Afterworld Guides Hub

This hub is the map of every Afterworld tutorial on the wiki. The game is upcoming on PC via Steam, with no release date yet, so these pages explain the systems Paradox has actually shown: origins, Traumas, settlements, logistics, the Ideas Tree, laws, multiplayer, and the Ancients. Start with the beginner guide if you only know the cinematic trailer, then read how to play for the loop hidden in the Gamescom B-roll.

What these guides are for

Afterworld is not a battle-royale shooter and not a Roblox experience. It is a grand strategy game with a settlement-and-survival second genre, directed by Dan Lind at Paradox Development Studio. You begin as a small band in a procedurally generated North America a century after The Fall, then grow that band into a nation that can starve, schism, migrate, or become an empire. The first-look preview collects those claims in one place so you can tell marketing language from footage.

Use this hub when you want a specific answer:

• Getting started — wishlist, follow diaries, and learn the five design pillars.
• How to play — scouting, fog of war, early laws, and relocation.
• Origins — Shelterfolk, zealots, prologues, and Traumas.
• Settlements — food, water, fuel, convoys, and moving the capital.
• Ideas Tree — advances that unlock from rivers, ruins, and other tribes.
• Multiplayer — co-op, competitive play, and the promised mod tools.
• Ancient Tyrants — immortal pre-Fall leaders and how to face them.
• Map — procedural North America, fog, the Turns expedition.
• Combat — map command, raids, and battles that play out without a tactics layer.

If you care more about ranking than tutorials, jump to the origins tier list and the playstyle list. News lives on the updates hub. Practical launch prep is on system requirements and the wishlist checklist.

How to read a pre-release wiki

Treat every mechanic as announced, not final. Alpha B-roll from Paradox shows a large regional map, named characters, law screens, and scavenging. It does not show a ship date, full origin roster, or finished combat math. When a page says “Paradox has confirmed,” it is quoting the store page, Dev Diary 1, the official site, or on-camera interviews. When a page says “footage suggests,” it is describing the ten-minute gameplay reel, not inventing a patch.

That honesty is the point of this hub. Search traffic around Afterworld right now is “release date,” “gameplay,” “origins,” “multiplayer,” and “is this Fallout.” The preview answers the Fallout question: the tone is closer to settlement survival and Mad Max logistics than vault-boy retro-future. The origins guide answers who you can be on day one. The multiplayer guide answers whether you can raise an empire with friends — yes, online co-op and competitive multiplayer are both confirmed.

Suggested reading order

1. Getting started so you know the pitch and the pitfalls of waiting for a Paradox launch.
2. How to play so the Ideas Tree and relocation do not surprise you.
3. Origins plus the origins tier list if you already think in CK3-style starts.
4. Settlements and Ideas Tree if you like Frostpunk-style scarcity.
5. Ancient Tyrants when you want the late-game threat.
6. Dev Diary 1 whenever you need the designer’s own words.

Bookmark the official links for Steam, the Paradox forum, and the Afterworld Discord. This wiki is unofficial. When a diary and a page disagree, the diary wins.

What we will add after more diaries

Controls, exact buildings, and a full walkthrough cannot exist until Paradox shows them. The moment a second diary names a law, a resource, or a map layer, it will land here and in the updates hub. Until then, these guides stay deep on what is known and refuse to pad a 600-word page with fake keybinds.