Scavland Guides

This hub is the map of every Scavland tutorial on the wiki. The game is a hardcore top-down survival RPG set in Zalesye, and it punishes players who treat it like a loot-first shooter. Read in order if you are new, or jump to the system that already killed you.

Start with Getting Started for the scrapyard hour, then how to play for the journal, map, and camera. Once those two pages make sense, the rest of the hub is about staying alive long enough to care about factions and guns.

First hour

Scavland opens with a wounded Vulture, a backpack, and a tutorial that is more than a button prompt. Hunger, thirst, a medkit, and a quest book appear before you are allowed to wander. Getting Started covers that loop without spoiling Act I. Pair it with the beginner checklist so you do not leave town missing bandages or a cleaning kit.

If the interface still feels dense, how to play and the controls page list the keys confirmed in public gameplay: the journal on J, melee on F, interact on E, and right-click for use or aimed fire. Full controller support exists for Steam Deck and living-room play, which matters because inventory and looting were rebuilt for pads.

Survival and combat

Zalesye is not only mutants. Water carries radiation, the Mist drains life, guns jam, and a dirty rifle can cook off into scrap. Survival explains hunger, thirst, radiation meds, and why a shortcut through a swamp is often a death sentence. Combat covers firearms, melee, suppression, cover, and why ammo is a budget, not a spray. Stealth is the third option: takedowns, line of sight, and night movement when you cannot win a fair fight.

Those three pages talk to each other. A loud magazine dump in a bunker draws things you cannot see. A silent run with an empty stomach still fails. Use survival to pack the raid and combat to spend the raid.

Bunkers, demo, and what to ignore

Surface Zalesye is handcrafted. Under it, bunkers are procedural: armories, event rooms, and enemies that do not belong on the road. They are the closest thing Scavland has to a dungeon, and they are where overconfidence dies. If you played the 2025 Steam Next Fest build, the demo page explains what that slice taught and what Early Access changes.

Need geography or a workbench? The map page names Zalesye places the public record actually uses. Crafting covers cleaning kits, workbenches, and why a dirty rifle is a firework. Inventory is the stash, hotbar, and the reason a magazine can make a gun vanish. Jobs is the contract loop that pays for both.

This hub does not replace the weapon tier list or the factions pages. Guns and reputation are their own problems. Come back here when you need a method, not a ranking.

Suggested reading order

1. Getting Started and the beginner checklist.
2. How to play plus controls.
3. Survival, then combat and stealth.
4. Map so far jobs do not become tourism.
5. Bunkers, crafting, and inventory once you can return with loot.
6. Weapon builds and factions when you have a reason to specialise.

Early Access is scheduled for 4 September 2026 with Act I only. Guides here describe systems NoShadow has shown in trailers, the Steam page, and public demos. They will move when patches land. Check Early Access and the roadmap before you assume a demo trick still works.

Official video and store links live on the links hub. This wiki is unofficial. Use it to prepare, then verify numbers on Steam.