Green Hell: Survival Guide

Everything you need to stay alive in the Amazon: the four nutrition needs, sanity, wound care, a first-day plan, base building, threats and how to approach Story, Spirits of Amazonia, Survival and co-op.

Researched September 2026 — current as of patch 2.9.5 (February 2026). Green Hell is feature-complete and Creepy Jar has moved on to StarRupture, so expect only small hotfixes. Check the linked sources if something differs.

Quick Start

Your watch is your dashboard. It shows time, compass and your macronutrients: carbohydrates, fats, proteins and hydration. Eat to fill the lowest bar, not whatever is closest.
Make a Stone Blade immediately. Two stones combine into a blade that cuts lianas (for rope), leaves, palm fronds and small plants. Almost everything else starts here.
Never drink untreated river water unless desperate. Coconuts, rain collectors and boiled water are safe; dirty water gives you parasites that drain nutrients.
Inspect your body often. Leeches, worms, cuts and bites are only found in body-inspection mode, and untreated wounds get infected.
Fire solves a lot. Cooked meat is safe, boiled water is safe, smoke/drying preserves food, and charcoal from fires helps with food poisoning.
Sleep in a shelter, not on the ground. Even a basic leaf shelter or bed restores energy and protects sanity; sleeping rough exposes you to rain and predators.
Sanity matters. Raw or rotten food, dirt, untreated wounds and bad sleep erode it. Low sanity brings whispers and hallucinations that can attack you.
Use the notebook. Every recipe you have learned, healing hints and story notes live there. When you are stuck, open it before searching online.
Read food by learning it. The first time you eat something, the game learns its nutrition. Unknown mushrooms and plants can poison you, so experiment when you are healthy.

Core Survival Systems

Nutrition and health

Need	Good early sources	Notes
Carbohydrates	Bananas, coconut flesh, cocona fruit, some tubers	Usually the easiest to fill early
Fats	Brazil nuts, coconut flesh, fatty meat, fish, larvae	Brazil nuts are a reliable fat source once you have a way to crack them
Proteins	Cooked meat and fish, eggs, larvae, grubs	Cook meat; raw meat risks food poisoning and parasites
Hydration	Coconut water, rain collector, boiled water	Sweating in the jungle burns water quickly

Your maximum health is capped by your nutrition. When bars run low the ceiling drops, so you cannot heal to full while starving.
Energy drops as you work; sleep restores it. Low energy slows everything.
Food spoils. Raw meat rots quickly in the humidity. Cook it, smoke it or dry it to make it last.

Sanity

Sanity falls from eating raw, rotten or poisonous food, sleeping in the open, being dirty, carrying wounds and some story events. It recovers from proper sleep in a shelter, clean living and a stable routine. At low sanity you hear voices and may see hostile hallucinations. Treat sanity as a resource like food, not an afterthought.

Wounds and body inspection

Enter body-inspection mode regularly — especially after crossing water, fighting or crawling through undergrowth.

Problem	What to do
Leeches	Pull them off by hand; they appear after swimming or wading
Worms under skin	Remove them; check the notebook for the right treatment for your version
Lacerations and cuts	Bandage them; deeper wounds need dressings to close and heal
Infected wounds	Maggots clean out dead tissue — apply, then bandage. Based on real field medicine
Venom/poison	Treat with the appropriate dressing or remedy listed in the notebook; stay near a safe spot while it wears off
Food poisoning	Charcoal from a fire helps; stop eating unknown food
Parasites	Come from dirty water and raw food; treat with the remedies the notebook lists and switch to clean water

The notebook has a healing section. Once you learn a remedy, it is recorded there — consult it instead of guessing.

Your First Day

Grab stones and craft a Stone Blade.
Cut lianas for rope, collect sticks and palm leaves.
Make a basic axe and a spear. The axe fells trees for logs; the spear fishes and defends.
Find water. Coconuts first; build a rain collector as soon as you can.
Gather tinder and start a fire. You need a fire-starting tool, tinder and kindling. Dry materials are essential — the rain soaks everything.
Build a shelter and bed near water and fire. Rain puts out unprotected fires, so build fires under cover.
Cook food, then sleep. End the day with full bars and a safe spot.

Fire and water in practice

Fire-starting tools: a Hand Drill (stick-based) is the first option; better tools such as the Bow Drill start fires more reliably. All of them need dry tinder — dry leaves, dry bark, dry grass and similar items, which get soaked if you carry them in the rain or leave them out.
Fire types: a small fire is quick to build; a campfire (and its stone-ring version) burns longer and is what you want at base. Keep adding sticks or logs as fuel.
Boiling water: crack a coconut to get a coconut shell bowl, fill it with water and place it on a fire. Boiled water is safe to drink. A larger pot-style container (clay, once available) lets you boil more at once.
Rain collectors fill themselves with safe water during rain; build a couple near camp, keep a coconut-shell boiling setup as backup for dry spells, and you rarely have to think about hydration again.

Day 2 onward: set up food preservation, a proper water supply (boiling container plus collectors) and storage. Once that loop is stable you have free time for exploration and the story.

Crafting and Base Building

Progression

Stage	Key builds	Why
Survival camp	Stone Blade, axe, spear, fire, leaf shelter, bed	Keeps you alive for the first nights
Stable camp	Rain collectors, boiling setup, smoker or drying rack, storage	Removes the daily scramble for water and food
Farming and animals	Planters with fertiliser, animal pens	Guaranteed food; since the Animals update you can tame and breed capybaras, tapirs, peccaries, armadillos, anteaters and more
Fortified base	Walls, foundations, multi-level wooden/bamboo structures, tree houses, lighting, traps	Security against tribal raids and predators

Building uses wood, bamboo, stones, mud and rope. Foundations let you create multi-level structures; later updates added treetop building, furniture and decorations. Lighting and fortifications reduce the danger of night raids.

Tools and weapons

Stone Blade — cutting and crafting base.
Axes — trees and bamboo; better axes chop faster.
Spears — fishing and melee.
Bows and arrows — ranged hunting and fighting; worth the materials once you can spare them.
Obsidian tools (crafted) and found metal tools such as the machete give better cutting power and durability.

Tools break. Keep spare blades and a spare axe in storage.

Threats

Threat	Where	How to handle
Jaguars and pumas	Jungle, often at night	Fight with a spear or bow, keep your back to cover, and keep fire and light at camp
Black caimans	Rivers and shores	Avoid swimming in murky water; watch the shoreline
Snakes	Undergrowth	Walk around them; venom needs treatment
Spiders, scorpions, poison dart frogs	Leaves, trees, ground	Do not grab brightly coloured frogs; check what you pick up
Piranhas and stingrays	Rivers	Cross at shallow points and inspect for bites afterward
Hostile tribe	Camps and roaming patrols	Stealth, bows, fortifications; avoid their villages early
Weather	Everywhere	Rain soaks you, puts out fires and ruins dry tinder — build under roofs

Game Modes

Mode	What it is
Story	Jake Higgins searches for his wife Mia in the Amazon. A 25+ hour campaign with guided objectives and several endings
Spirits of Amazonia	Free prequel campaign (20+ hours) set before the main story, playable solo or in co-op
Survival / Endless	No story — pure survival sandbox with difficulty and threat settings
Challenges	Goal-based scenarios such as the Flamekeeper Challenge, a defence-style test
Co-op	Online co-op for up to four players in supported modes

Custom difficulty lets you tune or disable things like predators, tribal enemies, sanity and nutrition decay. Nothing wrong with starting gentler and turning the dials up.

Story tips (spoiler-light)

The story steers you through set locations with scripted items (GPS, walkie-talkie). Carry basic survival kit because story areas can be far from camp.
The game has multiple endings driven by decisions late in the story.
Some story areas are dangerous early; build a stable camp before pushing deep.

Common Mistakes to Avoid

Ignoring macros until one hits zero. Eat balanced meals daily.
Drinking from rivers. Parasites cost more than the effort of boiling water.
Not inspecting after swimming. Leeches and wounds you do not see get infected.
Building fires in the open. One downpour and your fire, tinder and cooking are gone.
Hoarding raw meat. It rots fast; cook or preserve it immediately.
Eating unknown mushrooms while already sick. Experiment only when healthy.
Wandering without a spare blade. A broken tool far from camp is a real problem.
Letting sanity slide. Hallucinations are much harder to deal with than a good night's sleep.

Advanced Tips

Build next to a river for fishing and water, but on raised ground to avoid caiman encounters at camp.
Smoking and drying racks make meat last far longer; batch-cook after big hunts.
Plant a garden early. Farming reduces daily foraging dramatically once it produces.
Tame animals for renewable food products like eggs and meat.
Light your base. Torches and fortifications cut down night raids and predator surprises.
Keep a dry-tinder stockpile under a roof. It is the one resource that is hardest to get during rain.
Co-op role split: one player handles food and water, another building, another exploration and hunting.
Leave notebook entries as memory aids — the recipe and healing pages are faster than tabbing out.

FAQ

How many players can play Green Hell co-op? Up to four players online.

Is Spirits of Amazonia free? Yes, it is a free prequel campaign added to the base game.

Is Green Hell still being updated? It received more than 20 content updates after launch. The most recent patch is 2.9.5 (February 2026), a Steam Deck-focused hotfix. The studio's current project is StarRupture.

How do I get rid of parasites? Stop drinking dirty water and eating raw meat, then use the remedy recorded in your notebook's healing section.

Why can't I heal to full health? Your maximum health is capped by nutrition. Fill carbs, fats, proteins and hydration first.

How do I stop my sanity dropping? Sleep in a shelter, eat cooked, fresh food, treat wounds and stay clean.

Does Green Hell work on Steam Deck? Yes. Patch 2.9.5 fixed the custom Steam Deck controller configuration and improved text legibility.