Into the Fire Guides

This hub is the map of every Into the Fire tutorial on the wiki. The game is still heading toward Early Access in 2026, so these pages mix official trailers, playtest notes, and Starward interviews rather than pretending a 1.0 manual already exists. Use them to decide what to wishlist, what to pack, and which systems will punish hesitation once Steam unlocks the island.

Start with Getting Started if you have never seen Frank walk into a burning street. Then read how extraction actually ends before you treat every scream as a mandatory pickup. Rescue has its own muscle memory: how to bring survivors home is not the same article as camp and settlement, because a successful carry can still starve the hub two days later.

What belongs in this hub

• First-hour loop, UI, and what the playtests do not explain
• Extraction routes, RV timing, and when to abandon loot
• Carrying people and animals through fire, ash, and collapsing floors
• Camp morale, food, water, workshops, and who unlocks which bench
• Controls for keyboard and supported pads
• Extinguishing weapons used as tools, not as a conventional shooter kit
• Volcanic hazards including bombs, quakes, lava, and fire spirits
• Playtest signup for Open Playtest no.2 (until 7 September 2026) and PC requirements
• Maps and districts — New Sindra, Crimson Pass, Ruins
• Animal rescue — shelter first, then field extracts
• Quests and the LAB — Main / Area / Gate jobs, Jetpack, Flamethrower

If you already know the fantasy and only need a packing list, jump to the expedition planner or the weapons ranking. Those pages exist so this hub can stay about how the systems talk to each other instead of repeating every table.

How an Into the Fire session is supposed to feel

Starward describes the fantasy as anti-combat extraction: you are a rescuer on Dante’s Archipelago, not a soldier clearing a dungeon. Official features still hold in every playtest we have seen. You leave camp with a limited kit. You read seismographs and radio callouts. You put out fire to open a path, kick debris, carry a body that slows you, and race a rising threat meter toward an extraction vehicle. Success is measured in lives, relics, and whether the camp can support the extra mouths. Failure is not a wipe screen so much as a quieter hub and a story that remembers who you left.

That is why this wiki splits “how to play” from “how to extract” from “how to run camp.” Players coming from Tarkov-likes look for ammo charts. Players coming from Firefighting sims look for hose pressure. Into the Fire sits between them: extinguisher shotguns and suppression pistols exist, but the real resource is time, and the real upgrade tree is the people you refuse to abandon.

Suggested reading order

1. Playtest if you want the live Steam build this week.
2. Getting Started — Frank, William, the daily report, and the reworked tutorial.
3. Controls — kick, dodge, stamina, breach, and why the pad mapping feels odd in early builds.
4. Extraction — RV windows, greed, and the Ruins vertical routes.
5. Rescue survivors — carry weight, animals, and who to pick when the street is collapsing.
6. Camp hub — morale, kitchens, wells, and Soul Sight style perks.
7. Extinguishing weapons then the loadout ranking.
8. Hazards so a three-skull Crimson Pass run is a plan, not a surprise.
9. Maps and animal rescue once the first extract is clean.

Keep release date and playtest notes in another tab. Starward is still retuning stamina, extinguishing feel, earthquake duration, and HUD warnings. A tip that was correct in the May–June 2026 open tests can be wrong in the August 31 wave.

How we source these guides

Every page leans on named, public material: Steam news, the IGN Fan Fest 2026 trailer, Starward’s own mission reveal, GamingBolt and DualShockers interviews, and long playtest videos from creators who actually ran New Sindra and Crimson Pass. We do not invent YouTube IDs, gift codes, or a multiplayer mode the store page does not list. When a number comes from a playtest (earthquakes shortened from 420 to 300 seconds, kick stamina 45 to 35, 12,000 open testers), the article says so.

If a mechanic is only visible in a creator VOD — Soul Sight, greenhouse, petting the dog for morale — we label it as playtest-observed and remind you it can change before Early Access. That honesty is the point of a pre-launch wiki: you should leave with a plan, not with fake certainty.

Related hubs

Equipment ranks live under Equipment. Planning checklists live under Tools. Dates and patch language live under Updates. Official store, Discord, and social links sit on Links. Use those four hubs when a guide starts turning into a spreadsheet; come back here when you need the story of a run.