DustFall Beginner Guide — First Hour

DustFall is a single-player descent roguelite shooter from LeoGame that launched on Windows on October 1, 2026 at $1.79, a 10% cut from a $1.99 list price in the store snapshot we checked. The setup is simple: the surface belongs to alien life, and the only direction the game gives you is down. This DustFall beginner guide covers the three things that decide your first hours, namely the scanning front that hunts you, the destructible pixel terrain you dig through, and the upgrade choice you make on every descent. The run structure is broken down on the gameplay page, and the hardware side lives under system requirements.

What DustFall actually asks of you

The official store description calls DustFall a "single-player descent roguelite shooter" and says alien life has overrun the surface while a scanning front steadily pushes deeper underground. Once that scan locks onto you, hunters come down from above. That is the whole game in one line: you are not exploring a map, you are staying ahead of a threat that always starts above you.

Detail	Value
Developer and publisher	LeoGame
Release	October 1, 2026
Price in the US, at time of writing	$1.79, down 10% from $1.99
Platform	Windows, on Steam
Players	Single-player only
Steam achievements	29 total, with 10 names published

Two structural facts follow from that. First, the store page describes six buried ruins, meaning six layers, each with its own terrain materials, environmental reactions, enemy ecosystem and core boss. Second, progress is gated at the bottom of a layer: official text says you fall into the next ruin only after reaching the bottom of the current layer and defeating its core. Both come from the store copy alone, so treat the layer count and the ending structure as to confirm against the shipped build.

The surface scan is the clock you play against

Most roguelites put a timer in the corner of the screen. DustFall makes the timer a physical front that moves through the map. Official copy says the scan begins to close in at the start of every descent, and that staying too close to the upper layers gets you detected, which draws increasingly dangerous hunters. Digging beyond the scan's reach buys a brief moment of safety, and brief is the operative word, because the front keeps advancing.

The practical first-hour lesson is to treat depth as both progress and protection. Hanging around near your entry point to gather resources is the mistake that ends runs early, because that is exactly the zone the scan covers first.

Digging is a weapon, not just movement

The terrain is DustFall's second combat system. The store description says the underground is made of pixels that "flow, burn, explode, and collapse", and it states the same idea three ways: ignite oil and let fire spread through the terrain, detonate powder caches to blast a route through solid rock, and remove crucial supports to bring a collapse down on your enemies. Every tunnel you carve changes both the fight and your escape route, which also means a tunnel you carve can become the route a hunter uses to reach you.

• Dig downward early instead of farming near your entry point.
• Light oil while enemies are still grouped; fire spreads through terrain, not just open air.
• Keep powder caches for rock you cannot cut through, or for collapses aimed at something chasing you.
• Treat supports as ammunition, since knocking one out can drop a ceiling on an enemy.
• Assume hunters can use your own tunnels, so leave yourself more than one way out.

Your first upgrade decision

The build system starts from a payload rather than a class. Official text names two starting options, the Drill Round and the Grenade, and describes three-way upgrades during each descent: enhance your weapon, gain passive abilities, or switch payloads. Those are branches rather than a ladder, so the early question is not which option is strongest in the abstract but which one the current layer needs. The weapons page goes further into the payload side, and features lists every feature the store page actually confirms.

What the store page does not document is the full payload list, the upgrade costs, or how many picks you get per descent. Those numbers are not documented yet, so treat any complete list you see elsewhere as unverified. The honest state of play is two starting payloads named, three upgrade directions described, and no published table for the rest. The achievements page shows the same pattern: a confirmed total of 29, with only ten names released.

Where to go next

Read gameplay for the loop, the cost of dying and the pacing; release-date for the launch timeline and the price situation; platforms for stores, languages and controller support; achievements for what is public of the 29; and system-requirements before you buy on an older machine.