Ravenbound Starter Guide

Our Ravenbound Starter Guide will tell you everything you need to know to survive and succeed in this challenging action roguelite game!

Quicklinks: HUD Explanation | Starter Guide | F.A.Q.

Ravenbound HUD Explanation

Ravenbound is not a game for the faint of heart -- it can be a brutally unforgiving roguelite game, especially when you're starting and learning how Traits work and which Cards you should pick. As always, we'll explain what the HUD does before we dive into the Starter Guide proper.

1. Health - This is your life bar. When this goes to 0, you die. "Gray Health" is damage that hasn't been made permanent yet; you can restore this portion of Health by attacking enemies.
2. Focus - This is a meter that builds up as you land attacks. When it's full, you can expend it for increased attack power and potentially other beneficial effects depending on what Relics or Traits you're using.
3. Fragments and Hatred Track - Fragments drop off of Elite enemies. Once you collect 3, you can "Empower" them and draw a card. Empowering Fragments will slowly increase the Hatred meter. As each section fills, that will guarantee one "Hatred" Card replaces a standard Card. Hatred Cards supplant one of your potential Card rewards instantly activate negative effects in the world, typically by increasing the Health and Damage of enemies.

4. Main Objective - The location of your main objective will be represented by a blue shield icon. A new run will always start with the Main Objective to clear out a Hatred Tear.
5. Adventure Quest - Adventure Quests are side quests that will typically reward you with some Coins. A new run always starts with one Adventure Quest available.
6. Enemy Camp - Enemy Camps are where you can find enemies to fight. Different Enemy Types are represented by different icons. The icon in the above picture represents the easiest standard human enemies.
7. Raven Tower - Raven Towers will allow you to jump back into the air and fly around as a Raven.
8. Town - Towns will only show up when you're near them. Towns have Vendors that can restore some of your health, unlock more Relic slots, provide Card draws in exchange for Coin, or provide Adventure Quests.

Ravenbound Starter Guide

The first piece of advice I'll give you for our Ravenbound Starter Guide is to play through the tutorial and pay attention to it. It teaches you all of the basic mechanics of the game, at least in terms of combat. That said, we'll go over a basic primer nonetheless.

A Basic Primer to Ravenbound

Ravenbound charges you with clearing the land of "Hatred," a malevolent force let loose upon the world by the Betrayer -- one of six gods who protected the world. The Betrayer locked away the other five gods and it's up to you to free them as a "Vessel" for a mystical Raven the five good gods forged right before their capture.

Your main goal will be to clear out the Tombs where these gods are imprisoned. Unfortunately, you'll probably die in your attempt more than once. Each new attempt will give you a new randomly-generated "Vessel" with a random set of Traits taken from the pool of Traits you've unlocked.

In any case, completing the Tutorial will eventually take you to the top of the tower where you're free to fly out into the world -- and toward your first objective.

The First Tear

Your first objective will be to travel to the Tears of Hatred and clear out the enemies surrounding the Pillar of Hatred. Fly toward your objective and land in the crevice. Don't worry if you overshoot and fall into the lava -- you'll instantly respawn above and get another attempt to land. When you do land, you'll have a random assortment of enemies to take on.

This is your first fight, so try not to take too much damage. You should rely on using Guard rather than Dodge/Slide; you should only Dodge/Slide when your Guard is broken and you need to back away to recharge.

Defeat the enemies and you'll be able to pick up one or more Fragments of varying rarity. This is the first step toward getting your first Card draw. Hop into the broken Pillar of Hatred and claim the 5 Mana within, then head up the stairs to exit the area. Use your grappling hook to escape if necessary.

Clearing Camps

With the Tears of Hatred cleared, you may be tempted to move on to the Adventure Quest represented by the green diamond icon on the map. Hold off on this for now -- instead, we're going to clear some Camps.

When you're just starting out, you'll want to look for Camps with a single floating white line above them -- these are the easiest Camps to tackle. Conversely, a camp with a floating cross above it has more challenging enemies (and more rewards, often including a Chest).  The rewards in these more difficult Camps will be greater, though.

You'll also want to look for Camps near the Tear of Hatred you just cleared out -- this removes Hatred penalties from the immediate area, allowing you to power up your Vessel with a lower risk of accumulating Hatred too early and buffing enemies in the world.

Fight and defeat the enemies in this first Camp, taking care to avoid damage as much as possible. Remember: use Guard first, then Dodge/Slide when your Guard breaks to escape out of bad situations.

Completing the first Camp will likely get you enough Fragments that you can Empower them. This will allow you to draw your first set of Cards.

Select whichever Card you think is best. This Card will be added to your Hand -- to actually play it, you'll need to spend Mana.

You should then continue to clear out Camps and Empower Fragments until the next quest marker is revealed. This will take you to the Tomb of Gales. Before we do that, though, we should address the Adventure Quest (a.k.a. a Side Quest).

Tackling an Adventure Quest

Adventure Quests are simple affairs. Here's how they work:

1. Follow the green diamond marker to a town.
2. Find the Adventure Quest giver in the town and take on the quest.
3. Travel to a Camp or other location and clear it out.
4. Return to the Adventure Quest giver and collect your reward.

Generally speaking, Adventure Quests are a little riskier than clearing out random camps, but they hold greater rewards for you.

Clearing the Tomb of Gales

Our final step in this Ravenbound Starter Guide is to tackle the Tomb of Gales. Your chances of success will be vastly improved if you have a few Relics and a better Weapon and Armor before heading in.

Here's what my inventory looked like before my first successful attempt at taking on the boss:

The Tomb of Gales is not some epic dungeon where you'll have to kill 50 enemies -- instead, it's a one-on-one boss fight against a particularly tough enemy.

Before you venture in, I want to again remind you: use Guard first, then use Dodge/Slide when your Guard is low to fall back and recharge it. Unless you can perfectly time your Dodges, you'll take damage unless you manage to use your Guard in time.

The Tomb of Gales boss is Hatred's Tempestblade. That big sword can swing surprisingly fast, so make sure you're ready to use your Guard (or Dodge/Slide, if needed) at a moment's notice. Take your time whittling down the enemy's health.

Perform well and you'll defeat your enemy. You'll get to meet the first of the five trapped gods and get your Hatred cleansed, allowing you to move on to the next stage of your adventure.

If you can defeat Hatred's Tempestblade, you will have demonstrated a good command of the game's basic mechanics. This marks the end of our Ravenbound Starter Guide -- go ahead and take a look at our other guides to learn more about the game and develop a winning strategy!

Ravenbound F.A.Q.

What is Ravenbound?

Ravenbound is a single-player action roguelike game where you take on the role of a "Vessel" of a powerful Raven seeking to free benevolent gods from the prisons crafted by a traitorous god called the Betrayer.

Is Ravenbound Multiplayer?

No, Ravenbound is not multiplayer. However, it does have some online features similar to Dark Souls such as the ability to loot the graves of other players who died during their runs.

Where is the Ravenbound Save File?

We do not yet know the location of the Ravenbound save file. That said, it's unlikely you'll be able to tinker with the save files since this game has online functionality.

What Happens When You Die in Ravenbound?

If you die in Ravenbound, you will permanently lose your Vessel (player character) and the run will end. You will gain a small amount of the "Legacy" currency based on your performance during the run, and then you'll

We're all done with the Ravenbound Starter Guide, but there's plenty more to explore!