Getting Started in BioEden

You arrive as a Keeper of the Cosmic Collective. The planet is quiet, the soil is tired, and Charles — the small robot companion — walks you through the tutorial. BioEden never fails you out, but it will let you bury the world in extra buildings until the globe on the HUD looks angry. This getting-started guide is the sequence that keeps the first hour readable.

The Steam demo is the tutorial. It is playable before the 3 September 2026 launch on Steam, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series, and Nintendo Switch 2. Demo saves do not transfer; the full game lets you skip the tutorial. Treat this session as rehearsal, not a farm you will keep.

Land, look, then recycle wreckage

Walk the hexes before you open the full build menu. Debris sites are the foundation Focus describes on the Steam page: salvage them, turn the scrap into resources, and only then place a solar generator and a water distributor. Those two networks are the spine. Every later factory, radar, humidifier, or Orb Factory hangs off that spine.

Do not ring the landing zone with buildings because the palette is unlocked. Each placement consumes materials, draws energy, and nudges pollution and Impact Level. The recycle control at the bottom of the HUD is not a late-game cleanup; it is how you undo a greedy first ten minutes and get every resource back.

If the camera feels floaty, pause and read controls. Pan, rotate, and zoom until you can see both the hex grid outside and the watering hole inside a dome. Most early mistakes are camera mistakes: you place a second solar pylon because you could not see the first one still had spare output.

BioEden demo walkthrough and first impressions

Build the smallest grid that works

Place one solar source, one water source, and the shortest cables and pipes that reach the buildings you actually need. Hover a structure before you confirm it. The Orb Factory tooltip in the demo is a useful warning even if you are not ready to mass-produce orbs: it lists energy draw and a large pollution hit. That is the game telling you production is never free.

Connect supply to demand, then stop. If a building sits idle, recycle it or power it down. Broken Arms Games has said the intended play is to build only what the next purification or species step requires. The power and water page expands the network rules; come back here if you only needed the first-hour version.

Collective Requests will ask for factories, impact reductions, or other chores. Complete them when the grid can afford them. If a request wants four Orb Factories and your globe already shows a high pollution slice, recycle something else first. Requests are not a timer; they are a to-do list.

Raise one animal before you raise a zoo

Enter a dome when the outside spine is stable. Charles introduces the incubator as the first stage of a species. Place it, follow the open steps, then spend DNA fragments in the Bestiary. The Jungle tab, for example, lists creatures such as Landowl, Slink, Ributs, Basker, Fimble, Thudder, and Mirra, each with a DNA price. Landowl wants roughly 20–45° temperature, 55–90% humidity, and ferns. Those numbers are on the panel; BioEden does not hide them.

Match the biome to the animal. Prairie, Savannah, Forest, Jungle, and Tundra are separate tabs, not decorations. A watering hole, native plants, and the right food bowls come after temperature and humidity, not before. Keep predators away from prey. The diet and wellbeing system will let a hungry carnivore erase a herbivore you spent DNA to unlock. Details live in animal care and the Bestiary page.

Once conditions hold, animals begin to use the space and can reproduce without extra clicks. That is the reward for restraint. If they look stressed, check humidity before you slap down another decorative tree.

Watch the globe, then go outside again

The planet widget at the top of the HUD is the real score. Pollution percentage, Impact Level, and the named biome (Jungle at 8%, Red Forest at 65%, a crowded Prairie at 95% in some sessions) tell you whether the outside loop is working. Purify lakes, restore soil, and reclaim ruins only as far as the current request needs. Radar expands the fog of hexes; it also costs footprint.

When the outside looks busy and the globe still looks sick, you overbuilt. Recycle. Then read restore the planet for the longer version of that habit. The biome guide helps you pick the next dome instead of cloning the first one.

What to do after the tutorial

Finish the demo once without restarting unless the globe is a lost cause you want to practice recycling. Note which guild you would pick on launch day; the demo’s training path is not the full set. Compare Euler, Orin, Darwin, Xylar, and Umbra in the guild picker and the guild tier list. Check system requirements if the camera hitch is hardware, not UI.

You do not need a perfect park. You need one living species, one honest grid, and a planet that can still be healed. That is the first hour.