Loftia Beginner Guide: Your First Two Hours

Your first hour at a glance

The opening quests

Pebble walks you through the start. These are the main quests from arriving in Loftia City to reaching the Hanging Gardens, which is where the demo ends:

• Talk to every NPC you pass. The game steers you towards some of them, then lets you off the rails, and it's easy to skip the rest. Side characters hand out quests that unlock items, blueprints and activities such as Adventures.
• Lost? Open the map. Key NPCs are marked, and an exclamation mark shows who has a quest for you. The map starts under cloud, so running around Loftia City early fills it in.
• Where you should be after an hour or two: Cliff's Permission to Glide. Finishing that chain gives you a glider and points you to the Hanging Gardens.

Get your three starter tools first

You get the Hammer almost immediately. Craft the Pruner as soon as the recipe appears — it only needs a few early materials, and mushrooms are what unlock your bigger battery.

Pick up everything (and these five above all)

If you can see it, grab it. Story crafts ask for materials you can't buy, and players who hoarded early breeze through them. The five that turn up in most early recipes:

• Plastic discards
• Screws
• Metal scraps
• Tires
• Scrap wood

Setting up your plot

1. Build one storage chest. It sorts everything into categories on its own, so one is enough. Each item has a cap (creators hit 20 Clay early on); raise it with the Expanded Chest perk.
2. Upgrade the battery (next section) before big crafts.
3. Add a power source. You can place one energy station at first; more need a permit.
4. Build a water station next to your crops. It fills when it rains and gives unlimited refills for your can. You can also use a neighbour's — it never runs dry.

At the very start, every player's plot has its own copy of the starter materials. If you're one short, grab it from a neighbour's plot — it only disappears for you.

Energy and the battery

Every craft and dish spends charges from your battery. It starts with five, and some crafts — such as the workstation upgrade — need seven or more, so the upgrade is your first real goal.

Solar panels keep charging while you're away, so start a batch of refining or crafting before you head out and come back to a full battery.

Permits from Amani

Amani, in Loftia City, sells the permits that let you place more garden beds, energy stations, processing stations, tree plots and decorations. They cost Dew, which you earn by putting crops and food in your shipping bin. Garden-bed permits come first for most players: more beds mean more crops to sell. Prices and the fastest ways to earn Dew are on the Loftia money guide.

Don't forget the Progression tab

Press Esc and open Progression. Salvaging, foraging, farming, fishing and crafting each earn points you spend on perks. Beta players recommend checking it every session:

• Carry limits for scrap, mechanical parts and raw earth materials, and the Expanded Chest perk.
• A chance of double materials from the Hammer.
• The perks that give a 20% chance of 50% extra XP — they speed up every skill.
• A chance to refund an ingredient when cooking, which makes cooked food far more profitable.

Controls and settings worth knowing

Easy extras

• Pebble-athon. After the opening, Pebble waits in Pebble Park. Finishing the Pebble-athon tasks unlocks extra emotes and a beach ball for the "don't drop the ball" minigame.
• Datapads. Paper notes with butterflies hang around each district. They hold the story of Loftia and are tracked under Collections.
• Demo rewards. Entering the Player Neighborhood during Next Fest unlocks the Demo Banner, and your progress carries into Early Access. Details are on the demo page.