Getting Started in Into the Fire

Into the Fire drops you on Dante’s Archipelago as Frank, a rescuer who showed up to help and now has to live with every extra second in the fire. Starward Industries is still aiming at Early Access in 2026, so this beginner guide is written for wishlist buyers and playtesters, not for a mythical day-one patch that does not exist yet. If you only remember four ideas, remember these: the game is single-player, extraction is the skill check, the camp is the progression screen, and you cannot save everyone.

Official trailers still sell the fantasy cleanly. You leave a living hub, enter a district that is actively collapsing, use retro extinguishing tools to open routes, carry people and animals, and try to reach an extraction point before lava, ash, or fire spirits close the street. Between runs you read a daily report, feed the settlement, and pick the next job. That loop is the whole game. Everything else — relics, myths, Soul Sight style perks, greenhouses — is a modifier on that loop.

What you are actually signing up for

This is not a firefighting career sim and it is not a conventional extraction shooter. Weapons exist, but they are tuned to suppress fire and weird volcanic entities rather than to farm PvP loot. Interviews with Starward’s CMO and game director keep repeating the same design bet: tension comes from time, responsibility, and a hub that remembers who you brought back. If you came from The Invincible expecting a slow sci-fi walk, the tempo is faster. If you came from Tarkov expecting a raid timer and a stash, the raid is a rescue and the stash is a camp that gets hungry.

Playtest creators (including Splattercat’s first-hour run in May) kept saying there was barely a tutorial. Open Playtest no.2 reworked onboarding after that feedback. Play the new tutorial anyway, then use this page as the briefing the island still will not pause to give you. If the current Steam wave is live, start from the playtest page.

Splattercat's Into the Fire playtest first impressions

First-hour checklist

1. Wishlist the Steam and GOG pages and join the official Discord from Links. Playtest keys still flow through those channels.
2. Confirm your PC against the system requirements. Playtest FAQ numbers are heavier than the TBA block on the store page.
3. Learn controls in the pause menu before you sprint. Kick, dodge roll, and stamina are easy to waste.
4. Pack a breach tool and an extinguisher, not a fantasy arsenal. See the expedition planner and weapons ranking.
5. Treat the first city street as a teaching run. Extract early with one survivor rather than dying with four names on the tracker.
6. After the RV, read the daily report: survivor count, morale, food, water, threat. That screen is the real campaign map. Details sit in camp hub.

Meet Frank, William, and the island

Trailers address you as Frank. Playtests put an experienced island guide named William (Willie) in the camp, handing tasks and flavour. You did not come as a chosen one. You came as the person with the suit and the nerve. Dante’s Archipelago sits in a volcanic belt Starward has compared to Iceland’s black sand and boiling rivers, then pushed into folklore: fire spirits, rituals, relics, and a sense that the eruption is not only geology.

Districts you will hear in playtests include New Sindra (creator captions often write Synra), Crimson Pass, and later the Ruins — a more vertical, indoor-and-cave extraction space Starward highlighted with the 2026 “What We Bring Back” trailer. Names can still shuffle before Early Access. What will not shuffle is the rule: each map is a semi-open disaster zone that changes as fire spreads and the ground splits. The maps hub is the longer version.

How a first expedition should go

Leave camp with water, a durable axe or other breach tool, and a fire extinguisher. The August 2026 developer diary is blunt: an axe that snaps after a few swings locks you out of interiors, and an extinguisher is how you open streets that fire has sealed. Do not dump stamina on kicks until you need a door or a spirit off you. Move, scan for life signs, and listen for radio callouts about volcanic bombs and quakes.

When you find a person, you carry them. You do not magic them into a backpack. That means planks, ladders, ziplines, and thin ledges become puzzles, which is why rescue survivors is its own guide. Animals count. Starward has said a dog or a bird is still a life. Camp pets were already a morale action; field animal rescue shipped in Open Playtest no.2, and you should build a shelter before you extract one. See animal rescue.

Watch the threat. Playtests use skull ratings and a threat level that ticks up across days. A three-skull Crimson Pass run is not a beginner activity. If the RV is calling and you are still digging ash for a relic, you are gambling the whole kit. Extraction covers that greed check in detail.

What to do when you get back

Camp is not a menu. Playtests show a well, kitchen, larder, common room, stove, greenhouse, dog shelter, and quest board. You accept jobs, craft, talk, and sometimes pet the dog or cat for morale and a scrap of loot. Survivors unlock workshops and story. They also drink your water. The camp hub page is the long version; the beginner version is: never return with mouths you cannot feed, and never ignore the daily report.

Skills seen in playtests include endurance, carry weight, and Soul Sight. Perk names from later patches include Breacher, Durable, and Kicker. Treat those names as living. The important idea is stable: you are building a specialist, not a raid boss.

Common first-run mistakes

• Sprinting everywhere and arriving at the fire with empty stamina.
• Breaking the only axe on decorative crates.
• Grabbing two survivors and discovering you cannot cross the plank you used on the way in.
• Ignoring earthquake HUD warnings after Starward spent a patch making them louder.
• Spending the whole evening in camp decorating while threat climbs.
• Assuming friends can drop in. They cannot; the store lists single-player.

What to read next

If the first hour felt like a firefighting game, read extinguishing weapons next. If it felt like a raid, read extraction. If the camp screen scared you more than the lava, read camp hub and survivor priority. Keep playtest notes nearby; stamina and extinguishing are still being retuned.

Wishlist, join a test if you can, and treat every failed run as scouting. Into the Fire is built so that the people you do not save still change the story. That is the point of the first expedition, not a perfect loot path.