Complete Beginner's Guide

Your first hours in Once Human decide how smooth the rest of the game feels. Do these things early and everything opens up.

Follow the story quests first

The opening quests are your real tutorial. They teach gathering, crafting, and your first tools, and they hand you the blueprints you need. Don’t wander off to explore before you’ve done them: the rewards beat anything you’d scavenge in the same time.

Watch survival and sanity

Keep an eye on your basic needs and top them up before they get low. Sanity drops in contaminated areas, so carry a little food, and don’t linger in hazardous zones without protection.

Gather everything early

Grab every basic resource you pass: wood, stone, fibre, and scrap. You’ll burn through them constantly for tools, weapons, and base pieces. Early on, more materials means more options.

Plant a base and unlock the workbench

Build a small, secure shelter near water and resource nodes. Your Basic Workbench is the heart of it (around 50 Iron Scraps and 20 Wood Planks), and upgrading to the Advanced Workbench unlocks Tier 3+ blueprints.

Don’t fear dying

Early deaths are cheap lessons. Learn what killed you, adjust, and go again. The early game is forgiving, so use it to experiment.