I'm sure if you've played Fate before you'll have a lot more advanced questions about the game, but for any newcomers to the series... Welcome!

First things first, you'll want to pick a game to start on. Each game is pretty much the same; you fight your way through dungeons and complete quests for XP and gear. It's a pretty straight forward and true to it's nature game, and it does a lot of things well without over-complicating what it's supposed to be. I would still recommend starting at the first title, Fate, and moving your way from left to right if you're looking for a straight forward narrative.

Before we get to creating our character, upon selecting "New Game" you will be able to choose your difficulty. These difficulties are as follows:

Squire: This is the easiest difficulty available. This difficulty has been regarded as "too easy" by some players, but would be a good start for someone who is new to playing RPGs or is looking for a very relaxed experience.

Adventurer: This is the "Normal" difficulty for someone who is familiar with RPG games and is looking to experience FATE for the first time. This will allow you to experience fate at a forgiving pace, while still offering some challenge at times.

Hero: This is your "Hard" difficulty. Enemies will be tougher than Adventurer, I would suggest this if you've completed your first play through. This will likely require prior knowledge of how to succeed in FATE to complete, and may be a good start for those who are veterans to RPG games.

Legend: This is the hardest difficulty available. Enemies will be much tougher, this difficulty will provide a gruesome challenge to most players who choose to attempt this difficulty.

Hardcore: This is almost identical to Legendary difficulty, with the added challenge that you are not allowed to die. This difficulty should be reserved for those who seek the highest level of challenge in FATE, and have nearly mastered the game.

Please note that once a character is created, the difficulty that you selected cannot be changed.

Your difficulty selection will also affect item quality, so higher difficulties will award you with better items to deal with the enemies you face.

Selecting a character is usually a bit of a daunting task in other Dungeon-Crawlers like Diablo, but in this game it is pretty relaxed. You can pretty much pick whatever looks cool to you and play how you want in early difficulties, but there are options for those who want to start with more points in certain skills. Below is a quick description for every race:

Human: Balanced, good for indecisive players. Can't go wrong here, you'll be able to take it anywhere from the start without too much of an issue.
Shadow Elf: Archery/Bows, innate Dexterity for anyone who wants to use bows and dodge.
Half-Orc: Full strength, almost no innate magic. Best start for high melee focus.
Cogger: Very close to Human in starting stats. Less innate magic, but some extra innate dodge ability. Only starting skill points are in Critical Chance.
Imp: Slight increase to Magic. Starts with some points in a few Magic skills.

The rest of the options on character selection are purely cosmetic. Please note that you cannot change your character's appearance in the game. Armor will modify the look of your character in game.

For those who wish to look at the statistical breakdown for each character race in detail, Valor wrote an incredible guide on the topic which can be found here: Link to Valor's Guide

This screen also allows you to select your pet, There is a lot of mystery surrounding pets and not a whole lot of information out there but at the very least they all align thematically as such:
Human: Cat & Terrier
Shadow Elf: Fox
Half-Orc: Boar
Cogger: Drone
Imp: Phoenix

At a first glance from my own experience, pets start off with mostly the same stat points in each category and choose stat increases automatically. I do not believe you can level your own pets in the Remaster, so choose the pet that you like the most. Strider and Phoenix have different starting stats from the rest of the pet options, with a higher focus in magic and less strength.

Pets level up closely with players and you can feed them fish to give them temporary/permanent stat increases as you desire. Pets have their own separate health bars as well and will take damage from enemies, placing a health potion in the pet's inventory and using it as you would use a health potion in your own inventory will heal them instead of yourself. Healthy pets are not required to access the pet's inventory, it is only required if you want your pet to assist you in fighting enemies.

It's important to familiarize yourself with the controls here, I am unsure if each game is different but you can find a page in the options menu that will look something like this:

These are the controls for Keyboard and mouse. With FATE Reawakened, we received native controller support; If you are playing on a controller, please make sure to check up on the controls menu for more info.

For Inventory management purposes, you'll want to learn a few things:

Space: This will drop an item on the ground. Don't worry, you can pick it back up.

Shift + Left Click: this will move your item from one inventory to another. This will also function as a "Quick sell" hotkey so be careful what menu you're on.

Right click: This will swap out items that you currently have slotted with whatever you're hovering, or use potions & other consumables. It's a little finicky for weapons and rings since there are 2 slots for each of those types, just pay attention to what is getting swapped out.

At this point in the guide: you've selected the game to start on, made a character, selected a pet, and loaded in to your starting town. I will be using the original Fate game for the rest of the images provided.

Please note your mini-map in the top right corner, hit 'm' a couple of times to expand this. You should see Green stars and exclamation marks moving around, these are your NPCs. Below are descriptions for what you're looking at:

Green Stars: Shop keepers, as well as various smiths and enchanters for your gear. Green star NPCs will always sit in one spot, so you should familiarize yourself with what each one offers.

Exclamation marks: Quest givers. You will be frequently visiting these guys for quests.

Now that we've established our NPCs, lets move on to other key locations of the town:

This is your town dungeon, it should appear as a red door on your mini-map. You will enter the dungeon through here until you start using town portals (the blue portal looking thing) to travel back/forth from the dungeon to the town. These town portals appear by the dungeon door in the Fate remaster, as opposed to the water fountain in the original game.

You will also notice a container; this is your storage chest. You can store items here.

Quests in Fate are the core element of the game that keeps you progressing at a good pace. Hit 'j' to check your quest list and current progress.


Quests are provided by quest-givers in your starting town, and will scale depending on how deep into the dungeon you are. Quests provided are typically between 0-3 floors from where you are at, please make sure to read for this in the quest description before you accept. One thing to note here is that if you accept quests for the floor you are currently on, enemies and/or items will only load in to areas that are currently unexplored. If you explore the entire floor and then accept a quest, the objective will not spawn Edit: The mission objective will spawn if a quest is accepted for a current floor that has been fully explored, although icons for killed enemies are bugged when you re-enter the dungeon. Walking nearby dead enemies will change the red icons to grey, newly spawned enemies will remain as red dots on your mini-map. In the case that a quest is giving you trouble or is not able to be completed, you can hit the "Cancel" button to clear up the quest slot with no consequence.

Quest completions will provide a scaling amount of Gold, XP, and Fame; allowing you to buy new gear, upgrade or modify existing gear, and level up faster. As previously mentioned, you can visit NPCs with exclamation marks above their heads for new quests.

As with almost every RPG out there, your XP count will lead to new levels. Every level comes with a set amount of points for your stats and your skills, viewed through the screen below:

You have 4 main stats in Fate.

Strength: This affects damage dealt by physical attacks. Melee & Bow users will need to scale this stat to increase base damage. Strength also affects what kind of gear you are able to equip.

Dexterity: This affects your chance to hit your attacks and dodge enemy attacks. This is useful for all classes, and some weapons require higher levels in dexterity to equip.

Vitality: This affects your health and stamina. Higher level means more health and more running, although you should note that most armors increase your defense stat which reduces damage dealt.

Magic: This affects your available Mana (the resource used for casting spells) and your spell damage. Higher levels of magic are required to learn certain spells and equip magic items.

Skills are a lot more focused by comparison to your normal stats, I will not be breaking down every skill available but depending on what you would like to focus on using these points can greatly increase damage and/or other aspects of your build.

Fame, which is also acquired through quests and killing unique/boss enemies, is used to level up your "Renown" status. Each level of Renown awards you with 3 4 extra skill points and allows you to unlock/equip stronger versions of each gear piece/weapon. Renown gear pieces are indicated by the "Elite" or "Legendary" prefix on the name of the item, as well as the small medallion shown in the corner of the weapon icon in your inventory.

If you've been following along, you should have a character ready to go with a few quests selected to complete. All there is left to do is to start on your journey, and learn what Fate has in store for you.

For anyone looking for extra bits of information, I've got a few small tips:

Fishing can be done in the starting town and at many random points in the dungeon; the deeper into the dungeon you are fishing, the better the loot.

Always make sure to keep town portal scrolls and identify scrolls on hand. Town Portal & Identify Books purchased from shop keeps come with 10 uses of each scroll type, and you can fill the books with up to 20 scrolls max by dragging and dropping scrolls into them. For magic users, you can acquire spells that both identify items and summon town portals, with the strength of these spells scaling based on your charm magic skill level.

Gambling is a great way to get better gear after you've completed a few quests; you may not always find something that is great but the chances of you getting multiple good enchantments on a decent item are in your favor.

There is a wiki for Fate, although it is somewhat hard to find and is missing some information. For weapon and gear names and some stats for everything, this is a great place to do your research: Fate wiki link [fate.fandom.com]

The most important thing to gather from this guide is to have fun, keep exploring, and discover the game at your own pace. This is a classic series from 20 years ago that we've been given a remaster for, and while it may be dated by comparison to some of the Dungeon crawlers & RPGs of the last few years it's brimming with nostalgia and replay value. Thank you for reading my guide, I hope you enjoy Fate!