Desperados III features four different difficulty levels, namely 
Beginner, 
Medium, 
Hard, and the highest 
Desperado. Alternatively it also allows you to customize the difficulty by tuning the individual parameters and combining them from different difficulty levels. The difficulty can be adjusted every time before starting a new mission.
Parameters[]
The following parameters can or will be adjusted by the selected difficulty setting:
- Enemy setups
Beginner: Fewer Enemies, Fewer Ponchos and Long Coats- Medium: Standard Enemy Setups
- Hard and Desperado: Additional Enemies, More Ponchos and Long Coats
- Player Health
Hector Everybody else Recovery frames Beginner
6 4 Medium
5 3 Hard
4 2 Fewer recovery frames Desperado
4 2 No recovery frames - Player Ammo (Start/in Crate)
Cooper McCoy Hector Kate Isabelle Beginner
8/6 5/4 4/4 5/4 4/2 Medium
8/6 4/3 3/2 4/3 3/2 Hard
6/4 3/3 2/2 3/2 3/2 Desperado
4/2 2/2 2/1 2/2 3/2 - Detection speed (Standard detection/Violence detection)
- Beginner: 0.7/0.9
- Medium: 1.0/1.4
- Hard: 2.8/3.5
- Desperado: 10/10
- Amount of saves
- By default this is set to unlimited but it can be customized and set to one of None, 1, 2, 3, 5, 10, or 20.
- Pause during Showdown mode
- Beginner, Medium, and Hard: On
- Desperado: Off, can not be turned on if the overall difficulty is determined to be Desperado level
Categorization of Custom Difficulties[]
When using customized difficulty settings the game still categorizes the result into one of the four difficulties. This level is then displayed after completing the level and used to determine eligibility for the "complete this level on Hard" badge.
The difficulty is calculated using a points system. Each parameter gives the following points:
- Enemy setup: 0/1/2
- Player Health: 0/1/2/3
- Player Ammo: 0/1/2/3
- Detection speed: 0/2/4/6
The other parameters don't have any influence on the determined difficulty but Pause during Showdown mode can not be activated when the difficulty is calculated as Desperado.
The sum of points determines the calculated difficulty: 0-2/3-6/7-10/11-14.