8 Once Human tips and tricks to help you get started

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From the ever-present threat of supernatural entities out for blood to base building, crafting, a massive open-world, and a sweeping main story, Once Human drops you into the survival horror deep end. While there’s a solid tutorial to walk you through the basics, a lot is left unsaid. To help you hit the ground running, we’ve pulled together 8 tips and tricks.

8 Once Human tips and tricks to help you get started
Choose a base location away from obstacles and other buildings. Captured by VideoGamer

Don’t build bases near roads or landmarks

One of the first mistakes we made in Once Human was building our base too close to a bridge near a main road. The result was awkward boundary clipping for certain base parts that stopped us from building in certain areas. Don’t be like us. Instead, find a nice plot of land that’s relatively flat and away from other structures, settlements, landmarks, boulders, and other obstructions so you can build without constraints or limits.

Before you start building, check the boundary of your land so that you don’t build too close to its edge. Try to build at the centre to give you as much room to build in all directions. Once you have a base set up and running, you can store your base blueprint and relocate your base for free. If you do encounter issues, just check your building menu to relocate your plot and find a more appropriate area to build on. 

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Check every building for loot

Looting is an important part of Once Human. You’ll get various items to disassemble into usable crafting components. As you explore, you’ll find buildings with chests, cupboards, closets, drawers, and other furniture containing loot you can easily miss. Ensure you’re looting thoroughly to ensure a steady flow of fresh items and, therefore, resources to fuel you crafting and base building. Loot adheres to a tiered quality system. The better quality the item is the rarer the parts you can get from disassembling it. These then open the door to more elaborate crafting recipes.

8 Once Human tips and tricks to help you get started
Loot Crates for strong armor and weapon blueprints. Captured by VideoGamer

Mystical chests contain strong blueprints

When you open the world map, you’ll find various points of interest around the world. These often have a set of completion tasks to 100% the area, including finding Mystical Chests. These are usually well hidden and guarded by enemies, but contain blueprints for weapons and armor. This is the main way you’ll unlock higher tier gear.


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Follow the tutorial to get your first vehicle

Following the tutorial and the main story is very important in Once Human, largely because they teach you the basics but also unlock your first vehicle – the Motorcycle. We made the mistake of getting stuck into building our base and ignored the story. We eventually managed to craft a bike, but could have unlocked it far earlier and with much less effort had we followed the story early on.

Memetic specializations

As you level up and hit level 5, 10, 15, 20, and so on, you’ll unlock a random set of Memetic Specializations from which you can choose one as a permanent buff for your character. These range from a larger backpack, improved mining efficiency, base building, oil refining, and much more. Don’t forget to unlock these when you get the chance.

8 Once Human tips and tricks to help you get started
You can reset your Memetics. Captured by VideoGamer

You can respec your Memetics

Memetics are effectively skills in a technology tree that unlock increasingly more complex and useful crafting recipes – base building, weapons, armor, power generation, farming, cooking, and much more. If at any point you’re no longer happy with your current picks, you can reset your Memetics. The deeper you are in the game, the less resources you will get back.

PvP item loss

If you’re a PvP player, then be aware that there is item loss and PvP durability. You’ll lose gear, ammo, and resources on death. If you die repeatedly, you’ll start losing PvP durability. If you’re a casual PvPer looking for optional rewards, game modes like the Cargo Shuffle at Stronghold are intended for fun. You won’t lose items on death.

Your base cannot be offline raided

If you’re on the fence about jumping into an open-world MMO survival game, Once Human is different as player bases are more secure, both on PvP and PvE servers. There’s no offline raiding at all. The only time your base can get raided is if you’re taking part in events that flag you and your base for PvP. These are key end-game events that you need to actively engage with.

About the Author

Craig Robinson

Craig is a Guides Writer for VideoGamer. He is a big-time MMO fan, with interests in competitive games like League of Legends, and Rainbow Six Siege. When he’s not sweating games, you can find him get

Once Human

  • Platform(s): Android, iOS, PC
  • Genre(s): Adventure, Shooter, Simulation