Outward - Game Basics

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Basics

All credit goes to Hanni!

Outward appears to be a challenging game with a very hostile environment and many complex mechanics at first glance, but if you follow certain rules and strategies this won’t be the case any longer.

Needs

The game heavily focuses on survival. The most important needs are eating, drinking and resting:

If you don’t eat you will starve. Therefore, you should always carry some food with you, but note that food slowly starts to rot. At the beginning, good sources of food are the various kinds laying around in the starting town, bread sold by merchants for 1 silver coin and the pearlbirds in Chersonese which are easy to kill and mostly hold 1 meat and 1 egg. But beware of eating raw meat and eggs as they can communicate diseases! To prepare food you can cook it over a campfire (combine 3 Woods and set it on fire with a Flint & Steel). You can also craft Travel Rations which last for a long time and are necessary for you to travel between maps:

Travel Ration: 2 Food + 1 Salt

If you don’t drink you will die of thirst. Water can be stored in Water Skins which can be found in Cierzo (refer to the achievement section for further assistance) or bought from merchants for 6 silver coins. Each Water Skin holds 5 units of water and can be refilled at any source of clean water. Except for the desert region you are perfectly fine with two Water Skins at your disposal. Drinking water grants you a buff which gives you stamina regeneration and hot weather protection. You will usually find a water source sooner or later – thus you should drink whenever the buff runs out to refresh it.

You should not drink river water if you don’t have to since it can cause indigestion disease.

If you don’t rest you will die of fatigue. Whenever you use stamina (sprinting or attacking) your maximum stamina will decrease as well. While this can partly be counteracted with the “Slow Metabolism” perk and potions it is still necessary to sleep regularly to replenish your maximum stamina. Sleeping in tents, houses or inns will grant you a “Well Rested” buff which reduces your stamina consumption for a while and drinking water provides the aforementioned buff.

Sleeping in tents or on bedrolls will make you thirsty and hungry, while sleeping in inns or houses will fill those needs.

By default you are provided with a world map in Outward, but there is no pointer indicating your current position. Until you get the hang of navigating through the regions you can try to make it work – at least in Cheronese – by using the Conflux Mountain as a landmark in addition to the compass for orientation.

Negative Status Effects

There are a lot of deadly status impairments. Hereinafter, you will find a list of them and how to counteract them.

Infections are mostly contracted by hyenas and will slowly but surely kill you. To cure an infection you have to drink a Bitter Spicy Tea which can be crafted by yourself or bought from merchants for a reasonable price of 8 silver coins.

Bleeding is something you will regularly have to deal with since it is inflicted by a lot of enemies – including all humanoid enemies who wield Fang weapons. Bleeding will slowly kill you and extreme bleeding will kill you pretty fast. To stop bleeding the use of a Bandage is recommended. It can be crafted out of 2 Linen Cloth or bought from merchants.

Poison is mostly inflicted by undead enemies and certain types of horrors as well as the swamp water of the Hallowed Marsh region. It will kill you pretty fast or very fast depending on whether it is regular or extreme poison. To counteract poison you need an Antidote which is commonly found as loot and can also be bought from merchants.

A Cold can be caught by being exposed to low temperatures for too long and will reduce your stamina regeneration by 15%. Note, that an untreated cold can progress to an acute cold which reduces your stamina regeneration by 30%. A cold can be cured by drinking a Soothing Tea.

An Indigestion can be caused by eating raw food and drinking river water. Its only effect is that it could make you vomit when eating, nullifying the food’s effect. Indigestion can develop into a more severe disease and is cured by drinking a Needle Tea.

Weather

There are hot and cold temperatures – depending on the region and daytime. Both have their resistance values which can be altered as follows:

Cold weather you can usually come upon in Cheronese during winter time and at night in general. As your body temperature drops you will start to feel cold which increases your chance of catching a cold and will eventually make you freeze to death. To raise your cold weather resistance you can wear Fur Armor (and Fur Helmet, Fur Boots) which can be bought in Cierzo for 225 silver coins. Additionally, you can drink a “Bitter Spicy Tea” and warm up by standing next to campfires.

Hot weather you can mainly come upon in the desert. If your body temperature reaches maximum level you will dehydrate which results in death. To increase your hot weather resistance you can wear appropriate armor like the Petrified Wood Armor set, consumate a cool or weather defense potion and drink water, as the buff gained from drinking water also provides hot weather defense.

Combat

The basics of combat aren’t hard to grasp – you can attack, block and dodge. For beginners it is helpful to constantly lock on enemies (Tab key), as it makes it much easier to hit them. You should also drop your backpack during harder fights since you can only do slow rolls while wearing a backpack. Don’t worry about your backpack because you will get it back in case of dying.

During the first couple of hours you should never ever approach more than 2 enemies at the same time since they will most likely grind you to bits. A good strategy is to go for a Fang weapon early in the game (crafting recipes in the equipment section) since those inflict bleeding on enemies. Bleeding technically lets you win the fight against any enemy which has blood running through its veins – as long as you evade the enemy’s attacks.

Furthermore, there is no shame in cheesing enemies with bow and arrow from high positions. With an equipped bow you can either lock on enemies or you can right click once to aim manually. Lastly, you can prepare hard battles beforehand by placing tripwire traps and filling them with weapons or all sorts of spikes.

As your gear gets better fights will become easier but most enemies will always be a threat if you don’t play smart and steady.