HOPE 01 Beginner Walkthrough

This walkthrough is a first-hours plan for HOPE 01’s Steam Early Access, not a spoiler script of HAB 01’s endings. The campaign is a 50–70 hour first ending in playtests, with 50+ quests and multiple endings. You do not need the ending on day one. You need two clean extracts, a scanned workhorse gun, and a map pin for Hab Rail. If you want systems instead of a sequence, use Getting Started.

The in-game language is English. The game is single-player. Nobody else is racing your quest NPC.

Hour 0 — hideout, not heroics

Stay in the hideout until you can do all of this without thinking:

1. Open and close inventory with B, Tab, or Escape.
2. Drag ammo onto a magazine and seat the mag.
3. Put a flashlight in the utility slot and hold left click.
4. Find the fabricator, identify a blue dot, scan it.
5. Move an item into the stash tab.
6. Look at the top of the HUD and know that this is where extract timers will live.

If any line fails, stay in Controls and Fabricator. The Cluster will not teach you gently.

Print food if you already have a public-fabric recipe. If you do not, that is your first loot target, not a rifle.

Hour 1 — a short loop with a named extract

Leave with:

• One gun you can fire.
• One loaded mag.
• Flashlight.
• Empty grid space.
• The intention to come back through the first rail you see.

Play like a coward on purpose:

• Landmark spawn versus Hab Rail posters.
• Loot fabrics and blue items only.
• Ignore dark branches you cannot silhouette.
• When the Manorial / rail timer appears, be early.
• Extract even if the bag looks sad. Sad bags that reach stash are how libraries start.

If you miss the timer, do not camp. Rotate using How to Extract and the district notes on Hab Cluster Map. A first-hour backup extract is a graduation, not a failure.

On return: stash, scan every remaining blue, print calories if you can. Do not print a second gun body yet.

Hour 2 — medical fabrics and a second exit

Second raid theme: medical without getting lost.

• Take the same spawn knowledge and peel toward medical signage.
• Grab medical fabrics and wall boxes (close inventory, E on the wall).
• Scan nothing in the field unless a fabricator is on the way and the timer is kind.
• Chart one extra exit. Stand on it. That is the whole objective.
• Leave when the bag has bricks, not when you feel brave.

You may meet a quest NPC. The demo was “a single NPC and a small part of her questline”; Early Access has the full 50+ quest promise. Accept the quest. Do not follow it into a one-way drop on this run. Note the door, extract, print, return. That is how Metroidvanias stay fun.

Hour 3 — Bureau peek, still no boss appointment

Third raid theme: look at the Bureau of Common Safety, steal fabrics, leave.

Bureau halls are for people who already have a dodge (double-tap A/D) they trust. If you still eat the first lunge, spend this hour repeating the medical loop instead. There is no skip ticket.

Bring food. Hunger is how hour-three players donate kits. If you scanned a caloric converter, print food first; the gadget burns calories for energized and regeneration, it does not create them.

If you see a unique door, clone-tank room, or voice-over about procedures and survival odds, that is a Boss Fights threshold. Check the bag. Dirty bag → walk away. Clean cheap kit → you may learn the tell and die. Dying on a reprintable pistol is tuition. Dying on unscanned military loot is a mistake.

Hours 4–6 — make the loop boring

You are ready to play HOPE 01 when extracting is boring:

• You always leave with a named extract and a backup in mind.
• You always scan blues before you flex.
• You print food and mags before toys.
• You know whether your gun’s selling point is RoF, muzzle velocity, reload, or penetration.
• You can swap to light without opening the wrong tab.

Now you may:

• Print a reprint of the workhorse gun so wipes are cheap.
• Take a planned boss on the Early Loadouts kit.
• Rank floor drops against the Weapons Tier List.
• Follow a quest deeper into the Cluster, still with an extract plan.
• Start collecting toward achievements like Collector, Well-read, Find Hab 01, and Hope 01 — there are 21 on Steam — without treating them as hour-one goals.

What not to do in the first hours

• Do not empty military fabrics on an unscanned gimmick gun.
• Do not stand on an empty Manorial platform “just in case.”
• Do not open a full tetris sort while the rail is live.
• Do not enter a dark boss pit to “see what happens” with groceries.
• Do not assume English UI tooltips will explain fabrics. Public, medical, and military bricks are different colours of money.
• Do not wait for multiplayer. It is not that kind of extraction game.

A note on Early Access pacing

HOPE 01 entered Steam Early Access on September 15, 2026, at a $11.99 list price (launch week carried a −10% introductory offer). Bending Boy Games says most initial features are in, the campaign is completable, and EA should last about a year or less while they add quests, endings, guns, gadgets, enemies, and bosses. Difficulty, fabric amounts, and boss fights are explicit feedback targets.

That means this walkthrough’s hour numbers are a teaching scaffold, not a speedrun. If hour two is still “I cannot find the rail,” repeat hour one. The Cluster is large on purpose. The Guides Hub exists so you can swap from this sequence into the system page you are actually failing.

When the first ending is closer than the first extract, you have the game upside down. Extract until the hideout looks like a workshop. Then go find HAB 01.