Playstyle
Grudges plays as a third-person action RPG with optional first-person aim. You start as a survivor — one blade, one coat, one grudge. Everyone else you meet is a survivor too. The whole game is the question of who you let into your camp, what you build there together, and who you raise a banner against.
There is no main quest railroading you toward a final boss. There is only the camp you anchor, the allies you take in, the guild you found, the faction you pledge to, and the four other banners that turn on you the day you do.
The Survivor's Loop
- Survive alone first — explore, harvest, craft, raise a wall.
- Recruit NPC survivors at your Recruit Post. Each one settles in your camp.
- Pledge to one of the five factions, or stay independent and trade with all of them.
- Found a Guild at your Meeting Hall — your banner, your charter, your shared reputation.
- Grow your settlement: Camp → Tribe (5 allies) → Village (10) → Town (20).
- Defend what you've built against raids from the four factions you didn't pledge to.
Living NPCs — Same Rules As You
This is the load-bearing rule of the whole game: every NPC runs the same systems you do. Your hired Woodcutter, the wandering survivor at the crossroads, the Hollow Lord raider chief — they all share the same stat sheet, the same profession trees, the same XP table, the same perks, the same combat math, the same building and crafting recipes. Nothing is scripted "for the AI" and nothing is scripted "for the player." There's just the system, and everyone is in it.
What That Means In Practice
Same Stats
Every NPC rolls Strength / Agility / Constitution / Intellect / Resolve / Charisma in the same range you do. You can inspect any NPC and read their sheet exactly as you'd read your own.
Same Professions
NPCs have the same seven professions and 35 branches available. A hired Miner has Gathering ranks. A raider Captain has Combat ranks. You can see what they've learned.
Same XP Table
NPCs gain XP from the same triggers you do — at half rate by default. Your Woodcutter chops trees and gains Gathering XP. A raider who downs your Sentry gains Combat XP. They level up while you sleep.
Same Perks
When an NPC ranks up a branch, they pick a perk from the same tree you'd pick from. Your hired Mercenary can run signature-weapon bonuses. A faction raider can bring backstab kills, lockpicks, or grenade demolitions to your gate.
Same Crafting & Building
Allied NPCs can be assigned to a workbench and will craft from your unlocked recipe list using shared chest materials. Raiders can build siege ladders and place portable rams against your wall during a long assault.
Same Death
NPCs use the same HP / armor / damage formula you do. There are no "elite" stat buckets — a high-rank veteran raider is genuinely scary because they have the same perks you've been earning. Likewise, a level-20 hired Captain genuinely carries fights.
Recruit smart. A Woodcutter with Gathering rank 4 outproduces three rank-1 Woodcutters. A Captain who's been in a dozen raids has perks that turn the tide of the next one. Equally, a Hollow Lord warband that's been raiding the surface for a year has earned every perk they're going to use on you.
"There are no monsters here. There are only people who've had more time to practice." — Network field notes, Sector 7
Combat & Professions
Seven professions. Five branches each. Four ranks per branch plus a Master capstone. Every profession costs the same to fully master (95 skill points), so no one path locks you out of another.
Combat
Pistol, Rifle, Blades, Hammers, Theft. Each branch is a complete weapon path — wield its signature item for +25% Combat XP.
Hunting
Fishing, Animals, Bounty contracts, Tracking, Trapping. Set passive snares; chase rare bounties; reveal map fog as you walk.
Gathering
Forestry, Mining, Permafrost, Rift Crystals, Salvage. Each tier unlocks a new biome or wreckage type to harvest.
Crafting
Equipment, Bladesmith, Gunsmith, Armour, Tinkering. Tinkering unlocks gun attachments and prototype gadgets.
Chemistry
Cooking, Goos (potions), Demolitions, Toxicology, Refining. Brew poisons, refine ore, transmute crystal.
Survival
Combat Training, Resolve, Endurance, Wilderness, Veterancy. Biome resists stack into damage bonuses.
Township
Leadership, Buildings, Trade, Diplomacy, Defenses. Where the camp comes from — and where the hires live.
Mastering a profession requires fan-in from all five of its branches at rank 4 plus the 20-point Master skill — a total of 95 points per profession. With a budget of around 150 points, you'll master one profession and dabble heavily in two others. Or spread thin across all seven and master none.
Camp Building
Township's Buildings & Prosperity branch unlocks the modular kit — floors, walls, doors, windows, frames, stairs, roofs, balconies, even chimneys. Pieces snap to a uniform grid so you can stack a clean keep without hand-tweaking scales. Material cost drops 10–25% as you climb the ranks.
What You Place
Foundation Pieces
- Modular floors (wood, brick, dark wood)
- Walls, doorframes, windows (with shutters)
- Stairs, balconies, roof tiles
- Overhang plaster, metal fence
Function Pieces
- Workbenches, armory chests, drawers
- Beds (respawn anchor)
- Banners (morale aura)
- Recruit Post (hire NPCs from here)
- Trade Post, Embassy, Bazaar (faction infrastructure)
"Build the wall before the bed. The bed can sleep on dirt. The wall cannot be put up after the raid arrives." — Township handbook, anonymous
Settlement Tiers
Your camp grows by counting the survivors who actually live there — hired NPCs, joined wanderers, recruited refugees. Cross a population threshold and the camp ranks up automatically. Each tier unlocks new building schematics, infrastructure, and faction reactions.
Tier Thresholds
Camp · 1–4 allies
You and a handful of hands. Workbench + chest + bed. Manual harvesting only. No faction notice.
Tribe · 5+ allies
Unlocks a shared cooking pot (passive food regen for everyone in radius) and a morale aura (+10% hire combat damage). +50 township XP.
Village · 10+ allies
Unlocks Trade Post payouts (gold per day from caravan routes) and tier-2 building schematics (palisade, watchtower, embassy). +80 township XP.
Town · 20+ allies
Unlocks Bazaar slots (3 rotating rare-goods vendors), tier-3 schematics (fortress keep, auto-turret, gate), and the Town Banner — your reputation broadcasts to every Network camp on the map. +120 township XP.
Allies count if they sleep in your camp's bed-roster. Lose enough population (death, desertion after a defeat) and your settlement drops a tier. Tier-down doesn't refund the XP, but it does revoke the unlocks until you re-cross the threshold.
"Five hands and a fire is a tribe. Ten hands and a wall is a village. Twenty hands and a banner is a town. Thirty hands and no plan is a graveyard." — Network proverb
Guilds & Factions
Every actor in Grudges — you, every wanderer, every hire, every raider — carries a five-element reputation vector, one number per faction. The number is what governs whether a Keeper paladin nods at you on the road or charges you with a relic-hammer. It is also how the AI factions decide who is worth raiding next.
The Alliance Matrix — Pledging To One Pisses Off Two
The five factions are not arranged in a friendly circle. Each faction has two natural enemies and two workable relations. Pledging to one drops the two natural enemies straight to Hostile reputation; the two workable factions stay at Neutral or shift slightly down. You cannot be pledged to more than one faction at a time (with one quiet exception — see Forgotten).
| Faction | Territory | Natural Enemies | Workable |
|---|---|---|---|
| Keepers of the Old Faith | Cathedral Highlands | Tech-Scavengers, Hollow Lords | Network, Forgotten |
| Tech-Scavengers | The Junkyards | Keepers, Forgotten | Hollow Lords, Network |
| Hollow Lords | The Pit | Keepers, Network | Tech-Scavengers, Forgotten |
| Network | The Switchyard | Hollow Lords, Forgotten | Keepers, Tech-Scavengers |
| The Forgotten | The Drowned Quarter | Tech-Scavengers, Network | Keepers, Hollow Lords |
The Reputation Ladder — Eight Tiers, Hated to Hero
Reputation runs from -100 to +100 per faction. Cross a threshold and the faction's behavior toward you changes overnight.
| Tier | Range | What It Means |
|---|---|---|
| Hated | -100 to -76 | Attack on sight in their territory and outside it. Bounty posted — independent NPCs may attack you for the reward. Faction sends a named hunter within 3 in-game days. |
| Hostile | -75 to -26 | Attack on sight in their territory. No dialog, no trade, no quests. Embassies refuse entry. The default state for the two natural enemies of any faction you pledge to. |
| Unfriendly | -25 to -1 | Will not attack first but won't help. Trade refused. Most players sit here with one or two factions early. |
| Neutral | 0 to +24 | Coexistence. Base prices. The default starting state with all five. |
| Friendly | +25 to +49 | -10% trade prices. Standard contracts unlock. Faction guards warn off other-faction hostiles in your radius. |
| Honored | +50 to +74 | -20% trade. Faction guards intervene to defend you in their territory. Faction-signature gear recipes unlock. |
| Allied | +75 to +99 | Faction patrols actively protect your claimed camps in their territory. -30% trade. Faction caravans visit your camp every 3-5 days. |
| Hero | +100 | Faction reinforces your camp during raids by other factions (one squad per raid). Unique cosmetic gear set + a named NPC champion joins as a one-of-a-kind hire. Maximum one Hero faction at a time. |
Factions Are AI Players
This ties back to the Living NPCs rule and extends it. Each faction is run by a top-level AI that plays the same game you do, on the same map, with the same systems:
- They expand by claiming territory. Faction AI scouts unclaimed map sectors adjacent to its territory and plants its own claim flag — same recipe, same 80m radius, same raid attraction. Their flag is the faction sigil.
- They build small camps. Tent + campfire + crate + flag, then upgrade — faction camps follow the exact same buildable list you do, gated by the same recipes. A Scavenger camp will have extra workbenches because their NPCs train Tinkering and Gunsmith.
- Their NPCs level professions and perks. A Keeper paladin who's been patrolling the Highlands for a year has Combat/Hammers rank 4 and a chosen perk from each tier. They are not "elite enemies" — they are NPCs who outleveled you.
- They raid their natural enemies. Keepers periodically raid Scavenger junkyards for "relic reclamation." Hollow Lords raid anyone flagged in or near The Pit. The Network does not raid; it sells locations.
- They have your same recruitment requirements. A faction camp without a flag won't recruit. A faction NPC without a tent walks off. The same rules — applied to every actor on the surface.
The map is not a static backdrop. Leave the surface for a week of in-game time and you'll come back to a Hollow Lord camp where there used to be a Network outpost.
Found a Guild
Build a Meeting Hall (Diplomacy 2 unlock), sign the charter, paint your claim flag — that flag becomes the guild logo. Guild members share a reputation pool: what one earns with a faction, all members get credit for.
Pledge to a Faction
Visit a faction Embassy and swear in. You get their gear, their contracts, and territory bonuses inside their lands. The two natural-enemy factions drop to Hostile immediately. The two workable factions shift down but remain talkable.
Stay Independent
Skip the pledge entirely. You can trade with all five at base prices but unlock none of their signature gear or contracts. Most players pledge once they hit Village tier and need a faction's tier-2 building schematics.
Switch Sides
Renouncing a pledge costs a hefty reputation hit (drops the abandoned faction by 50 immediately) and a one-week in-game cooldown before you can swear to another. Some factions (Forgotten, Keepers) require you to be unaligned before they'll even talk to you.
AI Harvesting
Once your camp is standing, you don't have to swing every axe yourself. Township's Buildings branch unlocks three Harvester hire types as you rank up. Each one needs a small support structure to live and work in.
How Harvesters Work
- Recruit through dialog at a wandering NPC encounter — see Recruitment & Claim Flag. No gold cost; you need a tent for them and a flag in your camp.
- Each harvester walks to assigned resource nodes within their building's radius (around 80 m of camp).
- They harvest on a slow tick and deposit yields into the nearest storage chest.
- They draw zero combat duty — they will flee from raiders. Defend them, or don't recruit them.
- Harvesters count against your Recruit Cap (Leadership ranks 1, 3, 4 raise it).
Woodcutter
Buildings rank 2. Lives in a Logging Camp. Around +5 wood/day; doubles if two trees are in range.
Miner
Buildings rank 3. Lives in a Mining Outpost. Around +5 iron/day, occasional copper.
Farmer
Buildings rank 4. Tends a Field. Around +5 herb/day, small chance of rare herbs.
Forager
Cross-unlock from Gathering / Forestry rank 2. Passive berries and mushrooms in camp radius.
Trapper
Cross-unlock from Hunting / Trapping rank 3. Resets your snares and gathers carcasses.
Camp Defense
The Township Defenses branch is your wall and your watch. Each rank adds a layer: first detection, then walls, then automation, then a fortress that can shrug off a faction warband.
Defense Layers
Rank 1 — Watchful
Unlock the Watchtower. Hire a Sentry to mount it — they ping the minimap on hostile detection and fire a basic crossbow.
Rank 2 — Sturdy Walls
Walls take +50% HP. Build the Iron Gate and Palisade; hire Gate Guards in pairs to patrol them.
Rank 3 — Auto-Turret
Place Auto-Turrets that lock onto hostiles in range. A hired Turret Gunner grants +30% accuracy and +20% rate of fire.
Rank 4 — Fortress
+25% HP on every camp building. Turrets fire +50% harder. Hire a Captain who leads a 3-NPC squad and rallies morale.
Without a hire, your watchtower is decorative and your turret fires at base accuracy. Buildings are the bones — survivors are the muscle.
Recruitment & The Claim Flag
Allies don't cost gold. They cost conversation and infrastructure. Most NPC humans on the surface are wary, not hostile — they'll talk to you if you walk up unarmed and don't act like a raider. Whether they actually join you comes down to four things, in order:
The Four Requirements
- A successful dialog. Each hire has a recruit method listed in the roster below — usually a stat check (Charisma, Resolve, Combat, or Survival) at a difficulty that scales with the role's tier. You can fail the dialog and try again later, sometimes with better gear or a higher stat. NPCs remember if you've insulted them.
- A claim flag in the area. The flag is a player-painted 64×64 image stitched onto silk and raised on a 3m pole. It doubles as your guild logo. Until a flag is planted, you have no recognized camp — and no NPC will commit to one.
- A campfire and a storage crate. One of each per camp. The campfire is where the camp eats; the crate is where its harvested goods land. NPCs who have nowhere to drop their day's work will leave.
- One personal tent per recruited member. No tent, no sleep. NPCs without an assigned tent walk off at dawn — they don't share. A two-person hire (like the Gate Guard pair) needs two tents.
The Claim Flag Is A Statement
Painting your flag is the moment you stop being a wanderer and start being a presence. The image you paint shows up on the world map, on every NPC's mental map of who's claiming what, and (eventually) above the head of every member of your guild who carries it. Pick the symbol carefully.
- Enables recruitment. No flag, no claim, no allies — just a campfire and a wanderer.
- Defines guild identity. If you found a guild, your flag is the guild's logo. It propagates to every member's flag.
- Invites raids. Every faction watches who's planting flags where. The bigger your camp, the higher your faction tension, the sooner the first raid arrives. A flag in contested territory may attract a raid within 1–3 in-game days.
- Stakes a 80m radius. Recruitment, raid spawning, defense bonuses, and ally morale all key off the flag's position. Move the flag, move the camp.
The Hire Roster
Fifteen NPC roles in total, across three families. None cost gold. Each has a recruit method (a dialog/stat check) and counts against either your Recruit Cap (camp staff) or your Follower Slots (party companions who travel with you). All require the camp prerequisites above (claim flag + campfire + crate + their own tent), plus the role-specific building listed below.
Harvesters — gather while you sleep
+5 wood/day from Logging Camp.
+5 ore/day from Mining Outpost.
+5 herb/day from Fields.
Passive berries & mushrooms in camp radius.
Resets snares and gathers carcasses.
Vendors — turn loot into gold
Mans market stall, auto-sells junk-flagged loot.
Required to make Trade Posts pay out daily gold.
Buys stolen / contraband loot at +50% over normal.
Three slots per Grand Bazaar, rotating rare goods.
Ally Fighters — guards & followers
Mans watchtower, ranged crossbow alert.
Patrols gates and palisade segments. Each one needs their own tent.
+30% turret accuracy, +20% fire rate.
Elite party companion + 3-NPC squad (each squad member needs a tent too).
Personal party follower, uses your loadout.
Mans embassy, +1 faction reputation per day.
Diplomacy & Surface Communication
The surface has no central government — only fragments. Township's Diplomacy branch is how you weave them together (or pry them apart). It's the closest thing Grudges has to a multiplayer layer: every faction, every wandering survivor, every ally caravan is an agent that remembers what you've done.
Tools of the Diplomat
- Smooth Talker (rank 1) — friendly NPCs in your camp passively heal you for 1 HP/sec.
- Faction Standing (rank 2) — +10% reputation gain with all factions; build a Meeting Hall.
- Treaty Maker (rank 3) — unlock the Embassy, mannable by a Diplomat Envoy for passive reputation gain. Each embassy unlocks faction-specific bonuses while it stands.
- Crown Bearer (rank 4) — friendly factions send a gift caravan to your camp once per week.
Combine diplomacy with the Trade branch and your camp becomes a hub. Wandering survivors will start to settle nearby. Caravans will ask to stop overnight. And your raid alerts will start including warnings from allied watchposts — the same fiber-optic network the Network faction maintains.
"We share warnings before we share food. That order matters." — Network charter, fragment
Controls
Default keybinds. Most can be remapped in the in-game settings.
| Key | Action |
|---|---|
| W A S D | Move |
| Space | Jump |
| Shift | Sprint |
| C | Crouch |
| Mouse | Look / aim |
| LMB | Primary attack / fire |
| RMB | Aim down sights |
| R | Reload |
| E | Interact / loot |
| F | Toggle camera (3rd / 1st person) |
| Tab | Inventory |
| M | Map |
| B | Build mode (Township) |
| N | Recruit menu (at Recruit Post) |
| P | Profession trees |
| Esc | Pause / settings |