Hytale beginner guide
The first day decides whether you spend the second day catching up. This is the shortest path from spawn to a secure base with working tools, food in reserve, and an idea of what to do on day two. Early Access starts you in the Emerald Grove — Zone 1 of the world of Orbis — so that is where this guide lives.
Before you leave spawn
Check three things before walking anywhere: your surroundings (which biome are you in — forest, coast, hills?), the nearest trees (you'll need wood almost immediately), and any nearby hostile creatures. In the Emerald Grove, wandering too close to Trork camps early on is the fastest way to lose your first hour. Kweebec villages are the opposite — the tree-folk don't pick fights, and their clearings work as landmarks while you learn the Grove's geography.
Your first hour, roughly
Not a speedrun — a sanity check. If you're two hours in and haven't hit the last row, something earlier on this page went wrong.
| Time | Goal | Why this order |
|---|---|---|
| 0–10 min | Wood from the nearest trees | Everything is downstream of an axe. Nothing else on this list happens without tools. |
| 10–20 min | Stone tools, a weapon | Surface rock needs no mining. Stone axe and pickaxe roughly double what you can do per minute. |
| 20–35 min | Shelter, crafting station, torches | Before dark, or the night is spent hiding instead of progressing. |
| 35–50 min | Food — hunt, gather, cook | Hunger catches up exactly when you're busy doing something else. |
| 50–60 min | Scout day-two targets: cave entrances, water, more trees | Tomorrow's mining trip should start from a door, not a mystery. |
First tools
Wood comes first. Punch or chop a tree for Softwood Trunks, then craft the basic tool set: an axe to gather faster, a pickaxe for stone and ore, and a weapon before nightfall. The exact crafting menu layout is covered in the crafting guide, but the short version: make the axe first, use it to make everything else quicker.
Stone tools come next. Surface rocks and cliff faces give you stone without going underground, and stone tools mine faster and hit harder than wood.
Shelter before dark
You don't need a house on day one — you need walls and a door. A 5×5 softwood hut with a crafting station inside is plenty. What matters:
- Light. Craft torches before entering — caves are pitch black without them.
- A door, not a gap. Hostile mobs pathfind through openings.
- Proximity to water and trees. You'll be back and forth a lot tomorrow.
Food
Food sources near spawn vary by zone, but the reliable early options are hunting passive animals and gathering plants you can verify are edible. Cooked food restores more than raw — build a campfire or cooker before you stockpile meat. The full loop for keeping animals alive and producing is in the animal farming guide.
Mistakes that cost new players the most time
- Exploring at night without a weapon. Dying far from spawn means a long walk back to your body — if your items survive the trip in your memory, which they usually don't.
- Deep caves with wood tools. The mining guide covers safe depth progression; the short version is: stone pickaxe before you commit to a descent.
- Building far from resources. A beautiful cliffside base with no trees or water within walking distance becomes a chore by day three.
- Ignoring the crafting chain. Tools unlock stations, stations unlock better tools. Skipping ahead — trying to mine silver ore with a starter pickaxe, for example — just breaks the pickaxe and your evening.
Day two: pick a direction
Once the basics are safe, the game opens up. The three most common paths:
- Down. Mining progression: stone, then copper, then iron and silver. See mining.
- Out. Explore further zones, find villages and points of interest, gather zone-specific resources.
- Together. Move your world to a server so friends can join — start with the server guide.
Dying, and getting your things back
Death is normal in Early Access — what separates new players from experienced ones is what happens in the next five minutes:
- Don't rage-run back. The thing that killed you is usually still there. Craft a backup weapon first if you lost yours.
- Mark the spot. Screenshot the map if the current build shows coordinates; otherwise note landmarks — a unique tree, a cliff shape.
- Travel in daylight. Wait for daylight to recover your items: a corpse run at night through the territory that killed you often costs a second death.
- Expect partial loss. Between despawn timers and mobs, recovering everything isn't guaranteed — which is why the next section says what it says.
The systemic fix is redundancy: a chest at base with a spare weapon, spare tools and food. Lose a fight, walk home, re-equip in two minutes. Players with a "death kit" chest lose minutes; players without one lose evenings.
Week one: the build list that pays off
- Chests at base. Inventory space is the first real constraint in the game; a chest row in your hut ends it.
- A second tool set. Kept in the chest. See death, above.
- A furnace and fuel stockpile. Once you have ore or sand, you can start smelting — the crafting guide covers the chain.
- A path to your mine. Torches and a cleared trail beat a fifteen-minute orienteering session every trip.
- Walls you can defend. By the time Trorks or other hostiles notice you, the door should already exist.
Frequently asked by new players
Does dying drop my items?
Yes, in the current Early Access build you drop your inventory on death, and recovering it means returning to where you died. This is the main reason "don't explore at night without a weapon" is rule one.
Can I play with friends without renting a server?
Yes. Options range from a world hosted on your own machine to rented dedicated servers — the multiplayer overview compares them.
Is there a controller option?
Controller support exists; details and the Steam Input fallback are on the controller support page.