Nuclear Neighbors BETA Difficulty Ranks

Nuclear Neighbors BETA lists day-survival badges on three difficulties: Normal, HARD, and DEADLY. The neighborhood is the same public-BETA map. The difference is how far the day counter is expected to climb and how little slack you get when an encounter fires. This page is a who-should-play-what guide, not a hidden multiplier spreadsheet. Building Adventure has not published official HP scales. We rank modes from the badge ladder and from the fact that One Above All (DEADLY day 50) still had 0 awards in our September 2026 research.

Servers hold up to 20 players. That is online play, not a local couch mode. A clean Normal day 10 in a quiet bunker is a different sport from the same day in a full lobby that just multiplied Skeleto. Pick the mode that matches your roster, then pick a day target. Do not queue DEADLY because the name looks cool.

The game is a public BETA. Expect bugs, odd day ticks, and patches. Check updates before you assume a wipe was “just HARD.”

The badge ladder

Mode	Day targets	Notes from Sep 2026 research
Normal	1, 5, 10, 50, 100	First day jitters, Home sick, Getting cozy, True survivor, Help me
HARD	10, 50	Skin and Bones (10), Pure Radiation (50)
DEADLY	5, 50	THE END IS NEAR (5), One Above All (50) at 0 awards

Award counts for most day badges were not listed in the snapshot, so this page does not invent them. The two numbers we will repeat: encounter noise is high on Normal (Toilet troubles near 40,000), and DEADLY day 50 is untouched. Track every stamp on the badge checklist.

Normal — who should play it

Play Normal if you are new, if your 20-player crew has never shared a bunker, or if you still panic at the toilet creature. Normal is where you learn loot routes, hygiene, food, and the difference between a C-tier pest and an S-tier grab. Read getting started and how to survive before you care about HARD.

Day 1 — First day jitters. Prove you can close a single day without a circus. If you cannot finish day 1, you do not have a Hatman problem. You have a basics problem.

Day 5 — Home sick. First real stretch. Random encounters have had time to appear. If police rats BUSTED you here (~1,879 awards on that badge), treat it as a lesson, not a reason to swap to DEADLY.

Day 10 — Getting cozy. The first “we are actually surviving” stamp. Time thief (39 awards) asks for day 10 in under five minutes — that is a separate speed dare, not Getting cozy. Do not mix them up.

Day 50 — True survivor — and day 100 — Help me. Long Normal runs. This is where Hatman, Skeleto, the mysterious fridge, and the cryo pod have room to show up. Farm endings such as Alien Saviors on Normal unless a patch note says otherwise. Help me is a stamina test for the whole 20-player roster, not a solo screenshot.

Normal is also the right place to look at the encounter rankings. You want to see Toilet troubles, Child of Radiation, and the spin wheel in a context where a wipe is annoying, not a four-hour loss.

HARD — who should play it

Play HARD if your crew already owns the early Normal stamps and can call out S-tier neighbors without dissolving the lobby. HARD badges exist at day 10 and day 50. There is no HARD day 1 candy. The mode assumes you already know how to loot and how not to multiply skeletons.

HARD 10 — Skin and Bones. A placement exam. If you cannot hit Getting cozy on Normal while keeping showers and food stable, Skin and Bones will feel like the same neighborhood with less forgiveness. Bring people who have read encounters, not people who just installed Roblox.

HARD 50 — Pure Radiation. A long run with less margin. Fridge events, cryo pods, and Hatman takes that were funny on Normal become run-ending. Assign jobs in a 20-player server: who loots, who watches doors, who refuses to touch Skeleto. If your group still treats Get taken by Hatman as content, stay on Normal.

HARD is not a secret map. If you came here hoping for extra codes or a different neighborhood, stop. No official promo codes are confirmed. Codes stays empty of invented strings. Difficulty is a ruleset, not a loot table.

DEADLY — who should play it

Play DEADLY only if you already respect HARD and you are doing it on purpose. Badges exist at day 5 and day 50.

DEADLY 5 — THE END IS NEAR. An early stamp that still asks you to survive a nasty ruleset. It is not a tutorial. If Home sick on Normal was messy, THE END IS NEAR is a throw. Use it as a short, honest check: can this 20-player roster follow call-outs for five days without a clown wipe?

DEADLY 50 — One Above All. 0 awards in the September 2026 snapshot. Treat that as a live warning. The badge is in the game. Public completions were not. This wiki will not pretend a route exists. If you attempt it, treat every S-tier row on the Encounter Tier List Hub as a possible end: Hatman takes, Skeleto piles, unsolved cryptids, cricket Awkward.. conditions. Record what actually happened and compare it with updates after patches.

DEADLY is a terrible place to learn the vampire friend, the mutated beans can, or the mysterious fridge. Those B-tier events need Normal reps so you recognize them when the mode name is already screaming.

A simple queue rule

1. New player, random 20-player fill, or first night in the bunker → Normal, First day jitters → Home sick → Getting cozy.
2. Stable crew that can last True survivor without multiplying Skeleto → Skin and Bones, then Pure Radiation if the lobby stays disciplined.
3. Completionists who already own Pure Radiation and want the ugly badge → THE END IS NEAR as a probe, One Above All only as a dedicated session.
4. Badge hunters chasing Toilet troubles, Spin the wheel!, or First day jitters → stay Normal.
5. People chasing Cryptid Killer or Awkward.. at 0 awards → still on Normal or a private agreed hunt, not DEADLY, until the hunt is actually solved.

If two groups in the same server want different modes, you do not have a tier-list problem. You have a lobby problem. Split or pick the lower mode. The public BETA will still be there tomorrow.

Pair this page with how to survive so day targets have a routine underneath them. Pair it with players so you know which neighbor is worth a call-out. Mode names do not kill you. Uncalled Hatman in a 20-player DEADLY lobby does.