NetEase Games is back with another battle royale game that sets itself apart from the rest of the genre with the launch of Badlanders on Android and iOS platforms. If you played and enjoyed NetEase’s games, most particularly the ones within the battle royale genre like Rules of Survival, Cyber Hunter, and Knives Out, among other hit titles, then you will certainly enjoy Badlanders!
In contrast with most battle royale games, the key to surviving matches in Badlanders lies in being able to escape the battle arena through the escape points that randomly spawn within it. Unlike conventional battle royale games where winning means you have to be the last man standing, you essentially win a match in Badlanders by being able to successfully leave the premises through the escape points with some extra gears in hand.
With escaping and looting being the most important goals in Badlanders, you can expect a different gameplay altogether as most players you will be joining will employ different strategies as well. While prior experience in FPS games and other battle royale titles can contribute to a better starting performance in Badlanders, its unique core mechanics makes it a little more newbie-friendly, especially for players who have not played any battle royale games before.
Although the tutorial session provided when you jump into Badlanders is quick and simple, it should suffice to give you a good grasp of the basic controls and mechanics of the game. With some practice and dedication, along with adherence to some basic tips and strategies to follow, our Badlanders beginner’s guide can help you pave the road towards more successful runs on each match you engage in as well as earn you more loot to fill your every need.
1. Customize Your Control Settings
One thing you will likely experience on your first dive into the world of Badlanders is that every bit of time spend within the tutorial will excite you to engage in a real match. The idea of being able to take home weapons and items from the battle stage and make them your own, as well as escaping early from the match, can be very stimulating. While you can readily do so after about 5 minutes or so, it is best to make a bit of preparation before diving into your first actual match.
It can be expected that NetEase, like most mobile game developers, will provide the optimum button layout and control configuration settings by default. Just the same, it cannot be expected to appeal equally among different players with varying sets of tastes and preferences. Fortunately, Badlanders provides a wide array of customization options for players to tinker with various aspects of the game, which includes the button layout and control sensitivity, among other things.
On the main screen, simply tap on the gear icon at the upper right corner of the screen to access the game’s settings. From there, you can tinker with a lot of options worth looking into as having the perfect setup even before your first match is very much worth your time. To start off, there are various control options available under the basic tab of the settings that you should look into and adjust in accordance to your preference. Depending on the capacity of the device you are using, you may also want to look into the graphics settings.
There are a lot of modifications available as well for your crosshairs, and you can customize each one for each type of gun available in the game. By default, the auto-pickup settings are reasonable, but just the same, feel free to adjust it to your liking.
One of the more crucial aspects of gameplay, which can be heavily influenced by tinkering with the game’s settings, is the button layout. Again, the default button placements and their respective sizes are okay, but you should consider carefully making adjustments to them as you see fit to ensure that it perfectly matches how you utilize each one in combat. It may happen that you will need to tinker with the button layout several times to find the perfect setup for you.
In any case, you can easily edit the layout, restore it back to default, and even save multiple setups. Once you are done making adjustments to the different areas of the settings menu, then you should be ready to head into battle.
2. Employ A Minimalistic Approach First
In addition to the objective of escaping the battle arena via extraction points in Badlanders, one of the key objectives is to grab as much loot as you can within each match. For most battle royale games, though, the reason you will want to keep hustling for whatever gear you can find is because you are basically armed with nothing at the start of the match. It does not matter as much to be killed during the match and watch all your items scatter about for the remaining players to feast on or ignore, as you will leave all the items behind and start with nothing again on the next match.
In Badlanders, looting becomes more important than ever as being able to survive and escape the battle arena earns you everything you have in your bag to store in your warehouse, sell, or take with you to the next match. Firefights are still a regular part of Badlanders just like in any other battle royale game but there are more important reasons to avoid it now, and you are less likely required to come looking for an encounter given that the higher priority is to survive with some loot in hand.
Given that you can take the best weapons and gears you have with you to subsequent matches, you are likely more inclined to do so as it can give you a ready advantage coming in already armed. The advantage, however, comes with a threat of losing more items in the event that you are killed prior to reaching an extraction point. As the first few matches ought to be considered as practice runs first, you should let it serve as a means of amassing as much loot as well and instead employ a more minimalistic approach relative to the gears that you bring with you at the start of the match.
Going into a match with the least amount of weapons and gears does not necessarily mean jumping in empty handed. To start off, you will be able to grab hold of extra weapons during the tutorial session. You should start making a habit of keeping the best of what you have stored and settle for the most common weapons first. Some consumable items that are easy to obtain but essential should be brought with you as well such as armor, a backpack, med kits, or even some grenades and ammo.
As you continue to engage in matches, you will also obtain some materials that you will never be able to use in a match. These are instead needed for crafting items and should always be left in your warehouse. Given that there are players within the match who may have the advantage of bringing with them better gears, you should also consider playing more defensively, for starters. Avoiding confrontations will serve you well to a point although there will be situations when you have to engage enemies to ensure your survival.
Just like in any FPS game, the basics of reloading and healing ought to be done in cover, and in Badlanders, there is an added task of always having to manage your bag to ensure that only the best loot is kept.
Naturally, there is a limit to how many items you can carry per type and with an abundance of stuff that you can grab in each match, you will naturally be overburdened within the first 5 minutes or so. You would naturally want to have a backpack full of stuff as you prepare to exit the battle arena and will most likely be inclined to throw something away only when you are about to pick up something better.
While you can do that early on, you should consider discarding common items in a secure place when you have the chance, especially if you are not yet done exploring, so you can easily pick up better items later on. As your inventory begins to run empty of available slots, you should be more selective to the quality of items you pick up.
3. Manage Your Stuff In-Between Matches
Your role in Badlanders above all is a scavenger, which makes looting and profiting from your adventures come as a close secondary objective from surviving the badlands and successfully exiting via the extraction point. As you are expected to bring in something new back home after each match, you will have to consider its impact on your warehouse, which naturally comes with a limited amount of space.
Just like inventory management within the badlands, what you should primarily consider is to let go of lower grade weapons and gears to make room for better ones. Instead of just discarding them like trash, however, you can instantly sell them within the warehouse itself or within the exchange feature. Just be sure that what you are selling is something you will never need, most especially for your next run.
Common guns, armor, and backpacks are typically the first candidates to be sold as you will be easily getting them in almost every match. Consumable items like bandages and ammo, should be kept as you may consider bringing a healthy stock around with you for matches.
While at the exchange, feel free to replenish on some basic items that you need as well. We still stand by our recommendation to explore the badlands with the least amount of items to carry, leaving you more empty space to squeeze in more loot. Basic necessities like ammo and health kits, however, are4 cheap yet each one can be critical to your survival in each match.
At the warehouse window as well, be sure to look into each of your equipped gears. Your headgear, armor, and backpack has a limited durability and may require repairs from time to time. Repairing them costs only minimal cash so make it a habit to ensure that your gears are in top condition before you set out. The same goes for your weapons as well.
There are various types of guns available in Badlanders with each one requiring different types of ammo. In addition to ensuring that each one has a full magazine to begin with, carrying a few extra ammo, even for just one of your weapons, is recommended.
4. Escaping Can Be Trickier Than It Looks
After a a couple of sessions diving into matches, you will come to realize that the exploration part as well as the occasional skirmishes are not as difficult as you might have expected. This is because there are NPC enemies within the badlands as well, that are a lot easier to kill than most players, and also drop a ton of loot when eliminated. It may seem like a challenge to distinguish real players from NPCs but if they hardly move and tend to stand out in the open, then they are likely NPC characters and very much serve as free loot boxes waiting to be emptied out.
The battle arena map in Badlanders is huge and with only 24 other players with you on the map, there is a big chance that you will already be armed to the teeth by the time you encounter another player. While this holds true for the most part of the scavenging part of the match, it is a completely different scenario once the extraction points become available.
Although you may have a challenging time to fill your backpack with various loot before extracting on your initial runs, you will eventually need less and less time to grab everything you want in succeeding runs.
For one, you can continue scavenging for items with the remaining minutes prior to extraction, or head on to one early on to avoid the hassle of long travels later in the match. There are at least 4 different extraction points available to you located at random areas in the map. There is a bit of a luck factor in this aspect of the game as you will not know which of these extraction points are being targeted by opposing players as well.
Just like when you are venturing within the warehouses and other buildings in the badlands, you should take extra care, perhaps even more, as you approach an extraction point. Like the borderlines between the shrinking safe zones and storms in conventional battle royale games, extraction points in Badlanders are home to a lot of campers.
Just when you feel so close to home and drop your guard, that is when some players will begin to strike you down. Keep in mind that most, if not all, extraction points are out in the open, and that there is also a 10-second countdown from the time you reach the extraction point to the time you actually escape the badlands.
For security and unpredictability, never travel to the extraction point following a straight line or the guiding path that appears all the time leading you to one. The best way is to travel from cover to cover, and ensuring that you are fully healed and have more than enough ammo as you get closer to reach your goal.
5. Accomplish Missions For Extra XP And Rewards
Badlanders actually makes it easy enough for you to make good progress in the game as far as amassing items and racking up XP is concerned. With each match you engage in and each successful extraction, you can easily reach new player levels in no time and have your warehouse overflowing with items that will even push you to sell a lot of your stuff.
Earning XP is actually important especially at the early part of your adventure. Some of Badlanders’ features are locked behind minimum level requirements and you would want to be able to access everything the game has to offer as soon as possible. Although you can obtain decent amounts of both XP and loot by regularly playing, you can further boost your progress by taking into account mission objectives and completing them.
You can check available missions via the ops manual that you can access through its icon at the upper left side of the main screen. There are given objectives that you need to accomplish to reach the next combat level and each one relates directly to the activities you engage in within the matches as well as outside of it. While it can happen that you will accomplish a lot of these feats without even knowing the specific targets, it is always best to look into each mission objective to specifically target them in your succeeding runs.
Each objective you accomplish earns you rewards and upon completing the last one, a special reward will be unlocked as you reach the next combat level. You can also preview the rewards you can earn from the succeeding combat levels to reach. Note that on top of extra features in Badlanders, a lot of the rewards you can claim here for free are difficult to obtain anywhere else. As such, make it a point to progress as rapidly across the ops manual missions as you would want to earn these rewards and use them at the soonest.
6. Visit The Gun Bench And Workshop Once Available
Badlanders offers plenty of customization for each player from the control configurations and layout down to the gears your scavenger can equip before each match. On top of the wide assortment of guns and extra equipment you can pack, with some distinct bonus stats from uncommon grade and above gears, each gun in the game can also be modified with a host of attachments each with its own advantageous feature.
Once you have play-tested various guns and have chosen your top favorite from among the ones you have, the next stage to improve your offensive capability is modifying your weapons to more firmly suit your taste. Gun attachments are among the resources you will find plenty of in each salvage run within the badlands so on your first visit to the gun bench, which can be accessed through the homebase icon on the main screen, you can already fit in a lot of custom parts.
From sights, muzzles, and magazines, down to ammo type and grip, each new attachment can improve different stat attributes of your weapon. Note, however, that if you use the weapon on your next run and get killed with it, it will be lost to you forever.
Various resource materials can be obtained from each visit to the badlands and, for a long while, you will just be stocking them up in your warehouse as you can never use them in anyway within matches. Once you reach combat level 9, though, you will unlock the workshop feature within the homebase as well, and be able to start crafting better gear for yourself, which can also be auctioned to other players.
We already mentioned earlier that you may have to make regular visits to the market to sell off some common items and free up space in your warehouse as well as stock up on some cheap yet basic necessities before heading out into another match. As you reach levels 4 and 6, respectively, you will have access to the prism and auction features of Badlanders.
The prism holds a variety of items that includes some rare finds, expectedly expensive though. The items you find within the prism are not always available so if you something you need and well within what you can afford, feel free to purchase them. More importantly, the auction offers a big opportunity for you to cash out on rare finds that you have looted as well as special items that you successfully crafted. Once you have access to both these features, make it a habit to visit them as well whenever you take breaks from all the action and looting within the matches.
Badlanders is still in its early stages and is expected to grow bigger within the next updates. For now, though, this is where we end our Badlanders beginner’s guide. If you have played Badlanders extensively enough and stumbled upon unique tricks and strategies that can be added to our list, feel free to tell us about them and share away in the comments below!