Moonlighter 2 Beginner’s Guide – What You Need to Know (Early Access)

Seven long years after the original launch, Will, the brave merchant, is finally back in the long-awaited sequel. Moonlighter 2: The Endless Vault is now live in Early Access. If you’re new to the series or have simply forgotten some key mechanics, don’t worry - we’ve got you covered. In our Moonlighter 2 Beginner’s Guide, we’ll share essential tips and tricks to keep in mind so your first experience with the game goes as smoothly as possible.

NOTE: This guide covers the essential starting things you need to know when first starting the game. If you want more in-depth information, check out our Combat guide, Shop guide, and Perks guide.

Controller or Mouse and Keyboard?

This game is designed from the ground up to be played with a controller, so I strongly recommend against using a mouse-and-keyboard setup. Having tried both, I can confidently say that combat simply feels much better on a controller, at least when it comes to the action-heavy parts of the experience (that is, when you are actually doing a run).

However, I’d also add that when navigating the game’s various menus and systems (like the extensive Codex), I sometimes switch to mouse and keyboard, since it’s much faster to move through menus with a mouse. So if you’re playing on PC, you might end up doing the same, using a controller for combat, and occasionally switching to the mouse to quickly browse through shop menus and other UI screens.

What to Upgrade First in Moonlighter 2

Moonlighter 2 comes with a lot of systems right from the get-go, and it might feel overwhelming, especially since most of them require you to spend the same resource - gold. If you experience choice paralysis when you see all those options, you are not alone. Here are all the upgrade systems where you can spend your gold.

• Merchant Progression: Upgrades to improve sales and store
• Arcanism: Various non-combat upgrades for Will (like extra potions, extra health, etc.)
• Blacksmith: Upgrades for the weapons you own and crafting for new weapons
• Homeware: New furniture that improves your business in the Shop

Each of these requires Gold and unique resources that every NPC vendor asks for. So, what should you upgrade first? Keep in mind that this is just my opinion for the purpose of this Moonlighter 2 Beginner’s Guide, based on my current experience with the game. This upgrade order allowed me to collect resources more quickly and be more efficient during my runs:

1. As soon as Eris opens her shop, purchase the Extra Potion update in Arcanism.
2. Buy the first weapon upgrade for your weapon of choice at the Blacksmith.
3. Back to Eris, buy the first two +10 Health upgrades in the Arcanism tree.
4. In the Merchant Progression skill tree, buy the extra Perk Meter upgrade.
5. Once you find a recipe for it (random loot), buy the first Prestige Display Case.

This is my upgrade order, the one I find most efficient for my playstyle. Feel free to try it, but keep in mind that you may want to focus on other aspects of the game first, in which case your early-game upgrade list might be a bit different from mine. In any case, make sure you’re certain about an upgrade before buying it, because there’s no respec feature. Once purchased, an upgrade is permanent.

How to Expand Your Backpack in Moonlighter 2

In the original Moonlighter, you were not able to expand your backpack. However, the backpack in Moonlighter 2 is drastically smaller, offering only eight slots in its most basic version. If you're a Moonlighter veteran, you might be wondering why the backpack is so small and whether there's an option to expand it with more slots.

The good news is that, yes, there is an option to get more slots in the backpack. The bad news? Yeah, it's not really cheap. The first additional slot upgrade will cost you 4,000 gold. It becomes available once you find Sliver in the deserts of Kalina. When you meet him (which will naturally happen early in the game), he will come back to Tresna and will become avilable as an NPC vendor. And that's where you can purchase Backpack upgrades, including additional slots.

How to Get More Healing Potions in Moonlighter 2

Healing Potions in Moonlighter 2 are not consumable items that you spend or purchase. Rather, you start each run with a set number of healing potions, which you can use during that run. You start with only one healing potion, but this can be expanded through an upgrade you purchase from Eris. The Extra Potion upgrade is the very first upgrade available at her place, allowing you to start your runs with two potions instead of just one.

In the very first upgrade tree at Eris’ Arcanism, you can also purchase additional health, increased healing per potion, and several other health-related upgrades. I advise you to spend your early-game gold here, as these upgrades will make your runs significantly easier.

How to Farm Resources in Moonlighter 2

Resource loot in Moonlighter 2 is predominantly random, so there is no concrete strategy to farm any of the resources in the game. However, there are some things you can do to earn more resources (again, at random), which will help you in the long run. Here are the things to pay attention to in order to farm more resources in Moonlighter 2.

• Make sure to destroy every destructible object on each map. These are the main things that give resource loot.
• If offered, pick perks that give more resources (like the one with a chance for resources to be doubled per drop).
• Sometimes enemies drop resources as well, but you need to get close to them when they fall in order to pick them up. In the chaos of battle, you may accidentally leave some behind. Before leaving a map, make sure to check that you didn’t accidentally miss any resource drops.

How to Earn Gold Fast in Moonlighter 2

For the final section of my Moonlighter 2 Beginner's Guide, let's talk about Gold. If you want to earn as much Gold as possible quickly in Moonlighter 2, you’ll need to focus on the shop-management aspect of the game. In general, the strategy is fairly straightforward, and if you follow a few simple steps, your coffers will soon be filled to the brim with gold. Here’s what you need to do:

• Invest your Gold in the Merchant Progression skill tree. These will, in general, make your shifts more profitable.
• Make sure to invest your Quality points into your most valuable Relics. Quality adds a percentage bonus to the gold you earn, which means the higher the base value, the more gold you’ll gain from Quality points.
• Sometimes after a mini-boss fight, you’ll get an opportunity to leave the run before either dying or completing it. This allows you to extract from the run while your Relics keep their full value (instead of being worth only half if you die). Do this often if you want to maximize profits.
• When offered, pick perks that increase the value of your loot (such as those that give a chance to obtain higher-rarity Relics or add extra Quality points to them).

And with that, our Moonlighter 2 Beginner's Guide has come to an end. I want to stress once again that this is not a comprehensive, step-by-step guide, and I know you know that already. It’s more of a collection of tips meant to make your life easier as you start playing the game for the first time. I truly hope it helps you have more fun with the game (as it did for me), and if you need any more help, don’t hesitate to check out the rest of our Moonlighter 2 guides.

Moonlighter 2 Beginner's Guide FAQ