Once Human beginner guide: start in a PvE scenario and build around Deviations

Once Human is an open-world survival game from Starry Studio and NetEase, played on Steam, with a seasonal structure: you join a scenario, progress through it over several weeks, and then transition to a new one carrying some of your gains forward. New players often bounce off the sheer number of systems — building, crafting, gear, mods, and the creature-companions called Deviations. This guide sets a sensible order of operations for your first scenario.

Season rules and specific numbers change between updates, so confirm current carryover details in-client before the transition.

Before you start

• Pick a PvE scenario for your first run; PvP scenarios punish inexperience hard.
• Do not over-build early; you will move or rebuild your base at least once.
• Keep a stock of food and clean water on you at all times.
• Scrap gear you have outleveled for materials rather than hoarding it.
• Check the scenario’s stated rewards and carryover before you commit weeks to it.

Step 1: Choose a PvE scenario

Scenarios are the game’s seasons, and they come in PvE and PvP flavours. A PvE scenario gives you room to explore, test builds, collect Deviations and understand seasonal progression without another player raiding your base or ganking you at a resource node. Learn the game there first. You can always take that experience into a PvP scenario later once you know what you are doing.

Step 2: Place your first territory well

Where you drop your first base matters more than how it looks. Put it within easy reach of water, wood and ore, and next to a road so travel and hauling are quick. A tight, functional base beside good resources will out-produce a beautiful one built somewhere scenic and remote. You can relocate your territory later, but a good first placement saves you hours.

Keep the early build small and cheap. You will unlock better structural pieces and more space as you progress, and anything elaborate you put up now is material you will partly waste when you tear it down. Aim for a weatherproof box with room for benches, storage and a few Deviation stations, and expand once your blueprints have caught up.

Step 3: Unlock the functional benches first

Spend your early memory/blueprint points on the benches that keep you alive and progressing: storage to hold materials, the crafting and gear benches, cooking for stat-boosting food, and power to run everything. Decorative and comfort building can wait. The goal for week one is a base that reliably turns raw materials into better weapons, armour and consumables.

Step 4: Prioritise Deviations

Deviations are captured creatures that either work in your base or fight alongside you. Two priorities:

• A Territory Deviation that boosts nearby gathering or passively collects a resource for you frees up real time each day.
• A strong combat Deviation is a genuine power increase — in the same ballpark as a full weapon upgrade — so slot one that complements your build and keep it fed and levelled.

Grab Deviations as you find them, but invest upgrade resources into the one gathering helper and the one combat companion you actually use.

Step 5: Play toward the season transition

As a scenario winds down you can sign up for the next one while keeping certain gains — commonly things like some progress, cosmetics, blueprints, mods and recipes, with common resources and crafted gear handled differently and sometimes moved through the hub area at a cost. Because the exact list varies, check it before the transition and steer your late-scenario effort toward what actually carries: unlocking recipes and formulas, for instance, rather than stockpiling raw materials you may lose.

Do not treat your first scenario as a race to “finish.” It is where you learn how gear tiers, mods and Deviation upgrades interact, and the account-level unlocks you earn make every later scenario start faster. Play it at a comfortable pace, take the boss and story content as it comes, and let the transition happen when the season is ready rather than rushing to be done early.

Step 6: Build a weapon-and-mod plan

Your damage comes from a weapon plus the mods (called Gear Blueprints or Calibration in menus) slotted into your weapons and armour. Pick one damage archetype — a specific weapon type and the status effect or playstyle it leans on — and collect mods that reinforce it instead of chasing every shiny drop. A focused build with matching mods clears content that a pile of unmatched purple gear cannot, and it tells you which materials are worth farming.

Key takeaways

• Start in a PvE scenario so you can learn the systems without other players interfering.
• Place your first territory near water, wood and ore, and beside a road to cut travel time.
• Unlock the functional benches — storage, crafting, cooking, power — before cosmetic building.
• A well-chosen combat Deviation is a power spike comparable to a weapon upgrade.
• Know what carries over at season’s end so you invest in the right things.