Keep Digging Beginner Guide Keep Digging Game Walkthrough Wiki

1 The expedition cycle

Wild Dog states the loop plainly: gather ores and materials underground, bring them back to base, smelt them into ingots, and forge equipment from blueprints found while exploring. Then go back down with better gear.

The important half of that sentence is bring them back. Material still underground is worth nothing, which reframes the whole game: an expedition is not successful because you went deep, it is successful because you came home carrying something.

2 Do not dig straight down

The developer says this directly: this is not just about digging straight down. You explore your surroundings, search for materials and blueprints, and build a route that lets you return safely.

Digging deeper matters, but securing a route back is described as just as important. A vertical shaft is fast and gets you into trouble with no way out. A route with landmarks, side branches and a known path upward is slower and is what lets you carry a full inventory home.

3 Ore, ingots and the smelter

Raw ore is not equipment material. The smelter turns mined ores into ingots, and ingots are what the forge consumes. That means every expedition has a processing step waiting for it at base.

Practically, get into the habit of smelting immediately on return rather than stockpiling raw ore. It converts a pile of unclear value into a countable number of ingots, which is what tells you whether you can afford the piece of equipment you were aiming for.

4 Blueprints and the forge

The official 2.0 description confirms forging equipment from blueprints found underground. Search for the recipe and required materials for the equipment you want.

That has a direct consequence for how you spend an expedition. Explore beyond the main tunnel for blueprints rather than assuming that mining one route reveals every recipe. An ore-focused run may still be useful when you already have the blueprint needed for your next craft.

5 Enchantment orbs

Gemstones become mysterious orbs with random effects. Orbs can be combined, and effects stack, so you can shape equipment toward the way you like to play.

6 Quality levels change everything

Equipment, blueprints and orbs all have quality levels, and the developer states that the same item can perform differently because of it.

This is the reason the game does not end when you have crafted one of everything. Finding a better version of a blueprint you already own is real progress, and it means you should not automatically discard duplicates until you have compared them.

7 Managing an inventory that fills fast

With more than 350 items to discover and an inventory system to manage them, inventory space is one of the constraints to review alongside battery use and the return route.

1. Decide what this expedition is for before descending: ore, blueprints, or fossils. Trying to carry all three home means carrying less of each.
2. Drop common material when something rarer appears. Compare what you can gather again with the item you would otherwise leave behind.
3. Turn back when the inventory is nearly full rather than when it is completely full, so you can still pick up anything valuable on the way.

8 Your first few expeditions

1. Stay shallow and learn the return trip. Depth is worthless if you cannot bring anything up.
2. Prioritise blueprints over ore early, because recipes gate what you can build at all.
3. Smelt as soon as you get home, so you know what you can afford.
4. Forge the piece that improves digging or movement before the piece that looks strongest. Both make every later run faster.
5. Keep spare gemstones so you can afford a bad orb roll without stopping.

Because the 5000m map is procedurally generated, each playthrough brings different terrain, chests, fossils and routes. Nothing you memorise about layout transfers, but everything you learn about habits does.

Recharge stops and safer crafting checks

Version 2.1.0.9805 adds fast travel points and makes batteries recharge near them. Include a known recharge stop in your route planning instead of treating every descent as a continuous push toward maximum depth. Locate the actual points in your generated world rather than borrowing coordinates from a different map.

Battery consumption for drills and ropes was reduced in 2.0.1.7360, alongside lower forge money costs. If you are using an old cost table, compare it with the current recipe and tool display before deciding an expedition cannot fund the next craft.

That May patch also fixes crafting from chest materials and blueprints while the backpack is full: previously materials could be consumed without an item being created. Keep inventory space available when preparing a craft and confirm the result afterward. Updating addresses the documented bug; these checks also help distinguish a failed craft from looking in the wrong inventory.

The official 2.0 release describes 100 quality levels for equipment, blueprints and orbs. Compare duplicate performance and requirements instead of judging by item name alone. The same announcement confirms ores are smelted into ingots and underground blueprints feed forging; it does not establish one mandatory upgrade order for every generated world.

The current July performance patch reduces drops while moving or digging at high speed and fixes a multiplayer terrain-synchronization issue. If a fast descent becomes choppy or another player sees different terrain, check the installed patch before redesigning all of your equipment around that symptom.

Official sources: [v2.1.0.9805] Major Performance Tuning Update, [v2.0.1.7360] Balance Adjustments, Bug Fixes, and Performance Improvements, Keep Digging Version 2.0 Is Out Now! Remade as a Survival Crafting Game!. Checked 27 October 2026.