Skip to content

First steps

From empty hands on the beach to your first house: a route through your first days in the game.

You start on a random strip of sand at the edge of the ocean, wearing nothing but a pair of trousers. In a few evenings this guide takes you from bare survival to a homestead of your own.

1. Pick up what you see

Branches, stones, flint and fibre lie on the ground everywhere. Look at them and press E to pick them up. Tab opens your inventory: a leather pouch in which you can drag your belongings around freely. There is no grid. You can carry 50 kg + your STR.

Foraging is your first gathering skill: berries, fibre, flint and herbs. Every action gives a little XP.

2. Make a knife and an axe

Open the crafting window with V. A fresh character can make a knife from a branch and flint straight away. Next comes the primitive axe, and with that you fell your first tree. Woodcraft is the skill for felling and planting trees.

Tools wear out. A broken tool stays in your hotbar, but then hits like a bare fist. A repair costs one stone and keeps the quality intact.

3. Logs become planks

You make the Joiner's bench by hand from 12 branches, 10 fibre and 4 stone. On it you saw logs into planks and billets. With those you build your first station, your tools and your house.

4. Level the ground

Buildings need level ground. With a shovel you dig (LMB), dump (RMB) and level (F). A tile is 2 by 2 metres and is buildable if its height difference is no more than 0.3 metres. Read Terraforming for the details.

5. Get a roof over your head

Take out the hammer, right-click and choose a category. You first place a blueprint. Then you deposit materials and complete the build steps: each step takes 15 seconds and processes up to 100 kg. A sod hut or field hut is enough for the first night. Press U inside your house to make it your home.

ShackRaisingSmall Wooden HouseResidentialCampfireCrafting

6. Keep eating and drinking

Hunger drops by 0.8 per minute and thirst by 1.3 per minute. After just over three hours you are starving, after two hours dehydrated. At zero you lose Hard HP. A campfire warms you up and is your first cooking spot. See Vitals & survival.

What comes next

  1. Metal: Kilncraft 30 unlocks the smelting furnace. See Metal & smelting.
  2. Farm & livestock: plough a field and tame your first animal.
  3. Village: build houses and workshops with your friends.
  4. Clan: place a monument and claim your land.
  5. Battle: forge weapons and armour and defend what you have.

Based on the current development build. Values may still change during balancing.
↑↓ navigateEnter to openEsc to close