← Flownaught · Hearthward
How to Play Hearthward
Hearthward is a roguelite: you send a party on an expedition, make risky choices along the way, and bring home whatever you survive with to make your Ward stronger for the next run. Here's everything you need to get started.
1. Build your party
Choose three champions for your expedition. Each has a distinct role — tanks who hold the line, blades and rangers who deal damage, and mages, priestesses, and druids who burn, heal, and control the battlefield. A balanced party (someone to take hits, someone to deal damage, someone to heal) survives longest.
2. Venture into a realm
Pick a realm and begin. You'll see a branching map of nodes. On your turn you choose your next step:
- ⚔️ Fight — battle the corrupted creatures of the region.
- 👹 Elite — a tougher fight with better loot.
- ✨ Shrine — choose a relic that buffs your whole run.
- ❓ Event — a story choice with risk and reward.
- 🌀 Waygate — heal up, then choose to extract home or push deeper.
- 💀 Boss — the region's guardian. Defeat it to clear the region.
3. Win the fights
Combat is real-time. Your heroes attack automatically; you focus-fire enemies, time your ultimates when their meters fill, and hit Brace when an enemy winds up a heavy "surge" attack to cut the damage. Watch for enemies that bleed, poison, stun, or burn your party — and for bosses that enrage when wounded.
4. Extract or push your luck
At each Waygate you decide: extract now and keep everything you've earned, or descend deeper for richer rewards and a tougher region. Push too far and a wipe costs you — so know when to walk away.
5. Grow your Ward
Back home, spend what you gathered to upgrade buildings, recruit and equip heroes, and unlock special vendors — the Artificer (forges relic upgrades), the Trader (swaps resources), and the Curator (teaches champions new ultimates). Clearing a realm's final boss opens the next, harder realm.
6. The three realms
Hearthward spans the Earthen Realm (marsh, caverns, forest), the Aquatic Realm (reef, trench, sunken temple), and the Molten Reaches (cinder wastes, magma caldera, and the dragon's roost). Each is harder than the last, with new enemies, bosses, and chapters of the story.
Tips
- Sign in to save your progress and play across devices.
- Relics stack — plan your shrine picks around your party.
- Don't be afraid to extract early; a safe haul beats a wipe.
- Fallen heroes need to recover before they can run again.