Soulmask: 10 Beginner Tips (2024)

Soulmask is an intriguing open-world survival game that takes you on an adventure through a primitive land with mysterious beliefs. As you escape a deadly sacrifice, you will soon stumble upon an ancient mask that grants you special powers, forever changing the world you knew.

Like most survival RPGs, Soulmask challenges you to explore unknown territories, gather resources, farm animals, craft tools and weapons, find shelter, and build your own tribe. Since you start from nothing, the untamed jungles of Soulmask can feel overwhelming. This beginner's guide equips you with the essential tips and tricks to conquer the early game and sets you on the path to survival.

Choose The Right Mask

When you start your Soulmask journey, you’ll find an ancient mask with different variants: Civilization, Conquest, Rich. Each mask type caters to a specific playstyle, so choose the one best suited for your preferred way of playing the game.

Complete The Tutorial

Once you start Soulmask, a comprehensive tutorial will take you by the hand and show you all the important starter mechanics that differentiate Soulmask from other survival games. Soulmask is already a challenging game, and skipping the tutorial will only make the early game even more brutal.

Make sure you complete the tutorial and take the time to learn the ropes. In case you ever get stuck with something later on, press the N key to open up the Gameplay Guide.

Find A Central Base Spot

In the unforgiving wilds of Soulmask, a well-established base is your lifeline. Your base, specifically the campfire, acts as a respawn point if you die (as long as the fire stays lit).

When setting up your first base, find an area with abundant resources that you’ll need regularly. This includes access to fresh water, a good source of wood and stone, and even some bushes to cut down, so when you have a constant supply of resources, you won’t have to go out on resource-gathering trips often.

Don’t set up camp too far away from the starter area (for example, near the beach) as it would make progressing super hard. Instead, stay closer to the starter area and set up your base near the biome edges.

Stay Close To Water

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Another reason to consider setting up camp near water bodies, like ponds, lakes, or rivers, is the easy access to Clay. Clay is an essential resource for crafting tools and building materials in the early stages of the game and is always found near water bodies.

Clay nodes are easily identifiable by their dark, muddy appearance and will always have a shiny, wet look, so use your pickaxe to harvest clay from these nodes. Be careful, however, as these waters have crocodiles that can cause serious damage.

Have Enough Space For Expansion And Defense

When building your base, make sure to build on a flat and open area that has enough space for expansion and defense. Building on flat ground is easier and allows for a more organized layout of your base structures, and moreover, you can use the extra space to build walls and fences to deter enemies and protect your base.

While building atop a small cliff in the rainforest sounds tempting, you will run into all kinds of trouble and need to relocate to expand. By choosing a spacious location with room to grow, you set yourself up for a secure and well-fortified base in the long run.

Sort Your Chests By Resources

Like most survival games, gathering resources is key to thriving in Soulmask. Interestingly, Soulmask allows you to set a whitelist for chests, meaning you can define which resource categories can be stored in a specific chest; one chest might only store crafting materials, whereas another can store food items or weapons.

You can further refine the whitelist by specifying individual resources within a category. This makes it easier to store your resources and access them later, so even NPCs in your tribe will be aware of what resources are stored in specific chests within your base.

Gain Proficiency Levels

As you play Soulmask and perform actions, you can gain Proficiency in specific skills, which include mining, harvesting, logging, cooking, leatherwork, weaving, weapon crafting, and even combat skills (spear, blade, bow). The higher your proficiency in a skill, the better you become at it – which means you can gather resources and craft items faster, and fight enemies more efficiently.

In Soulmask, players have a starting cap of 50 for each Proficiency, whereas NPCs can go up to levels 120+. Once you reach Proficiency Levels 30, 60, 90, and 120, you’ll be rewarded with extra buffs.

Assign Jobs To NPCs

Once you get things going and recruit enough tribesmen, assign them to skill-based tasks like crafting and resource gathering. NPC allies in Soulmask are pretty self-sufficient and will carry out their jobs without needing constant supervision.

While NPCs can't perform multiple tasks simultaneously, you can assign them to multiple stations. You’ll need to queue up jobs, for example, chopping wood and then turning it into planks, and the NPC will switch between the tasks in the queue.

Once you have a steady supply of base materials (like planks and linen) readily available, you can instruct NPCs to craft other items only when needed. This allows your clan to rest more between work, which improves their mood.

Check Your NPCs’ Proficiencies And Traits

When assigning jobs to NPCs, remember to check their proficiencies and traits; you should assign NPCs to stations that match their highest skill potential. For example, take two NPCs – one with a low Smelting skill (6/100) and another with a higher potential but lower current level (32/50).

Despite the lower current level, the second NPC has a higher potential for growth in Smelting. Therefore, assigning them to the Smelting station will yield better results in the long run as they gain experience and unlock skill bonuses.

Each NPC has a unique personality defined by their traits. By understanding their traits, you can assign tasks and provide an environment that caters to their preferences.

For example, an NPC who loves Jaguars might be happier taking care of them, leading to a mood boost. If an NPC has a negative trait, like ‘Devious’, it might not be worth recruiting as they cause too much trouble.

Reveal The Map

When you start playing Soulmask, the map will be covered in "fog," hiding unexplored areas. To reveal these hidden areas, find and clear Scout Camps. Approach camps and settlements that have a Scout and “deter” the Scouts.

Doing so, you can trigger a skill that transfers their map knowledge to you. This will reveal the areas they have explored on your map. Visit other Scout Camps and repeat the process to gradually reveal more of the map.