How to play Shatterhold

Builders get 30 seconds to leave the central camp and start a fortress. Then the Ravager arrives to hunt them. You control one character in this voxel real-time strategy game.

Choose a side

Builder · Artificer

Find open ground, place your free Generator, and protect it with walls and towers. Your Artificer repairs friendly buildings and uses powers to escape or delay the Hunter.

Try singleplayer with AI teammates for your first match. They build and defend their own camps.

Hunter · Ravager

Explore to find the builders. Right-click a visible enemy to attack it. Landed strikes earn Scrap; the Hunter gets no passive Scrap income.

Return to the central shop for equipment or permanent stat tomes. You have six inventory slots and must stand near the shop to buy or sell.

Building and repair

Ruins offer shelter, but you can build on suitable open ground across the map. Keep entrances clear enough for your Artificer to move through, and check for side routes before committing to a camp.

Start construction

Press B as a Builder, choose a structure and place it on valid ground. Buildings and upgrades take time to finish.

Upgrade deliberately

Select a building and press U. If something is missing, the upgrade control tells you which resources or building levels you need. Drag-select your towers to upgrade them together.

Repair the damage

Right-click a damaged allied structure. Your Artificer approaches and repairs at 1 HP per second. A Repair Facility handles nearby maintenance automatically; missing pieces return as health recovers.

After your Artificer dies, choose an Echo to fly and support allies, or a weaker Stalker to join the Hunter.

Play with friends

  1. Open Multiplayer, enter your name and choose a preferred role.
  2. Join an open game, or create a public or private room. Share the room code to invite friends.
  3. The host chooses the map, size and seed. The preview shows the map you will play. Mark yourself ready before the host starts.

Each match starts with one Hunter. If several players ask for that role, one is chosen at random from those players. If everyone chooses Builder, the game picks a Hunter from the party.

Press Enter to chat during a match. A player who leaves is replaced by a bot. After the match, everyone can choose “Play again with this party” to return to the same lobby.

The three maps

Each seed generates a different layout. The host can choose four map sizes.

Briarwild

Woodland ridges, paths and broken keeps. Trees follow the real calendar's seasons; day and night change during the match.

Gloamwood

A forest in permanent night. Blue shade and moonlit ruins make the limits of your team's vision especially clear.

Ashen Ward

Market streets, planted courtyards and copper roofs. Look for defensible corners between the city blocks.

Allied characters and buildings share vision. Explored ground stays on the map, but enemies disappear when they leave your team's sight.

Touch controls

Tap clear ground to move. As the Hunter, tap a visible enemy to attack. As a Builder or Echo, tap a friendly building to approach and repair or support it.

Drag one finger to pan the camera, and pinch with two fingers to zoom. Tap or drag the minimap to look across the arena. Tap your character summary to return to your unit.

The bottom bar has Actions, Items and Info tabs. More shows the next command page. Choose a building or power, then tap its target; Cancel ends targeting. Hold an owned tower for half a second to add it to or remove it from your selection.

Controls

Right-click
Move, attack an enemy, or repair an allied building
Left-click / drag
Select an object / select your towers in a box
Shift + 1 to 0
Save the selection. Press its number to select it again; double-tap to center the camera.
Alt + 1 / 2 / 3
Quick-build a Generator, Wall or Tower, even when the number has a saved selection.
WASD / arrow keys
Move the camera; viewport edges work too
Space
Bring the camera back to your character
Mouse wheel
Zoom in or out
Minimap
Left-click or drag to move the camera. Right-click to move your selected character.
B / U / X
Build or shop / upgrade / stop
Escape
Open the game menu and release the cursor

Play with a mouse and keyboard, or use touch controls on a phone or tablet. If performance is slow, enable Low graphics in Settings. The in-game guide has the full power and cooldown reference.