MISERY Beginner's Guide: How to Survive the First 60 Seconds (And Not Get Bombed)
This game does not hold your hand. Here's what I wish I knew before I got vaporized by a random plane.
MISERY is a post-nuclear survival game that hates you. It's got co-op for up to five people, but that just means more witnesses to your stupid death. The game starts you off with a panic attack. You're in your bunker, you open the door, and a 60-second timer starts. Welcome to the panic loot.
The 60-Second Scramble
This is your one chance to loot your old house before it's gone. You'll be dropped in a random spot and have one minute to grab everything that isn't nailed down before an "emission" or "explosion" forces you back.
My advice? Prioritize healing. Bandages and medkits are gold. Food and water are way more common out in the Zone, but healing is rare. Next, grab clothes, a backpack, and a melee weapon. I'm told the machete is best, but a bat or axe will do just fine.
Your Bunker is Your Life (And How to Save)
After the panic, you're back in your bunker. This is your safe house. You'll store loot, craft, and sleep here.
And yes, this is the only place you can save. People keep asking. You have to be in the bunker, hit Escape, and press the save button.
Your bunker starts with a crafting bench, a generator, and an incinerator. If you want metal bars, you need to fuel the generator, connect it to the incinerator with a cable, and then melt scrap metal. You can also expand your concrete tomb by finding or crafting sledgehammers to bust down the walls.
Crucial tip: Stuff you leave in your bunker yard is safe. Stuff you leave out in the Zone gets wiped every day when the new map generates.
How to Be a Coward in the Zone
The Zone is the main map, and it's procedurally generated daily. It gets meaner every five days or so, adding new locations and dangers.
My number one tip for the Zone? Don't fight. Seriously, being a coward is a valid strategy. Everything hits like a truck, especially if you're unarmored. Look for a bandit jacket or tourist jacket and a steel helmet as soon as you can.
You're also dealing with anomalies. There are visible black holes, nasty spike traps that turn invisible, and an invisible anomaly in scrapyards that yeets you into the air, which usually kills you from the fall.
And then there's the fucking plane. Every so often, you'll hear an engine. Look up. Find the plane. Run in the opposite direction of where it's going. If you don't, you'll get bombed. One poor bastard got jump-scared and vaporized, and I can't blame him for his bad first impression.
So, Where Are the Guns?
You'll find tons of ammo and no guns. It's the classic survival game curse. You can't even buy them from the vendor (yet).
Guns are out there, they're just rare. I've heard you can find them in a POI with levitating helicopters and three hangars (two are open). People have found AKs, SMGs, and pistols there, but it's radioactive.
There's also a guaranteed PPSH spawn. Look for a warehouse surrounded by concrete walls that has a hunting tower. You can climb up through the wooden cracks from below, and there's a PPSH and a stash up there 100% of the time.
A Warning on Co-op and Griefers
This game is still in beta, and it shows. Be mindful of griefers using items to block exits, trapping you.
More importantly, there's a massive, save-corrupting co-op bug. If a friend restarts their game and rejoins your (host) session, they can get put on a totally different map while still colliding with your map's objects. Their emission count will reset to 0 while yours (the host) is correct, and the save becomes unplayable. The devs know about it and say a fix is coming, but for now, be careful.