- Your inventory is never getting bigger. Get used to it.
- It's a good idea to get a metal detector as early as you can. There are buried caches all over the place.
- Try to get your hands on the gun upgrading manual if you see it, it's the main way to get stronger.
- Different kinds of guns within a type are sidegrades. For example, the single shot shotgun you'll get early is actually very accurate and as such doesn't lose as much damage to scatter.
- The big lift in the cave in the first area of the game leads to a DLC area where you'll most likely survive for about five seconds at that point.
- That being said, if you want to get suppressed guns, it's the only place that has them, as well as some very useful recipes and resources. It's a risk/reward thing.
- Melee is kind of janky but early on it is very much worth it to invest a skill point in the increased weapon throw damage skill; you can just grab whatever the last corpse had on it and chuck it at the next one in line.
- God gave us explosive barrels for a reason. They're a great way to deal with slow and tough enemies.
- Grenades are very powerful and, at least early on, pretty rare. Save them for groups and things that would eat too many bullets.
- You can craft a lot of items but two things you can't make are medkits and bullets. That makes them both very much worth saving up.
- The bow (which you can find early but it's a bit out of the way) is a silent weapon that kills on headshots. That being said, if you miss the head, the damage is pathetic and reloading takes forever so it's good to have a backup plan.
- Electrical switchboxes on walls and ceilings can be manipulated with an item you'll get as part of the story.
- If you're having trouble with enemies in an area, come back to it later when you've got more supplies or better guns. You'll have to zoom all over the place while bactracking anyway.
- Don't stress too much about atomic batteries. You only need around 5-7 to beat the game. That being said, one of the DLCs locks good loot caches behind them, but at that point there's an enemy type that can drop them.