Graveyard Keeper 2 Beginners Guide: 7 Ways to Get a Head Start in the Early Game

Graveyard Keeper 2 introduces a surprisingly large number of systems during its opening chapters. The player needs to manage Stamina and Insanity, process corpses, improve the graveyard, unlock the church… So which should the player actually prioritize in early gaming, instead of being so confused and drowned by all these activities? This beginner’s guide gives you all the tips you need for the early game phase (up to the point where you can get some free zombies to free your hands!)

Beginner’s Phase: From the Tutorial to When the Plague Doctor Gives the Player Free Zombies

This Graveyard Keeper 2 beginners guide focuses on the early game up until the player receives the first free zombies from the Plague Doctor. That point provides a natural transition into the game’s automation systems. Although the game introduces zombies relatively early, resurrecting the player’s own corpses and developing a larger zombie workforce requires additional technology and several more complicated quest and production chains. Those systems work better as part of the mid-game progression rather than the basic beginner phase.

Most importantly, this Graveyard Keeper 2 beginners guide emphasizes on helping the player to avoid unnecessary early-game toil. These tips focus on helping the player understand the game’s fundamental systems, early phase priorities, and tips to help with the gameplay experience, before automation becomes a major part of the experience.

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1. Follow the Quest Lines Before Expanding Too Much

The most important early-game tip is simple: follow the main quest progression. Graveyard Keeper 2 does not expect the player to understand every system even till the end of the tutorial. Instead, the story gradually introduces the major parts of the game and provides reasons to explore them.

Three characters are particularly important during the opening progression: the Nun, the Plague Doctor, and Herbert.

1. The Nun: Church and Faith
2. The Plague Doctor: Alchemy, research, and zombies
3. Herbert: Barracks and combat progression

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The Nun and the Faith System

The Nun introduces the player to the church and the Theology system. Her quest line eventually opens the church and leads to the player’s first sermon.

The player needs to improve the church to the required quality before the Nun provides the first sermon. After that, sermons become an important source of Faith, which the player can use for:

• Research: Certain items require Faith points and Science points for research, but the yield of the XP is totally worth it.
• Milestones: Save the player all the walking time with teleports.
• Inspiration perks: You know how annoying it is when you need a certain mastery level to craft something. Perk trees can give extra mastery level points!

This makes the Nun’s quest line much more important than it might initially appear. The church is not simply another building to repair; it introduces one of the game’s core progression currencies.

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The Plague Doctor and Zombies

The Plague Doctor, Albert, introduces the Abandoned Tower, alchemy, research, and the first zombies.

The route to Albert takes the player through the dungeon beneath the home and eventually into the Abandoned Tower. Once Albert moves into the tower, he begins teaching the player about alchemy and Dream Dust. His quest line also provides the player’s first two zombies. This makes Albert the natural endpoint for the beginner phase of the game.

The player can now see what the game’s eventual automation system looks like, but that does not mean the full zombie system has opened. Building a larger workforce through resurrection requires other questlines to be finished and more technologies that come later.

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Herbert and Combat

Herbert, the Head of the Guards, introduces another important branch of progression.

His early quest line asks the player to provide a Burial Certificate, improve the Graveyard, obtain Faith, improve the Barracks, and eventually prepare a Magic Bell before the first battle.

This makes Herbert the character to follow when the game begins moving toward its combat and Town-defence systems.

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2. Manage Stamina Without Constantly Farming and Brewing

Stamina management becomes important almost immediately because most manual work consumes energy. Here’s how you can manage Stamina better without committing too much time to cooking.

First, sleeping and when to sleep. The ideal case is to sleep only when the Keeper feels sleepy and replenish the Stamina bar relying on food for the rest of the time. The reason for this is to maximize the work time and the sleep benefit. Sleeping when the character is tired removes a substantial amount of Insanity, while sleeping at other times only recovers Stamina. Additionally, the Lack of Sleep debuff increases Insanity no matter what kind of work the player is doing at that time.

Second, Berry Pie is an excellent early game food. Berry Pie makes a particularly useful early-game food because it handles both Energy and Insanity. Each Berry Pie provides 27 Energy and reduces Insanity by 3. The player can easily bake them using Dough (From growing Wheat), Berries (From foraging; there are a couple of berry bushes right next to the home and Work Yard), and Fuel.

The combination of proper sleep and Berry Pie can help the player easily deal with Stamina and Insanity in the early game phase. Therefore, the player can spend more time on crafting, researching, and quests, and not overly committing to farming and brewing. The player can even skip brewing entirely, which is just as Stamina-consuming as farming.

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3. Manage Insanity By Sleeping & Performing Autopsies Smartly

One of the easiest beginner mistakes is assuming that every corpse needs a complete autopsy. And here is why you shouldn’t extract every organ from the corpse:

• Early in the game, the player has limited Anatomy mastery, but many organs require considerably more Anatomy mastery than the player initially has. Attempting to remove an organ below its mastery requirement can result in a Surgeon’s Error, Stamina waste, and Insanity building up.

Instead, the player should focus on the useful materials that are immediately useful at this stage or improve White Skull points. After getting to a later stage, there will still be bodies sent in for the player to extract new organs in need.

1. Fat and Blood are particularly useful early resources because they carry red skulls. Removing them can improve the quality of the resulting grave, while Fat also feeds into Melted Fat production later.
2. Skin is very important as well because the player can use it to craft Leather Scroll and Clean Paper. The paper can feed into the Study Table to increase the Science points.
3. Ash is from cremation. The player can make Ash into Ink at the Writing Desk.

(Note: White Skull points contribute to the Graveyard score, while Red Skull points are useful for making zombies but reduce the Graveyard score after the player buries the body.)

A better early-game approach is to bury enough suitable bodies to satisfy the current Graveyard requirements, while cremating the rest of the bodies. The benefits of cremation in the early stage include:

1. Not taking up too much space in the Graveyard and the Morgue.
2. Saving the player’s Stamina for the burial and decoration.
3. Turning bodies into Ash directly that can be used at the Writing Desk.

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5. Graveyard Keeper 2 Beginners Guide on the Best Early XP Sources

Once the Plague Doctor opens access to the Abandoned Tower, the player should spend some time learning how the Study Table works.

The Study Table is particularly valuable because it converts Science into large amounts of technology points. The Study Table can award dozens of technology points per research. Usually, the more Faith and Science points the item requires for the research, the higher the award goes. This way of earning technology points is much faster than earning them from daily activities.

• Clean Paper can be decomposed into Science.
• Studying previously unresearched items provides technology points and reveals their alchemy runes.

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6. Understand Mastery & Success Rate Before Attempting Difficult Tasks

Mastery is one of the most important systems for avoiding wasted resources and Stamina. For certain activities, the player needs to meet a mastery requirement to guarantee successful work. If the player falls below the requirement, individual work steps can fail.

The game divides work into five branches: Building, Farming, Smithing, Book Writing, and Anatomy. Mastery comes from Inspiration perks, tools equipped on the toolbar, station buffs, and certain foods.

This matters particularly for Farming and Anatomy. For example, planting cabbages requires higher Farming Mastery. The player can increase Farming Mastery through:

• Equipping relevant tools such as a higher-quality shovel and fishing rod. (Bronze Shovel has higher Farming Mastery compared to Rusty Shovel.)
• Activating Farming Mastery + 1 at the Inspirations perks tree.
• Adding Fertilizers to the garden bed, which can also improve the garden bed’s Mastery level.
• Cooking food for a temporary Mastery boost.

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7. Unlock Fast Travel Early, But Do Not Overpay for It

Graveyard Keeper 2 uses Milestones for fast travel. The player activates each Milestone individually using Faith. Once activated, that location becomes part of the fast-travel network, and the player does not need to pay the activation cost again.

The player does not need to activate every Milestone immediately. For the early game, the Crossroads and Port locations provide enough coverage for many of the important destinations the player regularly visits. Fast travel can eliminate a considerable amount of walking once those routes become available.

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Graveyard Keeper 2 Beginners Guide on Early-Game Priorities at a Glance

The early game becomes much easier when the player focuses on a few priorities instead of trying to unlock everything.

1. Follow the story: The Nun, the Plague Doctor, and Herbert gradually introduce the game’s major systems.
2. Manage Stamina and Insanity: Use food intelligently and avoid the Lack of Sleep debuff.
3. Do not over-process corpses: Take useful organs, avoid risky anatomy work, and use cremation wisely.
4. Use the Abandoned Tower: Study new materials to generate large amounts of technology points.
5. Watch Mastery requirements: Better tools, perks, fertilizer, and food can improve success rates.
6. Unlock useful Milestones: Crossroads and Port provide useful early fast-travel coverage.

The biggest early-game lesson is to avoid unnecessary work. Not every corpse needs a full autopsy, not every technology needs immediate research, and not every production system needs attention at the same time.

💀 If you are confused about how to navigate through alchemy, autopsy, automation, this and that…., our Graveyard Keeper 2 Guide Hub is your home for graveyard management tips, farming guides, crafting tutorials, zombie automation, alchemy, cooking, and much more. We add new guides regularly, so be sure to check back as the graveyard continues to grow!