Graveyard Keeper 2 guides.
One roadblock at a time. Search a question, pick a topic, or filter by the stage of the game you are in.
The guide library.
34 guides
Make your first zombie
Bodies, collars, Reanimation Liquid and the Envy-day device: everything the Resurrection Table checks before a corpse gets up and goes to work.
Fix an idle zombie
An idle zombie is nearly always missing a tool, mastery, materials or space for its output. Check those four in order and most stalls clear in minutes.
Get iron ore and ingots
Where iron ore comes from, how to turn it into ingots, and how to set up a Zombie Miner so you never hunt for rocks again.
Plan a working factory
How to unlock the factory under your house, lay conveyors that actually move items, and build a line you can debug when it stops.
Pick the right smithy
The game has a Smithy you shop at and a Smithy you craft at. What each sells or makes, and how to tell which one your quest means before spending kits.
Make Dream Dust
Dream Dust is one green rune plus one blue rune. Study Water and Blood, put a flask on the shelf, mix, and know what to check when the lab refuses.
Fix a mastery requirement
Mastery decides whether a job starts, how fast it goes and how many stars it earns. Every source of points, and the quickest way to close a gap.
Get science for research
Science comes from breaking items down at the Study Table, and a Science Kit is worth six times its paper. The whole research loop, plus the launch bug that ate everyone’s rewards.
Understand alchemy runes
Alchemy is addition: red, green and blue runes summed per colour and matched to a target. Learn the rules once and you can work out any recipe yourself.
Use Town Gratitude well
Each Town Gratitude adds 5 happiness, but anything above your town quality is thrown away. When to use it, and how to raise the ceiling.
Earn Faith from sermons
Faith comes from one sermon a week, on Wrath, and scales with attendance, which happiness and church quality both cap. Filling the pews, choosing a prayer and spending the Faith.
Raise graveyard quality
A grave scores its decorations minus red skulls, capped by white skulls. Fix the body and the stone together, and stop open pits from dragging the total down.
Start your first week
What to grab, what to research and what to ignore in your first in-game week, from the starting chests to your first sermon.
Learn the six-day week
Gluttony, Sloth, Lust, Envy, Pride, Wrath. What happens on each day, how long a day really lasts, and a routine that stops you missing resurrection or Mass.
Fix a short energy bar
Your maximum energy is 100 minus your insanity. If food stops filling the bar, the ceiling has dropped. What pushes each number up and what brings it back down.
Sort inventory and bags
Backpack, toolbar, hot bar and nine kinds of bag, each with its own rules. What goes where, which bag to buy first, and the traps that delete items.
Finish Jack in a Boat
Planks, Bronze Details and two rowers who only listen to someone the village trusts. The full checklist, plus what happens after Jack sails.
Catch more fish
Where to get a rod, which bait unlocks which fish, where each species lives, and how to win the reel-and-release minigame without snapping the line.
Grow better harvests
Four seeds per bed, twelve growth steps, and two different skills deciding how it goes. Planting, bed skill, fertilizer, upgrades, the orchard and the vineyard.
Start and win battles
A battle stays locked until you have a sword and armor equipped, it is the right day, and your squads meet its defence power. How to clear each check, then hold the flags.
Trade without losing money
Every trader has a short buy list, a daily purse and prices that move with stock. Who buys what, how prices are worked out, and selling a big batch without wasting it.
Earn the right tech points
Red for hands and materials, green for nature, blue for the spiritual side. Where each colour comes from, why blue runs out first, and what a question-mark node really means.
Earn talent points
Work fills inspirations, claiming them gives branch experience, and branch levels give talent points. The full chain, unlocking it on day one, and talents worth taking first.
Raise reputation
Six named characters each keep their own reputation, and everyone else shares one village pool. How each one rises, the thresholds that matter, and why the tech tree sometimes ignores you.
Make three-star items
Stars are earned swing by swing. Meet the recipe’s mastery and every step succeeds; fall short and you risk fewer stars or nothing at all. The grading rules, with examples.
Change your appearance
Hair, beard and colours are free from the start; all you need is a working mirror. The dresser repair, its materials, and the quest behind every outfit.
Fast travel with Milestones
Every Milestone costs a one-time Faith fee, then travel between active stones is free. All the stones with their costs, and which ones to light up first.
Fix missing corpse deliveries
The donkey comes at 13:12 on Gluttony, Lust and Pride, but only if the morgue has room and the delivery chance lands. Schedule, capacity, chance and the strike, explained.
Make Wooden Planks
A Wooden Plank is not a Board, and neither is an Oiled Plank. The wood chain from tree to beam, what each piece is for, and how to automate it.
Make Clay Plates
Clay Plates are 2 Clay at the Potter’s Wheel; Ceramic Plates are those plates fired in a Kiln. Where to dig clay, how much you need, and the twins’ six-plate quest.
Bake bread
Wheat to Flour at the Millstone, Flour and Water to Dough, Dough and Fuel to Bread. The full chain, the indoor fuel trap, and everything else a batch of dough can become.
Make Peat
Peat comes from the Leaves every garden harvest drops: 8 Leaves make 2 Peat at the Compost Pile. How to make it, and the long list of projects waiting for it.
Upgrade zombie workers
Each zombie has its own five-branch talent tree, earns its own points by working, and can only hold as many upgrades as its red skulls allow. Building a worker that lasts.
Plan your achievements
38 achievements: 18 for the story and 20 for things you do over and over. What each activity one actually counts, which story ones need prep, and the bug that skips pumpkin soup.
Scene thumbnails are official promotional screenshots from Lazy Bear Games / tinyBuild on Steam.
How the library is organised
Every guide here is built around one question a player actually asks, such as why a zombie is standing still or where iron ore comes from. Each one opens with a short answer you can act on straight away, then a checklist, then the detail behind it: tables of recipes and costs, the rules the game does not spell out, and the common mistakes.
Guides are sorted into four topics and tagged with the stage of the game where they matter most. Use the search box for a specific word, like collar, peat or Sloth, or filter by topic and stage when you want to browse. Search also matches the extra keywords on each guide, so “dreamdust” and “tech points” find the right pages.
| Topic | Guides | What it covers |
|---|---|---|
| Getting started | 12 | Your first week, the calendar, mastery, talents, energy, inventory and fast travel |
| Zombies & automation | 4 | Raising zombies, keeping them working, their talents and the factory |
| Crafting & resources | 10 | Iron, wood, clay, bread, peat, farming, fishing, alchemy and item quality |
| Town & church | 8 | Faith, happiness, reputation, trading, graveyard quality, deliveries, combat and achievements |
Getting started
Start here if you are in your first few in-game weeks, or if something basic feels off: a recipe that will not start, an energy bar that keeps shrinking, a backpack that is always full. These guides explain the systems everything else is built on, so reading two or three of them early saves a lot of confusion later.
- How to make Dream Dust in Graveyard Keeper 2
- Graveyard Keeper 2 mastery: why a recipe will not start
- How to get science in Graveyard Keeper 2
- Graveyard Keeper 2 beginner guide: your first priorities
- Graveyard Keeper 2 days of the week: Envy, Wrath and more
- Graveyard Keeper 2 energy and insanity explained
- Graveyard Keeper 2 inventory and bags: what goes where
- Jack in a Boat: Graveyard Keeper 2 quest checklist
- Graveyard Keeper 2 technology points: red, green and blue
- Graveyard Keeper 2 talents: claim your inspirations
- Graveyard Keeper 2 appearance: repair the mirror
- Graveyard Keeper 2 teleport stones: activate Milestones
Zombies and automation
Zombies are what turn Graveyard Keeper 2 from a chore list into a production game. These guides follow a worker from the Resurrection Table to a factory line: the body and collar it needs, why it stops working, how it earns its own talents, and how to lay conveyors that move items in the right direction.
Crafting and resources
Most quests in the game come down to one missing material. These guides walk each production chain from raw resource to finished item, with the stations, technologies and quantities at every step, so you can work backwards from whatever a recipe is asking for.
- How to get iron ore and iron ingots in Graveyard Keeper 2
- Graveyard Keeper 2 smithy: town shop or factory station?
- Graveyard Keeper 2 alchemy: how rune combinations work
- Graveyard Keeper 2 fishing: rods, bait and tension
- Graveyard Keeper 2 farming: seeds, beds and harvests
- Graveyard Keeper 2 item quality: how stars are earned
- Graveyard Keeper 2 wooden planks: boards are different
- Graveyard Keeper 2 clay plates: make the correct item
- Graveyard Keeper 2 bread: dough, oven and fuel
- Graveyard Keeper 2 peat: leaves and compost
Town and church
Once the morgue is under control, the game widens out to the church, the village and the town. These guides cover the resources that connect them, Faith, happiness and reputation, along with trading, graveyard quality, body deliveries, battles and the achievement list.
- Town Gratitude in Graveyard Keeper 2: when to use it
- How to get Faith in Graveyard Keeper 2
- How to increase graveyard quality in Graveyard Keeper 2
- Graveyard Keeper 2 combat: why a battle will not start
- Graveyard Keeper 2 trading: prices and rejected items
- Graveyard Keeper 2 reputation: unlock blocked dialogue
- Graveyard Keeper 2 corpse deliveries: a missing donkey
- Graveyard Keeper 2 achievements: track the right action
Three ways to read through the library
If you are brand new, read the beginner guide, then the days of the week, then mastery. Those three explain why the game behaves the way it does, and most early questions answer themselves afterwards. Add Dream Dust and how to make zombies when the tower opens.
If you are setting up automation, go from how to make zombies to why zombies stop working, then zombie talents, wooden planks and iron, and finish with the factory layout. That order follows the way a production line actually grows.
If the town is open and you want the church running well, read Faith, Town Gratitude and graveyard quality together. They share one loop: happiness and church quality set attendance, attendance sets Faith, and graveyard quality sets the money a sermon pays.
What the stage tags mean
Early game guides cover the stretch from the prologue to the first battle: your first bodies, the church, Jack’s boat and your first zombies. Mid game guides cover the port and the town, the factory, iron and the bigger battles. Guides tagged All stages explain systems that stay relevant the whole way through, like mastery, the calendar or trading.
The tags are a guide, not a gate. If you are early but already curious about the factory, read ahead; nothing on these pages spoils the late story.
Keeping guides current
Graveyard Keeper 2 has been patched several times since launch, and some fixes change the answer to a common question, such as the Study Table not paying Science before update 1.007. Each guide shows the version it was written for and the date it was last updated, and the patch notes page summarises the fixes that matter for play.
Numbers like recipe costs can shift between versions. When a guide and your game disagree, trust the recipe window in your own build, and check the sources listed at the bottom of each guide.
Every guide also links to related pages at the bottom, chosen so that the next question you are likely to have is one click away. If you came in through a search for one problem, those links are usually the fastest way through the next one.
Common questions
How many guides are there?+
Thirty-four, across four topics. Each one is a full walkthrough of a single question, with tables, a checklist and its sources.
Can I search for an item name?+
Yes. Search matches guide titles, descriptions and extra keywords, so item names like Peat, Bronze Detail or Reanimation Liquid find the right page.
Are the guides spoiler-free?+
They stay clear of the late story. Quest names from the opening chapters appear where they matter, such as Jack in a Boat or Holy Moly!.
Is something missing?+
New guides are added as players hit new roadblocks. The about page explains how to suggest a topic or report a mistake.
Do the guides work on consoles?+
Yes. The systems are the same on PC, PlayStation, Xbox and Switch. Only patch timing differs, so check your version when a guide mentions a specific fix.