Misery is a new survival game set in a nuclear disaster zone that you can play solo or together with up to four friends. You’ll be trying to survive by scavenging for resources in the exclusion zones outside your bunker. Crafting can be your best friend in Misery, but it can also be pretty overwhelming at the start (it sure was for me), not knowing where to find certain resources or which things to prioritize. Make sure to follow our crafting guide so you’re prepared to tackle this post-nuclear world.
All Crafting Recipes
As you spawn into your bunker, there will be three important items waiting for you:
- The crafting bench - As the name implies, this is where you’ll be doing all your crafting. It needs to be powered by electricity, so make sure you have it connected to the generator.
- The Incinerator - Here you can process certain items that you don’t need into crafting supplies.
- Gas generator - Produces electricity when you fill it up with gasoline. There are more reliable ones later on, but this one will do the job for now.
There’s a lot of things that you can make using the crafting bench, but I recommend you prioritise certain things above others. Your resources are very limited at the start and crafting the right things can make the difference between life and death in the exclusion zones.
Priority Crafting Recipes
The following recipes provide you with things that you can’t find anywhere else in the game and they should be your top priority.
| Recipe | Resources needed | Function | Reasoning |
|---|---|---|---|
| "Busel" Detector | 3 Iron Bars 5 Electronics | Used to find artefacts in anomalies | Artefacts can have game changing effects or be a good source of money when bartering with the traders. |
| Chemical Table | 20 Iron Bars 30 Wood 15 Glass 10 Electronics | A new type of crafting bench | Allows you purify water and craft new recipes, with seeds and gunpowder being the most useful. |
| Sewing Machine | 10 Wood 10 Scrap 2 Iron bars | Used to repair your clothes and items | Useful to repair broken gas masks that you can find or buy, allowing you to explore areas with high radiation. |
| Advanced Crafting Bench | 20 Iron bars 20 Scrap 20 Wood 20 Electronics | Unlocks more advanced crafting recipes | You won’t need this straight away, but you can only obtain it by crafting it. Provides useful items for later into the game. |
Prioritize making the "Busel" Detector as soon as you can, it’s relatively cheap and the sooner you get it, the sooner you can hunt for artefacts.
Useful Items Crafting Recipes
These are essential items that you will need in order to upgrade your bunker and ease your survival. The main reason I separated them from the previous ones is that you can find them during your excursions, so you can prioritize your resources for things you can’t simply find. However the excursion zones and the loot in them is randomly generated, so make sure to craft them if you aren’t able to find them.
| Recipe | Resources needed | Function | Reasoning |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cable | 5 scrap 2 electronics | Connecting the power from the source to devices | You’re going to need a lot of these in order to make your power grid as efficient as possible |
| Wooden Wind Turbine | 10 plastic 10 scrap 1 iron bar 1 insulating tape | Produces energy passively and consistently | The most reliable source of electricity in the early game, which you will still be using later on. The more of them you have, the better. |
| Car Battery | 20 Plastic 15 Scrap 3 Electronics | Stores up to 1200 units of power | Great in combination with the Wooden Wind Turbine. You’ll be needing a lot of these. |
| Dwarf Generator | 1 Dwarf 20 Wood 3 Iron Bars 2 Insulating tape | Produces power if you’re able to recruit a dwarf | Good source of electricity early in the game and a great use for your Vodka |
| Gasoline Generator | 20 Scrap 10 Electronic 1 Insulating Tape | Produces power if you fill it with gasoline | The generator you start with is pretty efficient, but gasoline can be hard to find and is also great for selling to traders. |
| Sledgehammer | 10 Scrap 2 Iron Bars 3 Wood | Used to expand your bunker | The only way for you to break down walls in your bunker and make it less cramped. |
| Small Crop | 5 Plastic 2 Wood | Can be used to plant seeds and grow plants | Useful for a constant source of food, as long as you have the seeds. |
| Sewing Kit | 1 Deer Skin 3 Wood | Used to craft some items | Needed to mend and repair broken items at the Sewing Machine. |
| Combiner | 1 Scrap 3 Electronics | Combines two different sources of power into one | Although it’s cheap to craft, it’s used to increase your power efficiency later on, not something you need early. |
| Switcher | 1 Scrap 3 Electronics | Used to either extend a charge or turn it off | Not something you need early on, but can be very useful to make sure you don’t waste any power. You start with one in your base already though. |
| Splitter | 1 Scrap 3 Electronics | Splits one power source into three different ones | Again, it’s pretty cheap and can be useful, but not something you need to worry about early on. |
| Gun Cleaning Kit | 1 Deer Skin 1 Insulating Tape 1 Scrap | Used to clean and improve your weapons or craft certain ones | Only useful once you find a gun worth using it on, which could happen in the first emission or not before the tenth. |
| Lamp | 3 Scrap 3 Electronics | Provides light inside your bunker | The starting light source you get is more than enough. Useful only when you start expanding your bunker more. |
| Crafting Bench | 7 Scrap 10 Wood | Used to craft items | You don't really need more than one of these, at least not while your resource supply is low. |
The most important items in this list are the Cable, the Wooden Wind Turbine and the car Battery. They will be your main source of electricity, which you desperately need to power the rest of your home base. Try to find them out in the wild, but you’re going to want a lot of them, so make sure to craft some as well.
Not Worth the Resources Crafting Recipes
Most of these are decorative items that you can either easily find while looting houses or items that are not needed until much later on.
| Recipes | Resources needed | Function | Reasoning |
|---|---|---|---|
| Crafting Bench | 7 Scrap 10 Wood | Used to craft items | You don't really need more than one of these, at least not while your resource supply is low. |
| Cupboard | 1 Scrap | Used for storage | Even though it’s cheap, you can easily find it during an excursion or just leave items on the floor. |
| Wooden U Stairs | 5 Wood | U-shaped stairs you can place in your bunker | Only used if you start adding a second floor to your base. |
| Wooden L Stairs | 5 Wood | L-shaped stairs you can place in your bunker | Only used if you start adding a second floor to your base. |
| Metal Railing | 5 Scrap | A building item that can be installed if there is support underneath | Mostly used for decorating your bunker. |
| Concrete Floor | 2 Cement 1 Bottle of Water | Building item used to form the floor of your bunker | Essential item for bunker expansion. |
| Concrete Wall | 2 Cement 1 Bottle of Water | Building item used to form the walls of your bunker | Essential item for bunker expansion. |
| Concrete Door Frame | 2 Cement 1 Bottle of Water | Building item necessary for planting down doors | Essential item for bunker expansion, more specifically door placement. |
| Metal Door | 5 Scrap 1 Iron Bar | A door that can be installed in the Concrete Door Frame | Useful if you want to make additional closed off rooms. |
| Concrete Window Wall | 2 Cement 1 Bottle of Water | A window wall that can be installed in your bunker | Purely cosmetic item. Only worth it when you want to decorate. |
| Wooden Window | 1 Scrap 3 Wood | A window you can place in your bunker | Purely cosmetic item. Only worth it when you want to decorate. |
The worth of these items depends on whether or not you want to decorate your base with them. I don’t recommend crafting them until you get settled in, though.
Resources Needed for Crafting
You can find most of the resources needed for crafting during your excursions outside of your bunker. Make sure to break all boxes and thoroughly check each and every container you find, because you might be surprised by the things you can find in a cupboard. It’s randomly generated every time, so if you’re unlucky you might not be able to find the things you need naturally.
The main resources you need for crafting in Misery are:
- Scrap - Can be randomly found and looted during your excursions outside, with a more reliable way of getting it being eating canned foods which are plentiful in abandoned houses.
- Iron Bars - The only way to get it is by smelting down scrap using the incinerator with a 1:1 ratio.
- Plastic - Can be randomly found and looted during your excursions outside, with a more reliable way of getting it being drinking bottled water. Can also be refilled with water at wells.
- Electronics - The only way to get them is to randomly loot them during your excursions.
- Glass - Can be randomly found and looted during your excursions outside, while also getting it after drinking certain beverages that are contained in glass bottles.
- Wood - Even though there are plenty of trees around you, there is no way to cut them down. You can only find wood by breaking crates or looting containers. It can be smelted down in the incinerator to make ash, which is used for gardening.
- Insulating Tape - Can be looted from anywhere, but abandoned cars are the most reliable source.
- Cement - Can only be found randomly during your excursions and is used primarily for base expansions.
- Bottle of Water - While you can and should use it to quench your first, they are also used for crafting certain items. You can find them while looting different containers and also by using plastic at wells to refill them.
If you really need a specific resource, you should check in on the traders. In their hub called The Sirzez you can buy and sell items. You'll need rubbles to buy items from them, which you can get either by selling stuff or find it lying around while exploring or on the bodies of bandits. Make sure to speak with every trader in there, because they each sell different items and will only buy specific items from you.
Misery Crafting FAQ
You need to get back to your bunker before the next emission, which is roughly 20 minutes.
As long as it's placed inside your bunker it will be safe, even if it's on the floor.
By using the same door that you go through when starting an excursion, just select the Sirzez option and it will take you to their hideout.
Hopefully this guide helps you get started with your Misery journey, however if you're looking for a break from the doom and gloom of Misery, check out our RV There Yet Beginner’s Guide for a more light-hearted co-op experience.
Luka is a freelance writer for Pro Game Guides and a lifelong gamer, playing the original Zelda and Doom back when he was 4 years old. He enjoys games from all kinds of different genres, with his favorites being RPGs, turn-based strategies and third person action games. If a game with roguelike elements comes out, more often then not you can catch him playing it. So it's no surprise that Hades is among his favorite games, along titles such as The Witcher 3, Dead Space and Dark Souls to name a few.