Desolate – Official Help Guide

Main Stats

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Health

  • This is your health points parameter, the basic measurement of your character’s health. 

Desolate - Official Help Guide

  • Completely losing health will cause a character to die. 
  • Restore your health using medicine (first aid kits, medications, homemade salve). 
  • Food, drinks, and certain medical items (bandages) also restore health, but only slightly. 
  • You can quickly restore your health on the character screen (C key). 

Stamina

Desolate - Official Help Guide

  • Stamina is a resource that is expended on certain actions (hitting, sprinting, blocking, jumping). Stamina is restored automatically. 
  • If your stamina is low, your hits and blocks will have decreased effectiveness, and you will not be able to sprint and jump. 

Hunger and Thirst

Desolate - Official Help Guide

  • A low hunger or thirst level negatively impacts the health of your character and ignoring it could lead to death. 
  • Crafted food and drinks is the most effective way to restore these parameters. Normal food and drinks are less effective. 
  • Ready-to-eat food and components for cooking can be found directly in locations or by killing animals (meat). 
  • You can quickly consume food or drinks on the character screen (C key). 

Stress

Desolate - Official Help Guide

  • The mental state of your character can have a negative effect on other parameters (for example, health and thirst) and lead to bad consequences. For this reason, it is best to have some sedatives in your pack. 
  • Apart from its impact on other parameters, stress is connected to the amount of noise you make, which can ruin attempts to stealthily enter a location or make an attack. 
  • You can quickly restore your mental state on the character screen (C key). 

Temperature

Desolate - Official Help Guide

This parameter reflects the temperature of the surrounding environment.
Sudden changes in temperature are connected to weather events. These impact your parameters. Cold weather decreases your activity level (speed).

Means of dealing with the temperature’s effects:

  • Armor.
  • Drinks made from certain recipes.
  • Fire (fires, stoves).

You can quickly use these remedies against the temperature’s effects on the character screen (C key).

Oxygen

Desolate - Official Help Guide

  • You cannot breathe in certain conditions and places. As a result, you will run out of oxygen. Examples of these conditions could include a cloud of gas in a location and creatures with toxic emissions. 
  • A value of zero oxygen will deal damage to your health, so pay careful attention to this parameter and run away from a dangerous area to replenish your oxygen supply before it’s too late.

Exposure and Effects

Diseases

Desolate - Official Help Guide

  • Your character can become ill. 
  • Diseases fall under various categories, which determine the seriousness of their impact on your character’s stats and parameters. 
  • Current diseases are displayed on the character screen (C key), where you can select and treat them. 
  • Diseases also pass with time. The length of a disease depends on its severity. 

Traumas

Desolate - Official Help Guide

  • You may receive an injury from unsuccessful jumps from tall heights, damage experienced in battle, or anomalies.
  • Traumas fall under various categories, which determine the seriousness of their impact on your character’s stats and parameters.
  • Current traumas are displayed on the character screen (C key), where you can select and treat them. The more serious the trauma, the more serious the treatment needed to heal it.

Negative Effects

Desolate - Official Help Guide

  • Negative effects can impact your character. These can be caused by, for example, events in your surroundings or excess weight. 
  • Negative effects caused by events go away when the event has ended. Other negative effects require your attention, like excess weight. 
  • Current negative effects are displayed on the character screen (C key). 

Status Effects

Desolate - Official Help Guide

  • Status effects can impact you after some action by an enemy or after receiving damage. 
  • Examples of status effects can include catching fire after being hit by a torch or Molotov cocktail, falling during a dorg attack, or falling into a trap set by the Butcher. 
  • QTE actions are used to escape effects: you must either hold a key down or press it many times, depending on the effect. 

Positive Effects

Desolate - Official Help Guide

  • Status effects can impact a character after using certain useful items. 
  • A useful item could be a ready-to-consume food/drink of a high rank, stimulants, etc. 
  • A positive effect has a beneficial impact on your parameters and stats. 
  • Current positive effects are displayed on the character screen (C key). 
  • Effects from various different types of items can be active at the same time. However, only one positive effect from a specific type of item, such as a stimulant, can be active at a time. If you apply another stimulant, then the effect will be replaced.

Combat System

Basic Movements

Desolate - Official Help Guide

  • Your character is controlled using a keyboard and mouse or, alternatively, a gamepad. 
  • You can familiarize yourself with the controls and hotkeys, and modify them if necessary, by visiting the game options under Key Settings and Controls. 

Flashlight

Desolate - Official Help Guide

  • At the start of the game, you will have a flashlight. By default, the button to turn it on is T. 
  • You can use it to light your way, but, at the same time, the flashlight excludes the possibility of moving unnoticed (stealth) when it is turned on. 
  • It is not necessary to charge the flashlight: it works without any restrictions. 

UV Flashlight

Desolate - Official Help Guide

  • The UV lantern becomes available as you proceed through the plotline. By default, the UV lantern is turned on by holding the T key. 
  • Purpose of the UV lantern: slowing down and stopping several types of creatures, discovering hidden inscriptions. 
  • In contrast to the normal flashlight, the UV lantern will gradually go out, but it will automatically recharge after being turned off.

Stealth

Desolate - Official Help Guide

  • In stealth mode, you are less visible to enemies and make less noise. 
  • Stealth mode is turned on when moving in a crouched position (Ctrl). 
  • Stealth mode does not work if you are under any kind of artificial light source or the flashlight is on. 
  • Stealth mode does not prevent you from being discovered when moving openly or making noise. 
  • In stealth mode, striking an enemy from behind will temporarily stun it, allowing you to strike an additional blow.

Durability and Repairs

Desolate - Official Help Guide

  • Some items (weapons, armor) have a durability parameter, which can be expended. 
  • When its durability level is at zero, your weapon will inflict minimal damage on your enemy and will be ineffective in blocking damage inflicted on you. Armor, like weapons, will become less effective. 
  • The durability level depends on the item’s rank. 
  • A broken item can be repaired (inventory — I key), but to do so you must have parts (currency). The number of repairs depends on the item’s rank. After all repairs are applied, the item cannot be repaired any more. 

Defense and Types of Damage

Desolate - Official Help Guide

You can find or receive recipes for armor (clothing), craft it, and wear it. If you have clothing in your pack, you can put it on using the equipment screen (C key, Equipment tab).

Clothing can fall under various ranks and types and differs based on your stats.

In general, all clothing provides defense from:

  • Physical damage.
  • Psy damage.
  • Damage from anomalies.
  • The temperature’s effects.

Clothing can wear out: it must be repaired, or else it will be less effective in defending you.

Modifications

Desolate - Official Help Guide

You can find or receive recipes for modifying weapons and crafting them.

Modifications enhance the stats of the original version of the weapon and increase the number of possible repairs. If a weapon is broken, then it will be restored after applying a modification.

Additionally, modifications are divided into categories, each of which gives you a chance of inflicting a particular effect on an enemy:

  • Strength (chance of stunning).
  • Bloodletting (chance of inflicting blood loss).
  • Poison (chance of poisoning).
  • Frost (chance of freezing).
  • Fire (chance of lighting on fire).
  • Shock/electricity (chance of strong electric shock).

Certain types of modifications are most effective against certain types of enemies.

Workbenches

Desolate - Official Help Guide

Workbenches on the island are broken at first and need to be fixed before they can be used. They are located in the safezone as well as other locations on the island.

Using benches, you can craft items (weapons, food, armor, medicine, etc.).

The following workbenches can be found in the game:

  • Bonfire (not a workbench, but allows for the creation of items).
  • Stove (food and drink).
  • Medical laboratory (medicine).
  • Normal workbench (modifications, armor, components, etc.).
  • X workbench (items of higher rank).

Except for the bonfire and X workbench, all other workbenches have two levels. Raising the level makes it possible to create items of a higher rank.

Monoliths

Desolate - Official Help Guide

  • In different regions of the island, you can find Monoliths, devices that can determine the closest respawn points once they have been fixed.
  • The only device that does not need to be fixed is located in the safezone. This is the base respawn point.

Retranslators

Desolate - Official Help Guide

  • In different regions of the island, you can find Retranslators, devices that can unlock points of interest around them once they have been fixed and turned on.

Pneumolifts

Desolate - Official Help Guide

  • In different regions of the island, you can find Pneumolifts, devices that allow you to move quickly to a distant place once they have been fixed. 
  • Pneumolifts function along defined lines; in other words, movement along them occurs in the form A<->B. Once you have fixed one pneumolift on a line, you automatically fix another.

Collecting

Desolate - Official Help Guide

In different regions of the island, you can find objects that may be collected.

Categories of these objects:

  • Plants;
  • Water from taps and fountains.

Water from taps and fountains must be boiled before being used as a component of a craft or drink. It is recommended that plants be used in crafting meals, as consuming them raw is extremely ineffective.

Reputation

Desolate - Official Help Guide

  • You receive reputation points by completing tasks for NPCs (Biologist, Engineer, etc.). 
  • When you achieve a certain number of points, you receive a new level of trust with NPCs. 
  • Trust levels unlock new recipes and items for customization.
Volodymyr Azimoff
About Volodymyr Azimoff 15056 Articles
I love games and I live games. Video games are my passion, my hobby and my job. My experience with games started back in 1994 with the Metal Mutant game on ZX Spectrum computer. And since then, I’ve been playing on anything from consoles, to mobile devices.

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