• Make sure you’re playing ONLINE, and your pawn is PUBLIC (for anyone), this is set on game options, you must play online so other players can hire your pawn and get rift crystals, your pawn will also gain bestiary, quest, and zone knowledge and improve in combat, rift crystals are used to buy important items
• Reemplace Rook (the tutorial pawn) the moment you can hire pawns online on the rift
• Always hire online pawns (from other players) and never offline pawns (pawns made by Capcom)
• DON'T hire guardian pawns, guardian is the worst pawn inclination (AI) in the game
• DON'T spam “Help!” command during combat, only use it once when being grabbed by enemies or being attacked, spamming “Help!” on combat will make your pawn guardian
• DON'T go to “The dark island” where the female NPC in Cassardis (Olra) makes you travel to, this is end game expansion content
• While using a staff you can self-buff or change spell aiming using the "L3" button
• You can use "select" button to put all items in the storage / bank
• There’s an NPC in Gran Soren (Camellia's Apothecary) that sells cheap mushrooms lLarge mushroom), you can buy tons of them and use them while traveling to recover stamina and avoid walking

• PS4 / XboxOne - Switch

You can hotkey consumables and lantern, select the item in the menu, click Triangle / Y, assign the pad input (←↑→↓). Now, outside the menu hold L1 and R1 and click the D-pad button you asigned

• PC
you can hotkey consumables and lantern by default using 12345 of the keyboard selecting the number on the item menu, If you want these shortcuts for controller in PC you can use Steam Input

• How to enable Steam Input

> right click in DD1 – properties – controller – enable steam input
> right click in DD1 – manage – controller layout > download any community config

• I use a layout created by me named "Hold L2 for 1234 (Dpad) and R3 for 5" it's self explanatory, I use R3 for the lantern.

The reason I chose L2 instead of R1/R2 (like DD2) is because L2 doesn't conflict with the menu assigning input at menu and combat buttons (especially the shields). If someone can manage to create a layout like DD2 which only works when holding the button (so it can be assigned on the menu) without problems, please tell me

• There’s an Eternal Ferrystone at your bank when you arrive at Gran Soren, use it to travel instead of the non-unlimited versions
• Leveling up Fighter to vocation level 5 will unlock "sinew" an augment that will let you carry more weight.
• Leveling up Mystick Knight to vocation level 6 will unlock “reinforcement” an augment that makes pawns VERY tanky (and almost inmortal on end game) when revived for a minute, this improves the game pacing a lot
• If you die use RETRY, DO NOT load from last check point, this last save is for saves made by rift stones or the save / resting interaction
• You’re supposed to hire new pawns while you level up, hired pawns don’t increase of level while you’re with them
• DO NOT care about min-maxing stats in your first blind run, you can respect / fix your stats with a mod mentioned later on this guide, just enjoy the game!
• DO NOT get obsessed with doing all the secondary quests in your first run, all missable quests can be done (should) in new game plus with a guide, if you get tired of the game passing just do the main story
• Is NOT necessary to do collectible quests (badges) or escort quest, you only should do escort quests of NPCs you like or those have rewards you want, avoid them when possible
• If you do an escort quest, make sure you have a Mage with anodyne (healing spell) on your party or group healing items
• SAVE manually when traveling in the open world, the game doesn't have an automatic travel saving
• If you do no damage, you must improve your weapon, enemies in this game have minimum amount or armor you need to ‘break’ with your attack stats
• If you play bow class LEARN how to use debilitation arrows and other skills, DO NOT just spam bow skills or you will never become good nor you will do damage AND you will run out of stamina immediately
• Portcrystal are objects that you can drop round the open world to TP, you can take them and move them around as many times as you need, they aren’t consumed when you move or use them
• The game has a “secret dating system”, before you fight Salvation on the big fortress at the top of the map (the one that has an entrance with TWO Cyclops) make sure you GIFT items to the NPC you want to “date”, when the NPC has their affinity maxed out you will see and hear a pink aura around them, just then proceed to that zone

• Use FluffyQuack Mod Manager[www.nexusmods.com] for mods that replace files
• I recommend “Don't Blind Me[www.nexusmods.com]” mod which reduces visual noise on the game and Better Post-Dragon Everfall Drops[www.nexusmods.com] (this needs merging)
• “Arc.Files[www.nexusmods.com]” mods need 'merging', and they can’t be installed more than one at the same time without merging
• Dinput8 [www.nexusmods.com]can do many things, like respect your arisen and pawn stats, play in borderless mode, use the character editor before unlocking it, DO NOT modify pawn inclination with it or he/she may break, becuase it has cheats on it I don't recommend using it on the first blind run
• To play in borderless mode you can also use “Borderless Gaming” in Steam.
• I don’t recommend the “Berserk Equipment Restored” mod unless you know 100% what you are doing, or you may lock your savefile forever
• I don’t recommend “Great” Mod Compilation because it has cheats on it

The guide from now isn't needed for new players but those that want to play new game plus and understand more its mechanics.

• If you finished the game, LOAD the game for New Game Plus, DO NOT USE START NEW GAME (this deletes your first run save)
• Consider playing without a mage, not only do most mage pawns suck, but they also make “people” be lazy with healing, playing without a mage is like unlocking Dark Arisen Hardcode Mode
• If you miss a Golden Idol it doesn’t matter, game is old enough for veteran players to gift you gold idols using the pawn system, just make sure you ask politely
• If a pawn of your friend list doesn’t appear on the rift, rest (save) and check again, friend list over 100 (?) people can cause lag on the rift or make pawns don’t appear (PC only?)
• All round pawn inclinations I recommend the most are mitigator / challenger for melee pawns and challenger / mitigator for ranged pawns
• I don't recommend PRIMARY medicant for mage pawns, this makes them heal to the minimun amount of damage received at the expense of doing little to no damage, secondary medicant is good
• I don't recommend PRIMARY pioner becuase it will make pawns start battles without you and go away, secondary pioner is good
• Use this guide to correctly set your pawn inclination

• Share your pawn on the website PawnGuildXYZ[www.pawnguild.xyz] to get your pawn rented and find other pawns from other players.
• Do BBI content in NEW GAME PLUS (second run), is not worth getting worse main story passing for BBI not to mention it has spoilers from the original final boss reveal and the gear you will get here will outclass pretty much everything of “The Everfall” (the base game end game content).
• Hiring pawns from friends doesn’t have a RC cost, pawns can be used to gift armor, weapons and special items.
• If you search for level 200 (infinite) pawns in the rift you will find only OFFLINE pawns (this is a PC bug), to solve this search for level 199 pawns instead, and you will find level 200 pawns from players.
• Before purifying BBI items BUT SPECIALLY ARMOR AND WEAPONS, MAKE SURE YOU AND YOUR PAWN ARE THE SAME VOCATION (CLASS) WHEN YOU PURIFY. This will make all range of possible drop is around your arisen or pawn class.
• If you’re struggling on BBI you can use rusted weapons (or “rusted pawns), improved rusted weapons have a slowdown torpor debuff and makes the game braindead easy.