When starting Graveyard Keeper 2, you should always, eat before your energy runs low rather than after, to keep your insanity in check. Prioritize cutting trees and unlock wood-processing tech first then pottery to unlock fishing as well. Always keep track of your resources and raise your NPC relationships and Graveyard Rating to progress. For more Beginner tips, check out our complete guide below.
Graveyard Keeper 2 drops you into a world where you manage corpses, grow a graveyard, automate production with zombies, and gradually rebuild a ruined town all the while keeping track of your energy, your insanity, and economics. With so many systems and things to manage, it can be quite overwhelming, especially if you're new. So, this Graveyard Keeper 2 beginner's guide covers everything you need for the best possible start.
How Do You Farm Food in Graveyard Keeper 2?
Food is one of the most essential resources in Graveyard Keeper 2, and you are almost certainly going to run low on it when you first start off. Mushrooms and berries are your best beginner food sources and are found by gathering from nodes around your starting area.
They restore small amounts of energy (+3 from Berries, +4 from Mushrooms), which is enough for the first few in-game days when your task load is light. The problem is they barely touch your energy bar once you start taking on real workloads. The better mid-game food sources come from two other sources.
You can either cook crops from your Garden Beds and selling or keeping fish from your fishing spots. Crops from your base plots can be sold raw to the village shop for money or cooked into food that restores significantly more stamina than the raw ingredient does. The same logic applies to fish which you can either sell for income or process them into food for energy.
As you restore Town buildings, reopened shops add new markets for your goods. The general progression for farming food is mushrooms and berries then cooked crop food then finally fish-based food, with each step reducing how often you need to sleep between tasks.
How Do You Cook Food in Graveyard Keeper 2?
If you want to start cooking in Graveyard Keeper 2, you need to progress through the Tech Tree to unlock the relevant food recipes, then building the cooking station those recipes require. Without the recipe unlock, you cannot cook even if you have all the ingredients.
Bread is the first significant cooked food upgrade over raw mushrooms. To start making Bread, you need these following upgrades: Gardening -> Millstone -> Bread, which you cost you around 50 Green Tech Points and 5 Red Tech Points. Then repair the Over in your home to start cooking.
TIP: Prioritize unlocking at least one cooked food recipe early, preferably Bread, so you spend less time sleeping and more time progressing.
How Do You Fish in Graveyard Keeper 2?
Fishing in Graveyard Keeper 2 is gated behind completing an early quest. The twins near the merchant have taken his fishing rod and will only trade it back for pottery. So, fishing is not immediately available from the start and you will need to unlock Pottery before you can start fishing.
Once you have the rod, find a fishing spot and then you just need to match your bait to the fishing spot you are using. Different spots have different fish populations, and using the wrong bait reduces your catch rate.
You can then catch and sell your fish to the shop or progress through the tech tree to craft food using them that restore energy. Because fishing is both a food source and an income source, unlocking it early shortens the overall resource grind significantly.
How Do You Farm Crafting Materials in Graveyard Keeper 2?
The three most important early crafting materials are wood, clay, and stone. Everything else in the opening hours is built from combinations of these. So, here's how you can farm all of them:
Wood comes from cutting trees around your base. It is the most consumed early resource and feeds almost every construction recipe, which is why unlocking Concept of Wood followed by Chopping and Woodworking I should be your first Tech Tree priority.
Stone is the second most basic resource you will be needing and it comes from mining rock nodes around the map. It is used in crafting stations like the Pottery Wheel and various building blueprints. Do note that you need to unlock Concept of Stone and later Stone Polishing to actually use it in crafting.
Clay can be mined from the brown patches of land scattered across the map. It is the core material for pottery (unlocked from Pottery I Tech) and is also used in later building recipes. You should note the Clay drop locations on your map so that you don't waste time searching for it mid-quest.
NOTE: You should stack up on Red Tech Points by completing tasks like chopping wood, mining stone and clay. Every Tech under the Building and Metallurgy Tree requires Red Tech Points.
How Do You Make Pottery in Graveyard Keeper 2?
Pottery is one of the most important upgrades in Graveyard Keeper 2 since it is required to complete the fishing rod quest. You need to follow these three steps to do it:
Step 1: Unlock Pottery I in the Tech Tree
Open the Tech Tree menu and navigate to the Building tab (first tab from the left). Pottery I costs 10 red tech points and 5 green tech points. You cannot use the Pottery Wheel or follow any pottery recipe without this unlock.
Step 2: Build the Pottery Wheel
Go to the Crafting Table and construct a Pottery Wheel using 2 Wooden Planks and 1 Stone. This is your dedicated station for all pottery production.
Step 3: Mine Clay and Produce Pottery
Find the brown clay patches on the map and mine enough Clay for your recipe. At the Pottery Wheel, input 2 Clay to produce a Clay Plate. For the fishing rod quest, hand the Clay Plate to the twins to receive the fishing rod.
You can unlock more pottery recipes unlock as you progress further through the Tech Tree's Building tab.
What Is the Best Build Order in Graveyard Keeper 2?
When you start Graveyard Keeper 2, if you keep building stuff in the wrong order it wastes both your time and Tech points. So, these are the building priorities that will help you progress efficiently:
- Wood processing: First unlock Concept of Wood -> Chopping -> Woodworking I from the Tech Tree before anything else, and craft a Chopping Spot and a Woodworking Bench. Every building and most crafting recipes require planks for your progression.
- Garden Beds: After wood, the next thing you should invest in is Food. For that your recommended build order should be Gardening -> Millstone -> Bread, while building Garden Beds to farm Wheat and Millstone to get Flour. Use your Kitchen to farm Bread.
- Stone & Pottery: Research Concept of Stone and Pottery I after getting Wood and Food in order. Then build a Stonemason's Workbench and Potter's Wheel to get building materials and complete the Pottery Quest.
- Morgue Autopsy Upgrades: Once you're done with your resources, then focus on the Autopsy upgrades. Research Soft Parts -> Skin & Bones -> Skull & Teeth. These help you get more Mastery and extract more parts from a Corpse. This directly effects your skull counts, and zombie quality. You should get it upgraded before you start receiving higher-quality corpses.
- Graveyard Decoration: The final thing on your build order should be Graveyard Decoration to increase your Graveyard's Rating. Research Wood Gravestone I to get basic Gravestone upgrades and decorations and then start burying corpses.
Once you're done with these upgrades, you would be set for the early game. Progress towards Zombie Assistant to start working on mid-game upgrades and Town Defenses as well.
How Do You Improve Your Graveyard in Graveyard Keeper 2?
Your graveyard rating is determined by the combined quality of everything inside it. Before starting any burial, you should clear leftover rocks, trees, and empty holes without a corpse inside them.
For each burial, maximize the white skull count on the corpse before burying it. White and red skulls cancel each other (i.e. a corpse with three white skulls minus two red skulls leaves you with one net white skull at the burial). Remove body parts during autopsy to push the white count up.
Removing certain organs requires a higher autopsy skill, and failing with a low skill triggers a surgeon's error, which hurts rather than helps and increases the red skull count. You should pair each burial with a wreath or marker for an additional rating bonus.
Each properly prepared burial plot displays a skull-quality number. The higher is better, and the early game target is reaching a graveyard rating of 10 white skulls to clear your first major burial goal. You can later make space for tombs, benches, columbaria, and monuments, each adding to rating when placed.
How Do You Progress in Graveyard Keeper 2?
There are multiple systems that you need to keep track of in order to progress in Graveyard Keeper 2. These include Technology Points (Red, Green, Blue), Energy, Sanity and much more. Here's everything you need to know about each:
How Do You Farm Technology Points in Graveyard Keeper 2?
Technology points come in multiple colors (Red, Green, Blue) tied to different Tech Tree branches. Almost every action in the game generates some form of tech points: gathering, chopping, crafting, autopsy work, and construction all contribute. Here's how to get each:
- Red Technology Points: You get Red Technology points from doing labor works like Chopping Woods, mining stone, digging clay or crafting resources from these resources. Mainly used for unlocking Building and Metallurgy Tech upgrades.
- Green Technology Points: You can get these mainly from collecting berries and mushrooms, planting seeds and farming in general. Mainly used to upgrade Faming and Cooking upgrades.
- Blue Technology Points: You get these mainly from doing Autopsy work and Graveyard work. You can use these points to unlock upgrades in the Anatomy & Alchemy Tech tree.
The important detail is that grinding tech points alone does not unlock everything. Some blueprints are locked behind specific story quests and NPC relationship in addition to point totals, so you cannot skip quest progression entirely in favor of pure grinding.
How Do You Restore Energy in Graveyard Keeper 2?
Energy is your most critical resource in the early game and the one that gates all other activity. There are two main methods restore it: eating food and sleeping. Mushrooms and berries are the baseline early option, but they restore very little energy per unit.
Cooked food like Bread and fish restore significantly more, which is why unlocking a cooking recipe and the fishing rod early reduces how much of your time is spent sleeping. The most important habit is eating before you feel it coming rather than waiting until you are exhausted.
When energy drops very low, insanity builds faster, which then reduces your maximum energy in a compounding way that makes recovery harder. So, make sure you always have food in your inventory and use it proactively.
How Do You Lower Sanity in Graveyard Keeper 2?
Insanity (purple bar beside your energy) climbs from mainly handling corpses and from general labor. Even crafting regular stuff builds insanity it over time. Its immediate effect is reducing your maximum energy, which means a high insanity level limits how much work you can accomplish before needing to rest.
Beer from the Tavern is the easiest early insanity reducer. Sleep also lowers it but only activates the reduction when you are tired, so it is not a reliable way for managing insanity mid-day. You should keep track of your insanity actively and reduce it before it climbs high enough to shrink your working capacity.
How Do You Unlock Perks and Inspirations in Graveyard Keeper 2?
Inspiration is a separate progression meter from Tech points. Actions like cutting trees, gathering mushrooms and berries, and crafting fill an Inspiration bar. When the bar is full it converts into a star-shaped point that you spend on perks or talent upgrades through the Inspiration system.
Your first few Inspiration points come free, but later unlocks cost Faith. Because of this, the best early strategy is to grind actions that fill the Inspiration bar while going about your normal resource gathering, rather than treating Inspiration as a separate goal to chase.
Unlocking perks and Inspirations through this grinding method is faster in practice than rushing story quests specifically for them. Achievements that grant points are worth prioritizing for the same reason.
NOTE: Perks gained from Inspiration help you directly or indirectly raise your Mastery Points. So, if you are low on mastery, prioritize Inspiration upgrades.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
The first thing you should unlock is wood processing in the Tech Tree before anything else. Wood and planks are required for almost every early recipe and building, and running short of them blocks all of your other progress. Then go for pottery quest to unlock fishing.
White and red skulls represent the purity and corruption levels of a corpse respectively, and they cancel each other out to produce a net score. For burial, you want a high net white skull count, achieved by removing corrupted organs during autopsy. Red skulls serve a separate function as heavily corrupted bodies with high red skull counts produce stronger zombies, so do not bury a high-red-skull corpse in a grave when it could instead become a more powerful zombie worker.
No. Graveyard Keeper 2 is single-player only. No co-op mode has been announced or listed on the store page.
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