Before You Begin
Choose Your Mode
Your game mode shapes the entire experience — progression speed, invasion intensity, and which systems are available. Pick carefully.
Recommended First-Timers
Survival
The classic Soulmask experience. Balanced progression, full survival systems, and authentic wilderness tension. Nothing is stripped out or over-tuned.
Developer Recommended · 1.0
Tribe
Settlement building and automation at its deepest. Unlocks an exclusive prestige progression system, random merchant events, and reputation mechanics unavailable elsewhere.
Combat Focus
Warrior
Stripped-back survival friction, smarter enemies, and stamina/poise management that demands precision. Closer to an action-RPG than a survival builder.
Two Worlds to Conquer
Maps & Regions
Each map is a separate world with its own biomes, factions, resources, and progression paths. On multiplayer servers they can be linked via Stargate portals.
☁ Cloud Mist Forest
Base Game · Jungle Civilisation
- Dense jungle biome with ancient Mesoamerican-inspired ruins and temples
- More polished beginner experience with a comprehensive tutorial
- Standard mounts: Alpacas, Llamas, Ostriches, Jaguars, Snow Leopards
- Key resources: stone, wood, fiber, copper, tin, iron, obsidian
- Tribes: Claw (combat), Flint (crafting/defense), Fang, Outcasts, Plunderers
- Boss progression leads to Tribal Village endgame content
- Home to the original five masks including Civilization, Conquest, Rich
- Ancient Ruins dungeons with puzzles, traps, and rare blueprint rewards
🏜 Shifting Sands
DLC · Egyptian Desert World
- Vast desert inspired by ancient Egyptian mythology with a sci-fi twist
- Floating pyramids, mechanical ruins, river deltas, and coastal regions
- New traversal: build and pilot mobile airship bases across the map
- Four god-themed masks: Horus (mobility/aerial), Ra, Anubis, Sobek
- New resources: salt, crude salt, niter, sulfur, phosphate, meteorite ore, crystal ore
- Sand bandit factions, cobra lairs, lion lairs, elephant and rhino beasts
- Tribesmen gain new talents, improved AI, and Training Grounds
- Tutorial assumes you know the basics — better for returning players
🔗 Travelling Between Maps
How characters, items, and tribe members transfer between worlds
Multiplayer (Server Cluster)
- Servers run both maps as a connected cluster via Stargate portal
- Players physically walk through the Stargate to switch worlds
- Character, inventory, and progress carry over between cluster maps
- Cluster port is a separate internal port from the normal game port
- Shifting Sands DLC must be installed for players to join that server
Single-Player
- Single-player and multiplayer follow different transfer rules
- Tribe, tribesmen, mounts, ships, and items may not all transfer freely
- Check the in-game transfer rules before attempting cross-map play
- Starting fresh on each map is the simplest approach for solo players
Core Progression System
Tech Points — Unlocking the Technology Tree
Awareness Strength tells you what you're eligible to unlock. Tech Points are what you actually spend to unlock it. The two systems run in parallel, and confusing them is the single most common cause of new players feeling stuck mid-game.
📖 What Tech Points Are For
Press T to open the Knowledge & Technology menu — this is where Tech Points get spent
Every recipe, building piece, and crafting station in the game sits behind a node in the Knowledge & Technology tree. The tree is split into sections matching your current Bonfire tier (Campfire, Bronze Pit, Iron Pit, Steel Pit, Fine Steel Pit). Reaching the right Awareness Strength level unlocks access to a tier's nodes, but each individual node still costs Tech Points to actually unlock. Having the level without the points just means you can see the recipe — not craft it.
💰 Where Tech Points Come From
Two sources, and the second one is easy to miss entirely if nobody tells you about it
Levelling Up Awareness Strength
Each Awareness Strength level grants a small flat number of Tech Points automatically — commonly cited around 5-6 per level early on. This is the baseline supply, but it is consistently reported as too slow to keep pace with everything available to unlock at each tier, especially playing solo.
Reading Ancient Tablets (Stone Tablets / Lorestones)
Scattered across the world — inside Ancient Ruins, dungeons, beast lairs, and on or near every Pyramid — are stone tablets you can interact with directly to gain bonus Tech Points. Small tablets give roughly 1 point each, larger tablets found in dungeons and pyramids give 2-3 points each. There are reportedly well over 100 minor tablets and a couple of dozen larger ones scattered across Cloud Mist Forest alone. This is the source most new players never find — the game gives almost no in-game hint that they exist or where to look.
🔄 Resetting the Tech Tree — Your Main Lever Against Scarcity
Since Tech Points are genuinely limited, especially solo, the community's standard workaround is strategic resetting rather than trying to out-farm tablets
- The first technology reset is free. Every reset after that costs Green Crystals and Sunstones, so use the free one deliberately rather than early through trial and error
- The core trick: when you're about to outgrow a tier (for example moving from Bone tools to Bronze), queue up a large batch of anything from the old tier you still want — craft 15-20 of an item you'll keep needing — then reset the tree and skip re-learning that tier entirely. You keep the crafted items even after the recipe is "forgotten"
- Apply this to buildings too: if you want a Granary, Beehive, Well, or Rain Collector, build the ones you need first, then reset and skip them on your next allocation pass — you keep the placed structures
- Don't unlock decorative, cosmetic, or rarely-used recipes (paints, food variants, minor mods) until you specifically need them for something like a boss token or a duel challenge offering
🔧 Tech Point Quick Reference
| Question | Answer |
|---|---|
| How do I open the tech tree? | Press T to open the Knowledge & Technology menu |
| What's the difference between Awareness Strength and Tech Points? | Awareness Strength unlocks access to a tier's nodes. Tech Points are the currency spent to unlock individual nodes within that tier. You need both |
| How many points per level? | A small flat amount per Awareness Strength level (commonly reported around 5-6 early on) — confirmed too slow on its own to unlock everything at higher tiers |
| Where are the tablets? | Ancient Ruins, dungeons, beast lairs, and pyramid entrances. Check walls and doorways specifically — they're easy to walk past |
| Is resetting the tech tree worth it? | Yes — the first reset is free, and strategic resets (craft what you need from the old tier first, then reset and skip relearning it) is the standard way experienced players manage the point shortage |
| Do I need to unlock everything? | No — and you likely can't solo. Prioritise what you actually need for your current playstyle and save points rather than unlocking cosmetic or rarely-used recipes early |
Veteran Knowledge
Essential Tips
Common mistakes and key mechanics that the game doesn't explain clearly enough.
Fast Travel Early
Portals and mounts are mandatory — the maps are enormous. Basic Portals only teleport to other Basic Portals, not to unlocked teleporters. Tame an Alpaca or Llama as your first beast for the carry capacity bonus before any serious expedition.
Bronze Requires Both Metals
Copper and Tin must both be found in the Desert Highlands of Cloud Mist Forest to craft bronze. You need bronze-tier gear before attempting any Ancient Ruin above level 20. Do not rush ruins without it.
Body Swap for Scouting
The Mask's body-swap ability lets you control a tribesman directly. Your main character sleeps while you inhabit them. Use this to scout dangerous areas risk-free, or to test combat with a follower before committing your chieftain.
Raid Scaling
Raids begin when your tribe reaches around 10 NPCs and scale in difficulty as you grow. Expanding fast without building walls and training guards is a common way to lose everything. Defenses first, headcount second.
Which Map First?
Cloud Mist Forest is the more polished new-player experience with a thorough tutorial. Shifting Sands assumes familiarity with the basics and is better approached once you understand tribe management and automation. Start in the Forest.
Proficiency Over Level
When recruiting, check proficiency caps — not level. A lower-level tribesman with a 120+ cap in Crafting will outperform a higher-level one capped at 80. Use the Golden Legend Mask to read hidden stats before engaging.
📋 Quick Reference — Common Questions
The mechanics the game explains poorly
| Question | Answer |
|---|---|
| How do I stop tribesmen leaving? | Keep their mood bar out of red. Provide liked food, amenities (outhouse, bathtub, statues), quality gear, and stable food supply. Mood = retention. |
| How many tribesmen can I have? | 3 by default. Upgrade Connection Enhancement on your Mask to raise the cap up to 18. Server settings can increase this further (up to 10+ on private servers). |
| Can I take my character to Shifting Sands? | On a multiplayer cluster, yes — walk through the Stargate. In single-player, transfer rules differ — check in-game. Starting fresh per map is safest for solo. |
| Where do I find tin and copper? | Desert Highlands region on Cloud Mist Forest. Both are needed to make bronze — the mandatory mid-game material tier. |
| What is Tribe Mode's Prestige system? | Exclusive to Tribe Mode only. Complete gathering and combat quests to earn prestige levels and gain passive bonuses that carry forward indefinitely. |
| What does the Statue of God do? | Non-combat tribesmen auto-retreat to the nearest Statue during invasions. Place in a well-defended inner area to keep workers safe from capture. |
| How does the Fever bar work? | Activity near your Bonfire builds Fever over time. At maximum, an invasion triggers. Some map areas don't accumulate Fever. You cannot eliminate invasions — only prepare for them. |
| Do I need the DLC to play on a Shifting Sands server? | Yes. Players without the Shifting Sands DLC installed on Steam will get a connection error and cannot join. The DLC was free until May 10, 2026 and is now $19.99 / £16.99. |