Beginner's Guide to Blood & Lineage
New to Blood & Lineage? This beginner's guide covers everything you need to know to start your journey from the peaks of Olympus to the depths of the Underworld.
Getting Started
Blood & Lineage is a free-to-play roguelike Musou game, which means each run through the game's Greek-mythology-themed world will be different. You will fight massive hordes of enemies, collect loot, and try to push as far as you can before being defeated or completing the run.
Your first step is choosing one of the four demigod classes. Each class has a unique base toolkit, so try a few short runs with different classes to find the playstyle that suits you best. Do not worry about making the wrong choice early on — meta-progression upgrades carry over between runs regardless of which class you play.
- Pick a class and complete the tutorial or first area to learn basic controls
- Focus on understanding your combo strings and ability cooldowns
- Collect loot during runs to improve your stats
- Spend meta-progression currency between runs to unlock permanent upgrades
Combat Basics
As a Musou-style game, Blood & Lineage throws enormous numbers of enemies at you simultaneously. The key to surviving is crowd management — use wide sweeping attacks to thin the horde and save your stronger abilities for tougher enemy types and mini-bosses.
Positioning matters more than it might seem at first. Getting surrounded without an escape plan is the most common way new players lose health quickly. Keep moving, use your abilities to create space, and learn which enemy types are most dangerous in groups.
Understanding Roguelike Progression
Each run in Blood & Lineage is a fresh start in terms of the loot you collect during that run. However, the game features meta-progression upgrades that persist between runs, making your demigod permanently stronger over time.
This means that even a failed run is not wasted time — you are always working toward making future runs easier. Focus on learning enemy patterns and boss mechanics during your early runs rather than trying to reach the final boss immediately.
Essential Beginner Tips
The game spans environments from Olympus to the Underworld, and enemy types change as you progress deeper. Pay attention to new enemy behaviors as they appear rather than relying on the same strategy throughout an entire run.
Since the game offers adjustable difficulty, there is no shame in starting on an easier setting to learn the fundamentals before ramping up the challenge.
- Learn your class abilities before worrying about optimal builds
- Use the adjustable difficulty to find a comfortable starting point
- Focus on meta-progression upgrades that boost survivability first
- Play co-op with friends via LAN to make early runs more forgiving