Casualties: Unknown Beginner Guide: Survive the First Five Layers

The first hour of Casualties: Unknown is not a tutorial. The game drops you in a life-pod with a light, a bag and a planet that is actively trying to open your skin. Most early deaths come from three things: walking into the dark without a light plan, carrying loot instead of water, and ignoring a wound until the blood meter is already in the red.

This guide covers the demo build, which contains the first five of the eleven planned layers. It gives you the controls, the first three crafts, a route through layer 1 and the numbers on the health panel that tell you when to turn around. If you want the full layer sequence after that, read the walkthrough; if a specific wound is killing you, jump to bleeding.

What the demo actually asks you to do

Your captors want cargo. The practical loop is simpler: descend, find salvage, bring it back to the life-pod, and spend what you learned on better tools. Each layer is 300 metres tall, one tile is 0.3 metres, and gravity is 16.5 m/s² — roughly 1.7 times Earth. That gravity matters. A fall that looks survivable on screen breaks legs, and a broken leg turns a routine climb into a twenty-minute crawl.

The demo has five layers: Gravel Lands, Deeper Gravel Lands, Dried Desert, Wasteland and Overgrown Depths. Passing the bottom of Overgrown Depths loops you back to Deeper Gravel Lands, so the demo is effectively endless once you can survive the jungle. The full release adds six more layers and two more playable characters.

Controls you need before the first descent

The keyboard layout is dense and the game does not pause to teach it. Learn these before you move:

Two more matter later: 1, 2 and 3 change time speed, and holding Shift shows item descriptions. Holding Ctrl shows labels on the ground, which is how you find a dropped knife in a dark cave.

The first ten minutes, in order

1. Put the light in your off-hand. The starting emergency light is worth more than any weapon. A lit cave lets you see traps, ledges and enemy silhouettes before they see you.
2. Collect foliage, not rocks. Glowplant and Geotree give the best fibre. Hydreed's Wrapvine works but is heavy, and weight is the stat that kills new players.
3. Craft a Foliage bag. One rope plus two canvas. A rope costs two foliage; each canvas costs three. That is eight foliage for 7.5 units of storage and a 45% weight reduction.
4. Craft a canteen. Two chunks of plastic, one rope and 10 mL of bio-chem fluid. Glowplant fruit is the easiest fluid source. Water is not optional: thirst drains faster than hunger and the thirst penalty hits stamina first.
5. Pin both recipes. Pinning keeps them at the top of the crafting window so you are not scrolling while a Cave tick closes in.
6. Do a shallow loop. Mine a few copper and coal nodes, kill nothing you do not have to, and return to the pod before your light dies. The first trip is a gear check, not a loot run.

The bag recipe is the single most important early craft because it changes how long you can stay out. A full backpack does not just hold more; the 45% weight reduction means the same load costs less stamina, and stamina is what lets you climb out of a shaft with a broken arm.

Official source: Casualties: Unknown on Steam ↗

Reading the health panel

Press R and you get a body map, four vital readouts and a list of active conditions. New players stare at the green numbers and assume they are fine. They are not.

• Blood volume runs from 0 to 7.5 litres, with 5.00 L as the healthy reference. Every 125 mL away from that reference moves immunity and mood by one point. At 3.5 L you are dizzy; at 2.5 L you are close to unconsciousness.
• Consciousness below 30% means you cannot act. Pain shock above 0.66 on the internal scale drops you to zero, which is why a bad fracture can end a run without a single enemy hit.
• Skin integrity below 80 starts an infection roll every 40 seconds. At 60 skin the chance is about 5.75% per check; at 20 it is about 17.25%. Dirty wounds and open bleeding raise it further.
• Bone state is per limb. A dislocated limb has half its muscle cap and zero strength until it is set. A broken leg is not a debuff you walk off.

The practical rule: if blood is falling and you cannot see the source, stop moving and treat. Bleeding is measured in litres per minute, and a major arterial wound can empty a useful amount of blood in under a minute. The full math is in the bleeding guide.

A safe route through layer 1

Gravel Lands is the tutorial layer whether it admits it or not. Average temperature is 15 °C, the caves are small and connected, and the main enemy is the Shade crawler. The layer teaches three habits:

• Follow the light holes. Background shafts mark routes that stay dry and usually connect two vertical sections. They also mark places where the ceiling is thin, so do not mine straight up.
• Test every ledge with a thrown rock. Geysers, jump pads and spike traps are placed on the obvious path. A thrown item sets off a geyser without costing a limb.
• Mark your exit. Drop a spare tool or a piece of ore at each junction. The map is not a full minimap; it is a layer outline. You will get turned around in the dark.

The layer's plants are also its medicine cabinet. Glowplant gives fibre and fruit; Geotree gives wood and sap; Stoneplant gives a painkiller base; Leadbush gives a slow poison used in coatings. None of them require a high Intelligence skill to harvest, only the right tool.

Carry out 20–30 units of copper, one or two coal, and any medical supplies you find. Do not carry every rock. The trip back up is where overloaded players fall.

What to take into layer 2

Deeper Gravel Lands removes the light holes and adds water. The danger curve changes from "a trap might catch you" to "you are wet, cold, blind and something is chewing your ankle". Before you descend, have:

If you have not crafted a bandage yet, do it before the descent. Cloth comes from canvas or clothing; antiseptic comes from alcohol and a plant base. The crafting guide lists the exact recipe tree.

Five mistakes that end demo runs

1. Mining with bare hands. Bare hands do 20 mining damage. A titanium pickaxe does 140 and swings in 0.48 seconds. The time difference is not cosmetic; it is exposure.
2. Fighting in water. Water slows movement, ruins gunpowder weapons and hides the bleed indicator. Fight on dry ground or run.
3. Ignoring temperature. Layer 3 averages 26.6 °C and layer 4 swings from -20 °C to 38 °C. Heat and cold change stamina drain before they show as a condition.
4. Treating pain with painkillers only. Painkillers hide the symptom. If the cause is a fracture or internal bleeding, the meter will come back and you will be further from the pod.
5. Descending on low blood. A 4.0 L blood volume is survivable until the first hit. Turn around at 4.2 L unless the next layer has a known medical cache.

FAQ

How long is the demo? Five layers, roughly two to four hours for a first playthrough. Experienced players finish the layer 5 loop in about ninety minutes.

Does the demo save? Yes. The game saves at layer transitions and when you use a life-pod. The prompt at the bottom of a layer is a save point, not a level end.

Can I play the demo after launch? The demo is a separate free app and is expected to remain available. It does not unlock the full game.

Is there a difficulty setting? Yes — six presets and a long list of custom run settings. The difficulty guide explains which ones change survival and which only change pacing.

Sources and further reading

• Steam store page ↗
• Steam demo page ↗
• Official itch.io prototype ↗

Related guides

• Full walkthrough: layer 1 to 5
• Crafting recipes and skill gates
• Bleeding, blood volume and tourniquets
• Demo content and what carries over