PEAK: Complete Guide

Everything you need to go from a first Tenderfoot climb to clearing Ascent 8: stamina and afflictions, every biome, the items worth carrying, and how the Ascent ladder works after The Final Ascent update.

Researched September 2026 — current as of patch 2.4.c (post "The Final Ascent" v2.0.a). Live games change; check the linked sources if something differs.

Quick Start

• Stamina is everything. One bar handles climbing, sprinting and jumping, and every affliction (hunger, injury, cold, poison...) eats into that bar's maximum. Keeping afflictions low is how you keep climbing.
• Stop and rest on ledges. Stamina only regenerates when you're standing on solid ground. Never start a long wall with a half-empty bar.
• Open every piece of luggage you pass early on. Suitcases and luggage are where most food, rope and healing items come from.
• Eat before hunger gets big. Hunger grows slowly but never stops. Snack on berries and packaged food as you go instead of starving and then panic-eating.
• Use your teammates. Right-click gives a helping hand to pull a scout up a ledge, and players can boost each other on climbs. Four scouts working together climb much faster than four solo climbers.
• Learn which berries are safe. Berry colors and types change between runs, so some can poison you or cause spores. Let one person test unknown food, or cook it at a campfire first.
• Light every campfire. Campfires split the climb into sections. They heal some injury, let you cook, and mark real progress.
• Carry rope. Rope Spools, Rope Cannons, Pitons and Chain Launchers get you past walls you can't free-climb.
• Bring a flare to the summit. You win by reaching the Peak and firing a flare for the rescue helicopter. From Ascent 4 on there's no flare waiting at the top, so you have to carry your own.
• Start on Tenderfoot. It's the easy mode (less climbing stamina drain, slower hunger). Clearing it unlocks normal Peak difficulty.

What PEAK Is

PEAK is a co-op climbing game for 1-4 players from Aggro Crab and Landfall Games. It came out on Steam on June 16, 2025. You play lost Scouts climbing a procedurally generated mountain island. The map changes daily, and a run is one climb from the beach to the summit.

The Final Ascent (v2.0.a, August 11, 2026) is the last major content update. It added the Gloom and Citadel biomes, Ascent 8, the Jetpack, Glider and Warp Fungus, Clown Luggage, 10 new badges and a secret Scoutmaster storyline. Later patches (2.01-2.4.c) balanced frogs and infinite-stamina effects, brought Caldera and The Kiln back into rotation, and added room codes to prepare for cross-platform play. The devs have confirmed console ports with crossplay.

Controls (PC Defaults)

Controls have been rebindable since 1.30.a.

Action | Key

Move | WASD

Jump | Space

Sprint / lunge while climbing | Shift

Crouch | Ctrl

Climb / use item | Left Mouse

Helping hand / alt-use item | Right Mouse

Interact / pick up | E

Drop / throw (hold to charge) | Q

Inventory slots | 1, 2, 3

Backpack slot | 4

Emote | R

Push-to-talk / mute | V

Voice chat is proximity-based, so stay within earshot of your team.

The Stamina Bar and Afflictions

Your stamina bar holds 100 points. It drains when you climb, sprint (about 5/sec), jump (5) or sprint-jump (15). Once you've been on the ground for a moment, it regenerates quickly. Afflictions stack onto the bar as colored segments and lower your usable maximum. Bonus Stamina (the extra bar from food like Energy Drinks and Granola) gets spent only after normal stamina runs out. It doesn't regenerate.

Affliction | Main causes | How to remove it

Hunger | Builds constantly over time | Any food, Cure-All

Injury | Falls, lava, explosions, zombie bites, antlions | Bandages, First Aid Kit, campfire, some berries, Cure-All

Poison | Bad food, urchins, jellyfish, spiders, stings, ticks | Antidote, Medicinal Root, Remedy Fungus, First Aid Kit (it also wears off slowly)

Spores | Shroomberries, spore clouds, zombies | Antidote, Medicinal Root, Remedy Fungus

Cold | Alpine blizzards, fog, cold nights (Ascent 5+) | Huddle with teammates, Lantern, Heat Pack, campfire, hot springs, Portable Stove

Heat | Mesa sun, hot rocks, lava, Scorchberries | Sports/Energy Drink, Aloe Vera, Half-Coconut, Winterberries, shade/pools (it decays out of the heat)

Drowsy | Blowgun darts, Napberries, Mandrake, Gloom fog | Energy Drink, Cure-All (it also decays)

Thorns | Cacti, tumbleweeds, Prickleberries | Pull them out manually; they also drop off over time

Curse | Statue revivals, Book of Bones, Ascent 7-8 | Cure-All, Pandora's Lunchbox, cooked Mandrake. It never decays on its own

Weight | Everything you carry | Drop or use items

Key numbers from the wiki:

• Fall damage starts after about 1.5 seconds of falling. A 3-second fall is roughly lethal. Ascent 1 and higher double fall damage.
• Cold and Heat displace each other instead of stacking.
• Huddling close to teammates actively removes Cold, which makes a group hug a real Alpine strategy.

Biomes, in Order

A run goes through these segments in order. Campfires separate them.

Segment | Variants | What to watch for

1. The Shore | Shore | Easy start. Loot the crash-site luggage, and watch out for urchins and jellyfish on the beach.

2. Tropics / Roots | Tropics or Roots | Tropics has poison plants, spiders and lots of fruit. Roots (added Nov 2025, rebalanced in 2.0) has beetles, spore mushrooms and giant roots.

3. Alpine / Mesa | Alpine or Mesa | Alpine brings cold, blizzards and ice. Mesa (added Aug 2025) brings heat, cacti, scorpions and tumbleweeds, but its pools cool you down.

4. Volcanic / Gloom | Caldera + The Kiln or Gloom + The Citadel | Caldera has lava, hot rocks and condors, and The Kiln is the interior climb. Gloom has drowsy fog and belltowers. The Citadel has arrow traps and wrought-iron fences.

5. The Peak | Summit | Fire the flare. On Ascent 8 you must instead bring all the amulets to the statue to unlock the escape.

The map rotates on a schedule, so everyone in the world climbs the same layout on a given day. If you get stuck on a route, try again tomorrow or learn the day's line.

Items Worth Knowing

Climbing and movement

• Rope Spool / Rope Cannon: place climbable rope. In 2.0, climbing rope costs a little more stamina, and "magneting" to a rope from far away now has a small stamina penalty. Jumping off a rope or chain now gives a proper vertical boost.
• Chain Launcher: fires a chain you can climb.
• Anti-Rope Spool / Anti-Rope Cannon: rope that "falls" upward. It's great for reaching overhangs.
• Piton: a resting point you jam into a wall mid-climb.
• Magic Bean: drop it to grow a climbable vine.
• Balloons / Balloon Bunch: reduce gravity for big jumps.
• Jetpack (2.0): a backpack alternative that you fuel with items.
• Glider (2.0): horizontal traversal that costs stamina. Great for crossing gaps.

Healing and cleansing

• Bandages (injury), First Aid Kit (broad healing), Antidote (poison, spores, heat).
• Cure-All and Faerie Lantern: clear almost everything. Save these for emergencies.
• Heat Pack / Lantern / Portable Stove: for cold sections and Ascent 5+ nights.

Food: Granola Bars, Scout Cookies, Trail Mix and berries (Crispberries, Winterberries, Kingberries and more). Packaged food is safe. Unknown berries can be a gamble.

Special items

• Ancient Idol: makes you immune to damage and new status effects while you hold it.
• Pandora's Lunchbox: a random effect that can also clear afflictions. It was adjusted in 2.02.a.
• Scoutmaster's Bugle and Bugle of Friendship: stamina buffs.
• Warp Fungus (2.0): a throwable with random effects.
• Clown Luggage (2.0): drops wacky items like the Big Lollipop (infinite stamina, then drowsy), the Cannon and a Balloon Bunch.

Your backpack adds extra storage (slot 4), but everything you carry adds Weight. Weight takes up bar space the same way afflictions do. Share the load across the team.

Death and Revival

When a scout goes down, other players can carry the body. Ancient Statues (altars on the mountain) revive dead scouts, but the revived scout gains Curse, and on Ascent 7+ that Curse cost goes up. Because Curse never decays, every revive permanently lowers your team's stamina ceiling until someone uses a Cure-All or Pandora's Lunchbox. Don't count on revives in the late biomes.

The Ascent Ladder

Each clear unlocks the next difficulty. Modifiers stack, and each level includes all previous ones. Only one player in the group needs the Ascent unlocked. Clears reward Scout Sashes (Tadpole for Peak, up to the Scoutmaster Sash for Ascent 8; Ascent 7 also gives Goat Horns).

Level | Added modifier

Tenderfoot | Easy mode: climbing costs 30% less stamina, hunger grows 30% slower, no fog or zombies

Peak | Normal difficulty: fog and zombies, and Scoutmaster Myres can appear

Ascent 1 | Fall damage is doubled

Ascent 2 | Hunger grows 60% faster

Ascent 3 | Every item weighs more (+2.5 weight each)

Ascent 4 | No flare at the summit, so bring your own

Ascent 5 | Nights are cold (roughly 100 cold over a night)

Ascent 6 | Climbing costs 40% more stamina

Ascent 7 | Start with 10 Curse, and each revive adds +15

Ascent 8 | Final challenge: collect all the amulets and place them on the statue to open the escape

How to push Ascents

• Ascent 1-2: get disciplined about falls and food. Rope anything that looks risky.
• Ascent 3: assign carriers. One player carries rope, one carries food, one carries healing.
• Ascent 4: pick up a flare as soon as you find one, and make sure two different players each carry one.
• Ascent 5: keep a Heat Pack or Lantern, and huddle overnight.
• Ascent 6: free-climbing gets expensive, so rely heavily on ropes, pitons and helping hands.
• Ascent 7: revives are close to a death sentence for your stamina, so play slow and safe.
• Ascent 8: the amulets you collect Petrify you, which fills in your bonus bar. Campfires remove some Petrify, so plan your pickups around them.

Common Mistakes to Avoid

• Sprinting up the beach. Sprint-jumps cost 15 stamina each. Walk to the wall and start climbing with a full bar.
• Eating every mystery berry. Some berries poison you, and Shroomberries are random. Cook food or let one person test it.
• Splitting up. Help hands, huddling and carrying bodies all need your teammates nearby, and proximity voice cuts out at range.
• Hoarding without eating. Carried food adds Weight. Eat snacks when hunger shows instead of carrying six Granola Bars.
• Leaving the flare to one person on Ascent 4+. If they fall, the run is over.
• Grabbing a wall with no stamina. Patch 2.0 fixed the fall-damage bug here, but you'll still drop.
• Ignoring fog on Peak difficulty and higher. It rises behind you and punishes slow teams.

Advanced Tips

• Lunge (Shift while climbing) gives you burst reach for the last hold before a ledge. Use it as your finisher, not your main way of climbing.
• Jump off ropes and chains for a vertical boost (2.0 change) to skip a section of wall.
• Use Anti-Rope on overhangs. It's the cleanest way past Kiln and Citadel ceilings.
• Glider plus a high ledge saves huge amounts of stamina on horizontal gaps in Gloom and Mesa.
• Frogs were nerfed in 2.01-2.02 (they now have a grab cooldown), and infinite-stamina effects were toned down. Older "frog chain" strategies no longer work the way they used to.
• Solo players: since 2.0, campfires grant morale boosts to solo players too, so solo runs are much more viable than at launch.
• Badges unlock cosmetics, and there are 10 new ones since 2.0. Check the badge list in the Scout's guidebook at the start camp to plan challenge runs.

FAQ

How many players can play PEAK? 1-4. It's designed around 4.

Is PEAK cross-platform? It isn't yet, as of September 2026. Room codes were added in 2.04.a to prepare for it, and console versions with crossplay have been announced.

Is The Final Ascent the last update? Yes. The devs called v2.0.a the final major content update. Bug-fix patches (up to 2.4.c on September 14, 2026) have continued.

Why is my stamina bar short even at full? Afflictions and Weight fill part of the bar. Eat, heal, warm up or drop items to get the space back.

How do I unlock Ascents? Clear the summit on the previous difficulty. Only one player in the group needs the unlock.

How do I revive a dead friend? Carry them to an Ancient Statue. The revive adds Curse, and on Ascent 7+ it adds more.

Why can't I find Caldera or Gloom? The fourth segment rotates. Some days it's Caldera + The Kiln, other days it's Gloom + The Citadel.

Sources

• PEAK Wiki (wiki.gg): 2.0.a The Final Ascent
• PEAK Wiki: Ascents
• PEAK Wiki: Items
• PEAK Wiki: Status Effects
• PEAK Wiki: Controls
• Steam News: PEAK
• Wikipedia: Peak (video game)
• Noisy Pixel: PEAK final update