Looking for some Tribes of Midgard tips to help you get started? There's a lot to learn in Viking ARPG, and you'll need to learn it quickly because the end of the world is nigh and the mythological monsters of Midgard aren't going to wait for you to catch up.
Whether you're playing solo or with up to ten people, there are some things you should know about lasting as long as you can in the dangerous procedural world and protecting the Seed of Yggdrasil, the mystical tree in the center of your village. If the tree dies, your world ends and you'll have to start over.
There's a brief tutorial on gathering resources and crafting the tools and weapons you should start with, but there's plenty more information you'll need if you want to survive the monsters and giants who want to bring about Ragnarok. Here are ten Tribes of Midgard tips to help you get started.
Souls are your greatest resource
From the moment you begin exploring the world, collect everything you can get your hands on. You'll need stone, wood, iron, plants, leather, and lots of other resources for crafting weapons and gear. And nearly every action you take provides you with souls, from something as simple as chopping down trees to massive tasks like taking down giants. As you play you'll earn a steady amount of souls—the amount is shown in the top-right corner of the UI.
It's lucky you get souls from just about everything you do, because you'll need to spend those souls on just about everything you need. You can use souls to increase your tree's health, upgrade village NPCs, build and upgrade village defenses like gates and archery towers, building farms and quarries, and repairing your weapons.
Souls are crucial, so don't spend them all in one place, and try not to spend them all. Try to always keep a couple hundred souls reserved for emergencies.
Level up your NPCs quickly
In Tribes of Midgard, you're not the only one who can grow more powerful. Your NPC villagers can level up, too, provided you feed them some of the souls you collect.
Level your tinker first. She's stationed near the northwest entrance to the village. Once she's at level 3 she can craft items like stone blocks, iron ingots, and wood planks you can use to build gates and archery towers to help protect your village. Next, focus on leveling up your blacksmith and armorer to gain access to more powerful weapons and gear. The alchemist can also craft more powerful potions at higher levels, like heat and frost protection potions you'll need as you begin exploring harsher biomes.
Find shrines to fast travel
There are two ways to fast travel in Tribes of Midgard. You'll spawn with a rune that you can use to teleport back to your village (press T to use it), but that only gets you back home, and there's a lengthy cooldown so you can only use it once every couple of days.
For regular fast travel you'll need to discover shrines out in the world. The best way to find a shrine is to keep an eye on your minimap while you explore. As you uncover new areas of the map, you'll eventually spot an icon that looks like a gray-colored, eight-pointed star. When you reach the shrine you'll see a notification to activate it by holding the F key.
Activating it won't actually make you fast travel, it'll just unlock that shrine as a fast-travel location you (and any other players you're playing with) can use whenever you want. Once activated, just press F to travel.
Pressing F on an activated shrine will open your map. Then you just need to click on another active shrine to be teleported to it. The shrine in your village is already activated, so you can use it to travel to any other shrine you've activated in the world, and there's no limit or cooldown on how often you can use shrines.
You can't swim—but monsters can't either
As you uncover more of the map, you'll find rivers and beaches and the large bodies of water surrounding the continent. Your Viking, unfortunately, can't swim (and there are no Viking ships), so treat that water like lava because it'll instantly kill you.
Luckily you're prevented by an invisible barrier from running straight into the water and drowning, but you can enter the water accidentally by rolling, such as if you're dodging attacks or rolling off clifftops.
On the plus side, monsters can't swim, either. I've seen plenty of monsters rolling to dodge my attacks and winding up killing themselves in the water. It's pretty funny! Even the mightiest giants have to walk around water, rather than through it. If you see what looks like lots of small rocks in a river, that indicates you can cross the water at that spot.
There's more than one way to chop down a tree
If you're out gathering wood by chopping down trees and your axe breaks, you should get back to your village to repair it or craft a new one. But there are other ways to chop down trees in a pinch.
Swinging a sword with a normal attack won't damage trees, but your alternate attacks will (by right-clicking). And some enemies do damage to the environment while they're attacking or chasing you, particularly the bigger ones like ogres. You can kite enemies around and have them knock down trees while they're chasing you.
Dump your resources in the war chest
When you're killed out in the world, you'll drop your resources where your body falls and you'll have to travel back to collect them. (Though, pleasantly, you'll keep your weapons and gear when you die.) So you don't want your inventory to be jam packed with resources in case you get killed. Each time you visit your village, dump your haul (select Place All) in the huge war chest located on the east side of the village, near the repair bench.
Anything in the war chest can be used by village NPCs for crafting—you don't need to have the resources in your personal inventory for them to be used. In co-op, it's a good way to share resources with your fellow Vikings, too. And putting items in the chest means you won't lose them when you die.
Your NPCs fight monsters, which is good and bad
Each night, Helthings spawn outside your village and march in to attack your tree. The good news is, your village NPCs won't just stand around watching. They'll jump in and fight the monsters alongside you.
There is a downside, though. While your NPCs are fighting, they won't do anything else. If you desperately need to craft a health potion or a new weapon, you'll have to wait until the Helthing threat is dealt with and the NPCs return to their crafting stations. If your NPCs take too much damage, they'll be incapacitated and you'll need to revive them. So make sure you have everything you need crafted before night falls, or you may have to wait until morning and the monsters are all dealt with.
Don't forget to check the quest board
With so much going on, it's easy to miss an important feature of your village: the quest board. There you'll find quests you can undertake in the world. In fact, you'll need to complete a few if you want to succeed. Quests provide quest fragments, a reward needed to unlock the lair of the final boss, so check the board for quests every so often and get them done while you're out exploring. The quest board is located in the north of the village, just to the right of where the village healer is standing.
Beware the blood moon
Every few nights you'll receive a warning that the blood moon is rising. You can probably tell from the name that it's not a good thing. A blood moon means the approaching night is going to be tough, because the Helthings attacking your village during a blood moon will be especially powerful. When you see the blood moon warning, make sure you get back to town immediately, and get geared up and healed for a long night of combat in your village.
Not every creature needs to be stabbed
Occasionally you'll receive an event notification regarding the Roosters of Ragnarok (yes, really), or that a stag has descended from the world tree, and markers will appear on your map with their approximate location. Until then you've been killing everything you see, but when you track these creatures down, don't waste time swinging your sword at them. You'll need to catch the roosters by getting close enough to receive a prompt (which is tricky because they're exceptionally fast runners). The stag, similarly, doesn't need to be attacked, just get close enough for an interaction prompt to complete the event.
