Guide to Bellwright for Beginners: Tips and Tricks

In Bellwright, gamers start their survival journey with minimal resources. Even for experienced players, the initial stages can be quite challenging if not approached with caution. Bandits, wolves, and nature itself will be your first adversaries: it will take considerable time to fend them all off. In this guide, we have compiled the best tips for beginner players in Bellwright — from choosing the location for your first camp to gathering valuable resources.

Note: This guide is based on the early access version of Bellwright, which may differ from the final version of the game. We will update this guide in due time.

You will start the game near a small settlement. This place will be your starting point where you can find your first allies and necessary resources for survival.

First, find the elder of the settlement and talk to him. Initially, the elder will refuse to converse with the hero, but eventually, he will provide initial instructions and quests that will help you get acquainted with the game and understand the basic mechanics.

After talking to the elder, find a suitable place for your future camp. Try to choose a location near water and resources. Build a personal hut there, which will serve as your temporary shelter. Before night falls, gather available resources: wood, stone, berries, and others. You can also build additional huts for your future settlers.

When night comes, sleep in your new camp and wait for 24 hours to pass. This time will allow you to regain strength and prepare for further actions.

In the morning, you will have time before the village elder's quest appears. Spend it gathering resources: find berries, mushrooms, and other items you come across. You can store them in your camp by building a few chests beforehand. Also, talk to the townspeople to find those who want to join your settlement.

Return to the elder to receive a new quest. The quest will lead you to a character named Lyubomir. Talk to him and, if you have previously built a tent for him, you can immediately take him into your squad and lead him to the camp. Lyubomir will become one of the first members of your settlement.

In the camp, build a simple workbench. It will allow you to craft various tools and items necessary for further development and survival. To open the crafting menu, press the «B» key.

Also, set up a research table to study available technologies. Assign at least one worker to work at this table. Researching new technologies will help you improve your settlement and create more complex items.

Settlers need to eat regularly. Place chests near their tents where you will store food. This will help maintain their health and productivity.

At this point, the introduction ends. Now you have the basic knowledge for survival in the game. In the future, you will be able to develop your settlement and face new challenges. In the following sections, you will find useful tips to help with this process.

In Bellwright, there is always a lot to do, and the time in a day is critically short. Traveling to distant towns or setting up resource outposts will take up a significant portion of your daytime, preventing you from completing all planned tasks before nightfall.

It's useful to decide in advance what you want to achieve at the beginning of each game day. A detailed to-do list is not necessary, although it can be helpful. The main thing is to choose one task and focus on completing it. If it requires building a new structure or researching a new technology, prioritize these projects.

The most important thing is not to get distracted. If you spend time chasing a deer or gathering unnecessary materials, it will only slow down your progress.

Another useful tip is to build your base near water early on. This will make it easier to gather resources, which are incredibly important for crafting many items, such as arrows. Having a base near water will be an ideal solution, especially in the early stages.

It's important not to rush. If you lack troops or equipment to complete complex tasks, don't worry. Instead of rushing, focus on building and developing your base, enjoying the process and strengthening your settlement.

We also recommend setting up camp near a road. This will allow you to move around the map more easily, as when you explore and find road signs, you can use fast travel and travel faster, which is very convenient.

In Bellwright, you can run much longer if you use regular roads for this. Try it yourself: run on the road and across rough terrain. In the second case, stamina will decrease several times faster. Therefore, if you need to quickly escape from a chase or get to the desired location, the road is the best option. Of course, not all roads will lead to your next goal, but all settlements are connected by them in one way or another.

Collect as much flax as possible from the very beginning. Flax, stone, and wood are extremely important resources at the beginning of the game. In our first playthrough, we faced a shortage of flax, so it is very important to start collecting it as early as possible. If you are lucky enough to place your settlement in an area where a fresh flax field appears every morning, be sure to stock up on it and store it in chests because you will definitely need it in the future.

Our next tip won't have a decisive impact on the game, but it can significantly simplify your gameplay. At the beginning of the game, we recommend placing small traps near existing bait spawn locations. We often forgot to take berries or mushrooms on the way to check our traps, so we had to return to the camp for them. Now we specifically place our traps near berry bushes, which makes the task easier. First, it's easier to find the traps, and second, you will always have berries for bait. By completing the initial quest with Lyubomir and setting up small traps, you will significantly ease your survival.

An excellent food for the main character and camp residents is fish. Fish dishes are especially useful as they increase productivity by 30% and accelerate skill growth by 20%. These bonuses apply to both the protagonist and all settlers.

There is only one reliable way to get fish in Bellwright: talk to the fishermen you can find near lakes and buy smoked, fried, or raw fish from them. Prices range from 10 to 25 coins per piece, depending on whether the fish is raw or already cooked.

You can meet several fishermen at the lake on the way to Padstow, south of Herndin. They offer a wide range of fish and regularly replenish their stocks, which is quite enough to feed your entire village during the harsh winter.

Can you make a fishing rod and catch fish yourself? At the moment, this is not possible, but the game is in early access, so it will surely become available later.

Increasing reputation with individual settlements is very important in Bellwright, as without it you will not be able to attract new residents to your camp, who can become extra hands or your warriors.

To do this, complete the chain of starting quests until you have the opportunity to interact with the village elders. From this point on, you will be able to give them ancient coins and wolf fangs. The former can be found by inspecting chests at altars. Fangs drop after killing wolves in the open world.

Another tip is to always use the collected skill books. There are several levels of these books that can be used at different skill levels. They can offer significant bonuses once you reach a sufficiently high level, and all these bonuses will eventually add up.

An interesting feature of these books is that you can make all settlers read them. The player does not need to be near them — you can remotely instruct them to start reading a book. For example, we have a book for workers in our inventory: simply use it from the backpack to make them start reading it. You will have other books, and you can choose any of them, go to attributes, click on the small plus sign next to the desired attribute, and the workers will start reading it. This will improve the overall abilities of both workers and companions.

You can obtain such items not only by inspecting chests in the open world and completing quests. They are also sold by merchants in some cities.

Ideally, you should always have at least one food slot filled. Even simple edible items like berries and mushrooms increase health and stamina. If your character travels hungry, he will be slow and extremely vulnerable, especially if he encounters bandits.

Once you can regularly cook food, make sure your stomach is always full. This means carrying extra food with you or knowing where you can quickly grab a bite.

Keep in mind that food that is not used for a long time spoils and becomes useless. Dispose of spoiled food in specially designated places. This is the only way to permanently get rid of spoiled products without leaving them on the ground. For example, a toilet, which you can build in your camp, is perfect for this.

In most games, if there is no exclamation mark or other sign above a character, you are likely to get a bit of secondary information. In Bellwright, things are different. Villagers in towns can join your settlement if you earn their favor. They will only do this if you approach them directly, so it is worth getting to know everyone and tracking whether they are potential candidates.

Settlers need more trust to join you, especially if they are experienced. Poor people have low stats but will happily follow you, whereas skilled specialists will not want to leave their established crafts without a good reason.

From the very beginning, gamers will notice that the inventory fills up very quickly. Initially, it may seem like you have many slots, but there is a catch: large items do not stack, and big items like logs and ores take up several slots in the backpack. That is why it is always useful to have free space for additional sticks or other small items.

Resources can be stored in chests and on the workbench, but each container also has limited capacity. Larger items take up as much space as in your backpack.

Another way to speed up your progress is to create bags. The residents of your village will be able to craft them at the weaving loom or in the weaver's hut once you reach level two. Bags significantly increase capacity, adding nine slots for both you and the villagers. For residents working in your settlement, this literally doubles the amount of items they can carry. Make sure all your settlers are equipped with bags.

The idea of becoming a lone hunter, taking down a mighty deer with a precise shot, might sound appealing, but in Bellwright, it's far from simple. Even rabbits often survive an arrow hit and run away at the first sign of danger. If you take a companion with you, also armed with a bow, you can kill deer faster without chasing them all over the open world.

This tip is especially useful if you plan to hunt boars. These animals are large and aggressive, so it is not recommended to fight them alone.