Maybe a 'Max Running Speed' limiter slide in the settings, so that people can dial-in their difficulty?
I'll be completely honest with you. You're playing the first region of the game, it isn't supposed to be hard. For example. The cheetah. A possible planned predator for the desert/wasteland area. Her traits include being fast as fuck boi, but only being triggered to chase you if you run from her after she spots you.
All of this will come after we have our lifestyle director built, which is a universal AI handling tool to manage a couple of hundred AI spawning on the map at once (right now we have 8-10 AI spawning and recycling them), along with a per species uniqueness to them. Like roaming in packs, or being kinda dull during sunny days.
Later areas will also have a lot of hazards that are very difficult to spot, and some that require a trap, then a predator to come along and finish the job. Think spider web or something like that (not saying we will have spiders but you get the idea).
But yeah, the plains, thats ezmode to help flow new users into the world and game systems.