Permafrost Beginner Guide: Your First Hour

The first-hour route at a glance

Order	What to do	Why
1	Create a survivor and choose Story or Survival difficulty	Story is the easier exploration option; Survival makes resources and exposure harder
2	Finish A New Beginning in the ravine	Learn scavenging, stone tools and heat
3	Light the campfire with Wood in its fuel slot	An empty campfire does not warm you
4	Follow Feel the Heat through the cave	Reach Horizon, the first major safe settlement
5	Find Robyn, the settlement leader	Crossing the gate alone does not complete the mission
6	Claim a sleeping bag / prepare the Dog Days quest	Set a respawn spot before longer trips

A New Beginning: gather, craft, light

1. Follow the radio guidance to the clearing near the small stilted cabin. Gather Wood from bushes (the first objective asks for 3 Wood), then collect 3 Stone / Rock Shards near the cabin.
2. Open Inventory and crafting with Tab. The October 2026 recorded build shows Stone Shiv: 1 Stone + 2 Wood, Stone Axe: 2 Stone + 4 Wood, and Stone Pickaxe: 2 Stone + 4 Wood. Collect additional materials as required instead of assuming the first quest totals are enough for all three.
3. With a Stone Shiv, the starting cabin lock can be opened to find Cloth; unlock Rope from Blueprints (U) when directed by the quest. Make your initial Bow when prompted.
4. Equip the Building Tool (B), choose the Campfire from the build menu (right mouse button in the recorded default bindings), and place it on valid ground. A Campfire costs 2 Stone in that build. Interact (F), put Wood into FUEL, then use the on-screen ignition action. Look for the completed quest notification.

Feel the Heat: don’t stop at Horizon’s gate

Follow the cave objective marker away from the ravine. After coming out, continue toward the Horizon settlement. The quest changes to finding the leader once you pass the entrance. Find Robyn in the leader cabin and talk to her to finish Feel the Heat. If the journal still shows the mission, speak to Robyn rather than repeatedly crossing the gate.

Set a respawn location using an available sleeping bag or bed, then consult how saving actually works. An autosave, the save command and a bed-based respawn point are different things.

Prepare the dog rescue and your first home

The next early chain includes Horizon’s Kitchen, Dog Days and New Home. For Dog Days, the walkthrough records a rescue at Bone Cave using a Bandage and raw Meat. The New Home quest teaches the Workbench, Flint tools, Stone Furnace and radio. Use the first-base building guide before investing valuable materials.

First-session controls in the recorded build

Action	Default
Interact	F
Inventory / craft	Tab
Building Tool	B
Build menu while tool equipped	Right mouse
Quest journal	J
Blueprint tree	U
Map	M
Dog companion command	E

Build note: Keybinds and resource costs were checked against October 2026 Early Access / 0.44.2 recordings. Some patches may differ; use the game’s Controls menu as final authority.

Evidence and next moves

The captured opening quest walkthrough shows the named objectives; the recorded controls list documents keys.

After this first hour, use the full walkthrough and quest route, crafting material table and interactive map to plan the next session.