Sunderfolk: Beginner's Guide & Best Tips

Introduction — Why Sunderfolk Broke Me (In a Good Way)

Look, I've been playing action RPGs since the PS2 days. I've sunk more hours into Diablo clones and Souls-likes than I care to admit. So when I first booted up Sunderfolk, I expected another pretty-but-shallow co-op brawler with a crafting system that's just busywork. I was wrong. Dead wrong.

Sunderfolk is this weird, beautiful hybrid of modern roguelite progression and old-school arcade beat 'em up gameplay, but with a stamina system that actually matters and a world that feels genuinely hostile. Not "dark fantasy" hostile with skulls everywhere — I mean mechanically hostile. The game wants you to die. Your first run? You're going to get folded like laundry. And that's the point.

What makes it special is the moment-to-moment tension. You're not just building a character; you're building a run. Every decision — which shrine to corrupt, which merchant to piss off, which elemental affinity to dump your limited upgrade materials into — has consequences that stack and compound. I had a run where I stacked three different fire-related blessings and my basic attack was hitting for 280 damage per swing by the third biome. I felt like a god. Then I hit the fourth biome boss, who absorbs fire, and I spent twenty minutes whiffing like a fool. The game remembers your choices. It punishes greed. I love that.

I'll be real though: the grind for Ascension Cores in the mid-game is a slog. There's no way around it. The devs clearly designed it to pad playtime, and it's the one part I wish was faster. But everything else — the weighty combat, the sheer build variety, the way a single wrong dodge into a poison puddle can end a 2-hour run — it's worth it. Stick with it, and Sunderfolk rewards you with moments that feel earned.

Getting Started / First Steps — What the Tutorial Doesn't Tell You

The tutorial throws you into a prologue fight with a maxed-out character to show you the flashy endgame stuff. Ignore it. That's not how the game plays in the first ten hours. You're going to start with a rusty axe, one healing potion, and a dodge roll that covers about three feet. Your first real enemy — a basic Scavenger — takes like twelve hits to kill. It feels awful. It's supposed to.

Here's the thing nobody explains: your starting class choice matters less than your first upgrade path. I picked the Vanguard (the sword-and-board tank) thinking I'd just block everything. Blocking in Sunderfolk costs 40% of your stamina bar. Guess what runs out fast? Stamina. Then you're staggered. Then you're dead. The tutorial lies to you about how effective blocking is. In reality, dodge rolling is your best friend for the first 15 levels. It costs only 25 stamina, has invincibility frames (iframes) at the start, and you can chain it into an attack. I didn't figure that out until my fourth restart.

First things first when you start:

• Rush the second weapon slot unlock. It costs 500 gold, which feels steep when you're broke, but having a backup weapon with a different damage type (slash vs. blunt vs. pierce) lets you handle enemies that resist your main. I spent an entire run stuck on a boss because all my damage was pierce, and he had 75% pierce resistance. Don't be me.
• Ignore the merchant's "starter bundles." They're traps. The bundle with three potions and a lucky charm costs 350 gold. You can buy five individual potions for the same price. The "lucky charm" gives you +3% loot find. That's nothing. You won't even notice it.
• Do the first side quest immediately. Not because the reward is good (it's a common helmet), but because it unlocks the Traveler's Camp. This is where you spend your upgrade materials, assign blessings, and — crucially — fuse duplicate gear into higher tiers. You cannot access it during the tutorial. I didn't realize I had to talk to the weird old lady at the camp's edge to start fusing. I was carrying four duplicate rings for two hours.
• Save your first three Shift Orbs. These are rare drops used to unlock new abilities. The game's UI will taunt you with a shiny new skill tree node. Don't spend them on an upgrade that gives +5 damage. Save them for the Dash Attack unlock (all classes have one). It's a gap-closer that also breaks enemy shields. Shielded enemies are the most annoying thing in the early game, and this ability trivializes them.

Oh, and one more thing: turn off "Auto-Loot" for common items. It's in the settings > gameplay menu. By default, you'll automatically pick up grey-quality junk (Scrap Metal, Torn Cloth). These fill your limited inventory in seconds. You get maybe 20 inventory slots at the start. Those scraps sell for 2 gold each. Not worth the hassle. Manual looting takes two extra seconds. Do it.

Core Mechanics & Progression — How the Game Actually Works

Let's cut through the game's fancy terminology and talk about what's actually happening under the hood. Sunderfolk operates on a three-layer progression system, and if you don't understand how they interact, you'll hit a flat wall around level 30.

Layer 1: Character Level (XP) — This is straightforward. Kill enemies, complete objectives, level up. Each level gives you 1 Skill Point and a tiny bump to base stats (like +5 HP, +1 attack). Skill points go into your class tree. Nothing special here, except that the XP curve gets brutal after level 25. You'll need to clear entire zones to gain one level. Don't grind levels; they're not as impactful as the other two layers.

Layer 2: Gear & Affinities (The Real Power) — Your gear isn't just stats. Every weapon and piece of armor has an affinity slot (Fire, Ice, Lightning, or Void). Matching two items with the same affinity gives you set bonuses. For example, two Fire items give you "+20% burn damage." Four Fire items give you "burning enemies take 15% more damage from all sources." The bonuses stack and they're massive. I ran a full Ice build (4 pieces) that gave me a 40% chance to freeze enemies on hit. I basically stun-locked the third boss. It felt broken. It was glorious.

The catch? You can't change an item's affinity. You have to find the right drops. And the game loves giving you mismatched sets. You'll have a Fire helmet, Ice chest, Lightning gloves, and Void boots, and you'll get zero set bonuses. This is where the game's "RNG is a jerk" design kicks in. My advice: focus on two affinities max per run. Spread yourself too thin, and you're just a jack-of-no-trades.

Layer 3: The Ritual System (The Run-Builder) — This is the roguelite part. Every time you die or complete a full run, you get a currency called Remnants. You spend these at the central hub (The Weeping Tree) to unlock permanent upgrades — more starting health, better loot pools, new merchants in earlier zones. The Ritual upgrades are sorted into tiers, and the first few are cheap. But Tier 4 and 5 upgrades cost hundreds of Remnants. A full run gives you maybe 12-15. The grind is real here, and the devs know it. They added a "Remnant Boon" microtransaction for the impatient, but don't buy it. Just run the second zone repeatedly — it's the fastest clear time for Remnant farming.

The key insight: Ritual upgrades are more important than your gear. I spent five hours trying to beat the fourth biome boss with optimized gear. I couldn't do it. Then I unlocked the Tier 3 Ritual upgrade that gives you +2 potions at the start of each run (costs 80 Remnants). I beat the boss on my next try. Don't sleep on the potion-related upgrades. They save your runs more than any weapon.

Expert Tips & Tricks — The Stuff Only Veterans Know

Alright, you've got the basics. Now here's the secret sauce — the stuff I figured out by failing hundreds of times and talking to the dead Discord community (RIP the old guild). These aren't "general advice." These are specific, actionable tactics.

• The Flamethrower is a noob trap. It does 45 base DPS, which sounds decent, and it ramps up to 120 DPS after 3 seconds of continuous fire. The problem is that almost every enemy in the first three biomes has dodge mechanics that interrupt your channel. You'll never hit the full ramp. Instead, use the Lightning Blunderbuss. It does 38 base damage per shot, has a 25% chance to apply "Shocked" (slows enemy by 40%), and you can fire it while moving. The damage ramp is fake. Consistent damage is real.
• Weapon swapping during a dodge roll resets your attack animation. Don't tell the devs. Equip two weapons of the same type (e.g., two swords). Start your attack animation with Weapon A. Roll. Swap to Weapon B mid-roll. The game thinks you've started a new attack chain. You can get off four hits in the time an enemy does one. It's a janky exploit, and it's been in the game since launch. I've reported it as a bug twice. It still works. Abuse it if you want higher DPS, but fair warning: it feels clunky and might get patched.
• Break every single crate and barrel. I know, I know — it's the standard "gamer advice." But in Sunderfolk, crates in the mid-biome areas (between objectives) have a 10% chance to drop "Ancient Relics." These are grey-quality items that sell for 200 gold each. There's no other way to get them. I found one early on, thought it was junk, and sold it for 2 gold. I still cringe. Check every crate. I've found up to three relics in a single run, which funded my entire endgame enchantment setup.
• Don't upgrade your gear past +3 until you've cleared the third biome. The upgrade materials (Tempered Steel, Arcane Essence) are rare early on. A +3 weapon is enough to kill everything in the first two biomes. Save your materials for +5 weapons, which require rare drops from the third biome boss. I upgraded my starting sword to +4 in the first biome because I had extra mats. Then I found a better base weapon in the second biome and couldn't afford to upgrade it. Wasted resources. Be patient.
• The "Dodge + Heavy Attack" combo is bugged on the Vanguard class. If you time it perfectly — dodge roll into immediate heavy attack — the heavy attack gets double damage and zero stamina cost. It doesn't work with any other class. It's not listed anywhere. I found it by accident when I was panicking against the second boss. The heavy attack (normally 85 damage) hit for 170 and didn't drain my breakable stamina. This is the only reason Vanguard is viable in the late game. Use it.
• Poison builds are overrated. Don't fall for the memes. Everyone online will tell you to stack poison because the base damage numbers look insane — a fully stacked poison ticks for 50 damage per second for 12 seconds. But (1) bosses in biomes 4 and 5 have 75% poison resistance, (2) poison doesn't stack with itself (you only get one instance at a time), and (3) the best poison weapon requires you to hit 10 consecutive attacks without missing. Against fast enemies? Good luck. I spent my first three runs trying to stack poison and got destroyed by the second boss every time. Use fire. Fire damage is resisted by fewer enemies, and the burn effect reduces enemy healing — which matters for the final boss.

Common Mistakes to Avoid — What Got Me Killed / Frustrated

I've made every mistake in this game. Literally every one. Here's what I hope you don't repeat — because some of these cost me entire runs that were three hours long.

• Ignoring the "Rested" buff. Every campfire gives you a 15-minute buff called "Rested" that increases your stamina recovery by 20%. That's huge. But the buff disappears if you fast travel. I would fast travel between zones to save time and lose the buff, then wonder why my stamina bar felt smaller. Walk between zones. It takes an extra minute. Keep the buff. I lost a run against the Wormking because I fast traveled and couldn't dodge his burrow attack due to low stamina. Painful lesson.
• Opening coffins without checking for traps. Coffins (the tall, ornate loot containers) often have high-tier loot but are also trapped 60% of the time. The trap triggers when you're in the looting animation — you can't dodge out of it. Always hit the coffin once with a ranged weapon or a thrown item before opening it. If it's trapped, it'll explode harmlessly. I lost 75% of my HP to a poison trap coffin in the third biome and had to use all my potions before the boss. The loot inside? A common shield. Not worth.
• Not using consumable bombs. Look, I get it — "I'll save this for later" syndrome. But the game literally throws bombs and throwing knives at you. They take up inventory space. The default "save for boss" mentality is wrong. Use them to clear packs of normal enemies quickly. One Sticky Bomb does 200 damage in a small AOE. That's enough to kill 4-5 basic Scavengers in one go. The game gives you like 20 of these per run. I had a stack of 14 bombs when I died to the final boss. They could have cleared his spawns. Don't hoard.
• Respecing too early. The respec item (Memory Shard) costs 50 Remnants or 300 gold. In the early game, 50 Remnants is four full runs worth of currency. I respecced three times trying to find the "perfect build" and wasted 150 Remnants. That's 12 runs. I could have unlocked a key Ritual upgrade instead. Your first build doesn't need to be optimal. It needs to be functional. Fire + dodge rolls + basic attacks will carry you to biome 3. Refine later.
• Fighting the sewer boss (The Leech Lord) with lightning weapons. This one is specific, but I see so many players make this mistake. The Leech Lord has a passive aura that shocks you if you hit it with lightning damage. The shock deals 30 damage per tick and staggers you. I ran a full lightning build and killed myself in about 15 seconds because every hit applied shock to me. Check the enemy's element resistance in the bestiary before a fight. The game gives you this info. Use it. I didn't. I deserved that death.