The Core Gameplay Loop
Woodcutting and mining are how you get most of the materials you need for crafting, and cooking is essential for managing your health and combat viability. Agility is worth levelling whenever you get the chance.
Expect a repeated cycle of returning to your base, doing farming runs, sleeping, putting materials into the crafting station, making new gear, and heading back out for more resources. That rhythm is the theme of most of the game.
Early Progression Steps
- As soon as you enter the Fractured Plains, find either a copper ore node or a tin ore node. You do not need both immediately, because mining one of them unlocks the furnace and bronze bars.
- Spend a little time exploring safely and gather as much copper and tin ore as you can before heading back to the base.
- Build the furnace, and get charcoal from the kiln using any type of log.
- Smelt your first bronze bar. That unlocks major upgrades: the blacksmith bench, the armor bench, the mystic forge, and the fletching bench.
- Craft the bronze pickaxe and the bronze logging axe. The pickaxe speeds up gathering bronze, which you will need plenty of, and the logging axe helps you unlock oak trees for the next tier of bows and battle staffs.
- Unlock the sawmill so you can start producing ash planks.
Failure Conditions to Recognize
Some enemies are much stronger than the goblins back in Brimmore. Until you have upgraded your equipment, fight them one at a time wherever possible; once you have tier three gear they become more manageable. This is also where you find dewdrop berries, one of the best early food sources.
You can technically choose whether to visit the Storm Touched Highlands or the Bloodblight Swamp first, but heading to the Storm Touched Highlands first makes everything else much easier. It is a power level four region, enemies hit noticeably harder than anything before, and constant lightning strikes make exploring more dangerous.
The Bloodblight Swamp is probably the most dangerous area, because most of the environment wants to poison you. Bring roughly six to eight anti-poison potions, using ingredients you should already have from the Whispering Swamp.