A Guide to Getting Started in Durango: Wild Lands

Post-apocalyptic survival is definitely not a new thing in video games — particularly since we’ve long since been beaten to death and antipathy by the zombie craze. And post-apocalyptic dinosaur games are also fast-becoming a thing, with games like ARK and Horizon Zero Dawn already out and making waves. Fueled by a generation and a half that grew up on Jurassic Park, they’re pretty damn good and doing great. 

Enter NEXON Korea (a subsidiary of the main NEXON company) working with What! Studio to bring you another hit to add to the roster. Durango: Wild Lands is a mobile MMO spin on the genre, where players are thrown through a time warp into the prehistoric era. Here they must band together to fend off dinosaurs, starvation, and (let’s face it) some fast-disintegrating clothes.  

The game hasn’t officially released yet, but it is looking good and was already nominated for Best Mobile/Handheld at E3. A limited closed beta ran late last year/early this year, and now it’s currently in open beta on the Google Play Store… but only in a select number of countries — the Philippines, Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, Russia, Australia, Brazil, Vietnam, Canada, New Zealand, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, and Finland. 

Unfortunately, the biggest chunks of the gaming markets are sadly out of luck – looks like you’ve still got some waiting to do. But in the meantime, you can still peruse this beginner’s guide to Durango: Wild Lands so you’ll be ready to play when the game releases in your region.

Note: For those of you who can play it, keep a charger handy. This game eats your battery like crazy.

Character Creation/Class Choice

The game throws you on a moving train of people where you must choose, almost at random, which character you wish to play as. Each one will have certain bonuses that correspond to a certain play style, but at a glance it can be a little tough to figure out which will be the most applicable to you.

If you’re anything like me, you pick the one in the cutest skirt and go on blindly from there. You then learn that you can customize your character’s appearance and clothes in a fairly in-depth character creation menu. (Go figure.) This part happens after you choose your class and is fairly standard and self-explanatory. So don’t worry — you’ll get the chance to look exactly how you want to look.

If you’re not like me and actually want to know what these bonuses are and how they affect you, this is what you need to know:

There are 8 classes and a choice of male/female for both. The class and gender is far more important at this stage of the process, because you can customize appearances almost immediately after.

• Note: What you choose at the very beginning won’t necessarily impact your life choices forever — if you’ve got the skill points to spend, you can push them into one path, another, or more than one if you want to. But if you decide to commit right from the beginning, you’ll get to where you want to go much more efficiently. 

Here they are, in general order of ease to play/usefulness as a starting character:

Job Seeker

With an extra bonus in Defense, this character gets a boost in several different stats, including HP and defense, and a higher health regen rate. 

Note: A highly recommended class for starting out with, especially in a survivalist game. Choose this one if you want to choose an easier, well-rounded character class. (You may need to ignore the fact that the character’s life story is kinda… pathetic.)

Soldier

Choice 1 if you usually enjoy combat in MMOs. This is fairly straight-forward and allows you to learn a number of attacks very quickly right from the beginning. In spite of the name, it will also give you a boost in learning weapons too. 

Note: Unfortunately you won’t get a chance to test out what the combat system actually feels like before you make your character choice. It can feel a little clunky; the game combines timed mobile game controls with an isometric view. However, being good at killing things is handy in any MMO.

Engineer

This gives you the skills to craft both weapons and tools. No matter what skill you choose to specialize in, you’re going to need to have at least some basic tools to work with — this is in fact the first kind of crafting the game introduces you to!

Note: Another decent choice to start with as a newbie. Whether you like combat, survival, or hunting/gathering, you’re not going to get far working with only your bare hands. 

Homemaker

Eating a necessity is dino-land, so it stands to reason that the food that you make also ends up being rather important too. Cook food that can regen your stamina, HP, and eventually provide your character with extra buffs as well.

Note: This class compliments almost everything that you might want to do in this MMO because food is such a necessity to keep you alive and fit. 

Student

Gather resources from the wilds to supplement any kind of crafting; in the beginning of the tutorial you learn to gather dates (and in my case, pretty much never stopped). This skill will help you figure out what ingredients are useful and how to gather them. As you progress, higher and higher-level resources can be gathered.

Note: While important, you will find that you can do a lot of this regardless of whether or not you pump your base stats into this skill. 

Attendant

Considering how quickly your neat little uniform falls into a torn and ragged mess, this will give you a boost in crafting better clothes that will help maintain your stats and keep you alive. The more your skill increases, the longer your defensive gear lasts.

Note: Extra nice to have if you’re anything like me and enjoy being a pack rat because you are able to increase carry capacity. Also nice to have if you’re like me and blunder into rivers without looking too closely and soak yourself. While handy, this skill is starting to get a little niche according to play style. 

Office Worker

This character gives a crafting boost in building – houses, villages, and all the stuff that you can make inside (e.g. Furniture/Workbench, Installation/Decoration) improving areas that have been eroded away and improving human civilization.

Note: If you’re just starting out on your first character, this may not be of much use to you to learn the game right away. The boosts this character provides certainly benefits you more later on when you start working with other players to build tents, houses, village parts. 

Farmer

Once established, farmers can craft farm tools, make fertilizer, and plant crops.

Note: This class bonus is also most beneficial to you later on in your character journey when you’ve begun to develop a village and to support it agriculturally. To get to this point, you will likely push your skill points elsewhere first. 

There are other skills in the game, but these aren’t ones that you gain automatic bonuses in right from the get-go. They are: 

• Surviving: increases as you gather basic resources, build shelters, and craft tools
• Slaughter: helps acquire meat, leather, and bone from a dead animal
• Archery: skill in slings, bows, and crossbows

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That’s all for now! Good luck creating your character! And stay tuned for more Durango: Wild Lands guides here at GameSkinny.