is experimenting with characters, crafting and world systems. It is also useful when a group wants cooperation without making every food, temperature or light mistake carry a permanent consequence.
Endless: a persistent sandbox for learning and long campaigns
The defining rule
Endless is the mode to select when the shared world should remain available indefinitely. It is similar to Survival in ordinary play, but the world never resets. A bad expedition can cost a life without erasing the settlement, explored map or ongoing project that the group has built.
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Death, ghosts and the Florid Postern
After death, the player becomes a ghost. That ghost can resurrect itself at the Florid Postern, and the process can be repeated. The trade-off is a maximum-health penalty each time. Endless therefore does not make death free: repeated mistakes leave a character with less maximum health, making later survival more difficult.
Why groups use Endless
Endless is especially useful when players are still learning seasonal hazards, creature behavior, resource cycles or the consequences of exploring too far from camp. The group can continue practicing in the same world rather than restarting after an all-player failure. It is also a sensible choice for a long-running cooperative server where continuity matters more than strict punishment.
That persistence does not remove the ordinary pressures of the game. Players still have to manage the world; Endless changes the consequences of death and the server’s lifespan rather than turning the environment into Relaxed mode.
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Survival: the standard cooperative challenge
What happens after an individual death
Survival is the default cooperative experience. A dead player becomes a ghost, creating a clear separation between the living players who can act in the world and the dead player who needs help returning.
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The defining shared-world risk appears when every player is dead. At that point, a 120-second timer starts. If nobody is revived before it expires, the world resets. The timer does not begin merely because one player dies; it is triggered by the entire group being dead.
This rule makes Survival different from Endless even when the moment-to-moment gameplay looks similar. In Endless, the world is permanent. In Survival, a complete party wipe can erase the current world if the group cannot recover within the stated window.
Who should choose Survival
Pick Survival when your group understands the basics and wants deaths to matter. It creates the strongest link between individual decisions and the shared settlement: a reckless trip can require a rescue, and a total wipe can end that world’s run. It is the appropriate mode for players seeking the recognizable Don’t Starve Together stakes rather than a protected learning environment.
Wilderness: every character life is disposable
Death is not a ghost state
Wilderness changes the meaning of a life more radically than the other modes. When a character dies, that character does not become a ghost and cannot be resurrected. Instead, the player returns to character selection and can choose a character to respawn as if joining the server again.
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What the dead character loses
The dead character’s personal history is wiped. That includes map progress, prototypes, blueprints and the survived-day counter. The loss is attached to the character who died, not to the shared world.
Why the world remains valuable
The shared world never resets in Wilderness. A base, its surrounding geography and the group’s ongoing construction can remain in place while an individual player starts over with a new character. This creates a different kind of risk from Survival: the server persists, but personal investment is fragile.
Transferring map knowledge
Map knowledge can be transferred through Map Scrolls left in the world. This gives a group a way to preserve and pass on geographic information even though the dead character’s own map progress is erased. Players who care about exploration should treat those scrolls as a deliberate continuity tool rather than assuming a replacement character will inherit the old map.
Who should choose Wilderness
Choose Wilderness when you want each life to feel replaceable while keeping the same world alive. It suits groups that enjoy rotating characters, role-playing a succession of survivors or accepting that personal discoveries may have to be rebuilt. It is a poor fit for players who want a death to be reversible through ghost play or who dislike losing blueprints and prototypes tied to a character.
Lights Out: Survival with permanent night
The one rule that defines it
Lights Out is a dark variant of Survival. Night is permanent, so darkness is not a temporary phase that the group can simply wait through. Visibility and light management remain part of the challenge at all times.
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Everything else follows Survival
Lights Out uses Survival’s broader death model. Players become ghosts after death, and the all-player-death situation follows Survival’s rule: if everyone is dead and nobody is revived before the 120-second timer expires, the world resets. The mode is therefore not an Endless-style permanent world with darkness added; it is a permanent-night challenge built on Survival’s shared-world stakes.
Who should choose it
Use Lights Out only when the whole group specifically wants constant darkness management. It is aimed at players who already understand ordinary Survival and are looking for an intentional challenge, not at beginners learning the basic systems for the first time.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.Which mode is best for beginners?
Start with Relaxed when the group is completely new
Relaxed is the safest first stop for players who are unfamiliar with hunger, temperature, darkness and combat. Removing death from starvation, freezing, overheating and darkness lets the group learn controls, crafting and exploration without having to master every survival system immediately.
Move to Endless when you want normal pressure without resets
Endless is the strongest learning mode once players want the ordinary environment back. It preserves the world permanently and allows repeatable Florid Postern resurrection, while still making death meaningful through the maximum-health penalty.
Use Survival for real shared-world stakes
After the group is comfortable recovering from individual deaths, Survival introduces the possibility that a complete party wipe can reset the world. It is the natural progression for players who want the standard cooperative experience.
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Save Wilderness and Lights Out for deliberate challenges
Wilderness is best when losing a character’s personal progress is part of the appeal. Lights Out is best when the group wants permanent night. Neither is the gentle introduction to the game: one removes ghost recovery and personal history, while the other makes darkness constant on top of Survival’s reset risk.
How to choose before hosting
- Decide whether the world or the character should be protected. Choose Endless or Wilderness if the shared world must survive a catastrophe. Choose Survival only if the group accepts that an unrecovered total wipe can reset it.
- Decide how reversible death should be. Relaxed offers the most forgiving recovery, Endless permits repeated portal resurrection with a maximum-health cost, Survival relies on timely revival, and Wilderness provides no resurrection for the dead character.
- Decide whether personal progress may be erased. Wilderness explicitly wipes the dead character’s map progress, prototypes, blueprints and survived-day counter. The other mode descriptions do not specify that personal wipe.
- Decide how much environmental pressure the group wants. Relaxed removes several environmental death causes and reduces damage. Lights Out does the opposite by making night permanent. Endless and Survival retain the ordinary environmental challenge.
- Match the choice to the group’s experience. A mixed-experience group generally benefits from Relaxed or Endless first. A practiced group seeking consequences can choose Survival, while Wilderness and Lights Out should be intentional choices made by everyone before the world is created.
Common misunderstandings cleared up
“Is Endless just Survival without a reset?”
It is close, but not identical. Endless keeps the world from resetting and lets ghosts resurrect repeatedly at the Florid Postern. Each resurrection still imposes a maximum-health penalty, so the mode replaces a world-ending failure with an accumulating character cost.
“Does one death reset a Survival world?”
No. The 120-second reset timer starts only when every player is dead. If at least one player remains alive, the world has not entered that all-player-death condition.
“Is Wilderness permadeath?”
For the individual character, yes: the dead character cannot become a ghost or be resurrected, and its personal progress is wiped. For the server, no: the shared world never resets, and the player can select another character to continue there.
“Does Lights Out remove resurrection?”
No. Lights Out follows Survival’s death and resurrection rules. Its defining change is permanent night, not the removal of ghosts or the addition of Wilderness-style character wipes.
“Does Relaxed make every danger harmless?”
It removes death from starvation, freezing, overheating and darkness and reduces incoming damage. That is a substantial reduction in pressure, but it should not be described as the same ruleset as Endless or as a blanket statement that every possible danger is harmless.
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The practical rule of thumb
A useful progression is to learn in Endless, move to Survival for real shared-world stakes, and try Wilderness when you want every life to feel disposable. Choose Relaxed when the goal is low-pressure onboarding, and reserve Lights Out for groups that specifically want a permanent-night challenge.
Quick Recap
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