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While cluttered, the open-world survival genre keeps surprising us in many ways. One of the latest surprises is Once Human, which has made a splash due to its intricate survival mechanics, well-designed world, and one of the best character creators in these types of games. While this game teaches players the ropes, it can be overwhelming once you grab V’s wings and flap around the map. Thankfully, we have a few beginner tips and tricks for Once Human players to help them make their journey in these lands much more bearable.
(Updated on July 10, 2024 – Added new tips for the game’s 1.0 release and updated images)
Best Tips and Tricks for New Once Human Players
Let’s say you’ve created your beautiful character, finished the tutorial, and landed on the creature-riddled map. What’s next? With a boundless world to explore, you might want to run toward the closest landmark and start blasting your way through the Stardust. Look, we don’t shame exploration, but going all Rambo in this game without knowledge won’t make things easy for you. Instead, we’ve prepared a few tips and tricks for your first hours in Once Human that should help you get on the right track.
10. Follow Your Journey
The easiest way to get some sense of direction in Once Human is by checking your character’s “journey.” You can do so by pressing J and opening the menu. Here, you’ll see several categories with different tasks to tackle. We recommend sticking to one and start doing tasks slowly. This is the best way to help you learn the ins and outs of the game, and every task you complete provides you with experience and other items. Look at it like a long-term tutorial and quest log.
9. Don’t Get Too Attached to Your Territory
One of your first missions in Once Human will be to claim territory for yourself, and while that is a great tip, we have an even better trick for you in the long run. The game has a fantastic building system that allows you to build the post-apocalyptic house of your dreams. However, you might discover that the first territory you picked isn’t the best one or is too far away from late-game activities. This title allows you to move your whole base and place it in another area effortlessly. All you must do is go to building move and select “relocate.” It’s a pretty useful function that allows you to carry your home with you anywhere you want to go.
8. Join or Create a Hive
Whether you’re in a PvE or PvP server, the lone ranger attitude might not work in Once Human. Why? Well, for PvE, you have different creatures to take down that can be a pain to any Meta-Human’s side. On the other hand, PvP is unforgivable, and getting shot by five players at the same time isn’t fun. How can you combat this? Make a Hive! Head to the social panel and either make or join one. If you want the latter, you can search for one that does the same activities as you. Some lean toward crafting and building, while others just like to bring chaos to the land.
7. Clear Towns
The most engaging and profitable activities in the early game are town-clearing or town-looting; we’re still working on the name. When traveling around the map, you’ll see a few places with a checklist. In some, you must defeat enemies, loot crates, activate anchors, and so on. Yes, we know you might be having Ubisoft-open-world-design flashbacks, but hear me out: these activities are great during the early game. You can get guns, weapon mods, and even armor if you’re not keen on crafting. So, if you see a town, start slashing supernatural entities and make your way to that sweet loot.
6. Get To the Choppa!
Your Meta-Human feet will get tired after a few hours; that’s a fact. Instead of walking everywhere, you can get some Days Gone-looking wheels to make things easier for you. One of the best tips we can give you for Once Human is to unlock the garage as fast as possible. Doing so will allow you to create your first motorcycle, and who doesn’t want to feel like Daryl Dixon with a crossbow and a sweet ride? Remember, it’ll take a while to get your first vehicle, but once you have it, you’ll be unstoppable unless you run out of fuel, of course.
5. Focus on Obtaining Sanity Gummies
Once Human can drive players crazy, and I’m not talking about its grinding. Throughout your journey, you’ll notice that certain areas are contaminated. While you might think you can shrug this off just by walking away, there will be a few lingering effects, namely against your sanity. Whenever you enter contaminated water, face a tough enemy, or enter infected areas, your sanity will decrease. You can recover it by resting or by consuming Sanity Gummies. When crafting healing items, we recommend putting all your resources into crafting these post-apocalyptic candies.
4. Learn How Blueprints Work
One of my favorite things about Once Human is its gearing system. Instead of having a loot-fest where you’ll be filling your pockets with gear, you have blueprints you can unlock to make more impactful armor and weapons. However, these blueprints don’t work the same as in other games. Instead of unlocking a weapon or armor right away, you need to find several blueprint fragments. Once you have them all, you can head to the blueprint menu and hold F to fuse the fragments, thus unlocking the ability to craft new gear.
3. Unlock Teleportation Towers As Soon As Possible
As someone who likes to take in every detail from an open-world setting, I also admit that fast traveling is a boon. Especially after you’ve fought the same enemies a dozen times. The only way to fast travel in Once Human is by unlocking Teleportation Towers. Before you delve deeper into certain areas, I recommend unlocking these towers to make your travel time between zones shorter. Also, doing so will allow you to invite players to your world and even chance the world you’re on to find your friends.
2. There’s A “Catch-Up” Mechanic
Since Once Human is a race against the clock in many ways, one of the best tricks we can give you to catch up to players is doing Commissions. Initially, you won’t have any, but as you progress through the story and unlock settlements, certain NPCs will give you a few of these tasks. Usually, they have simple objectives, such as defeating enemies with a particular weapon or increasing a Deviant’s power. Completing a Commission will give you a considerable amount of experience, thus allowing you to level up faster.
1. Check Your World Before Inviting Players
This tip applies only to players who want to invite friends over to Once Human. While the process of inviting someone to your team isn’t difficult, making them join your world is quite the ordeal. Initially, one might think that being part of the server is enough. Wrong. You need to be in the same world. You can check this information in the top right corner. Once you know which world you’re in, head to a Teleportation Tower to change your world and join your friends. It feels like a few annoying extra steps, but hopefully, the studio will make the inviting process much easier down the road.
With these tips and tricks, your first hours in Once Human should be a cakewalk. While the motorcycle tip might take the longest time, following our other advice will get you on the right track. However, if you’re still feeling overwhelmed, don’t be afraid to get some help from players. Most Meta-Humans are friendly when you’re not pointing your crossbow at them. So, leave the social anxiety at the door and brave this world with others.
