GRAVHOUNDS Beginner's Guide: Best Gravhound and First Base Setup

GRAVHOUNDS dropped into Early Access on Steam and Game Preview on Xbox on November 2, and it's already climbing the Game Pass charts for a simple reason: four players, five dogs, and a gravity gun make for a genuinely new combination. You play a bio-engineered Gravhound sent by a corporation to salvage hostile alien worlds, building a base under fire and hauling out everything you can carry before the swarm catches up. At $19.99 (currently 25% off through November 16) and included day one with Xbox Game Pass and PC Game Pass, it's an easy game to try this week — this guide covers the decisions that matter most in your first few shifts: which Gravhound to run, how the Grav Beam actually works, what to build first, and when to call it and extract instead of pushing your luck.

01What GRAVHOUNDS Actually Asks You to Do

Every shift starts the same way: your shipboard AI, COSMO, hands your crew a job from orbit, then drops you onto one of 25 planets spread across seven solar systems. Jobs break down into salvaging alien technology, extracting raw resources, or planting infrastructure for the corporation. Once you're down, the loop is build, defend, and extract. You put down generators and turrets, run pipelines to keep them powered, and fight off the swarm while gathering whatever the job calls for. The twist is that staying longer makes the planet more dangerous and more rewarding at the same time, so every extra minute on the ground is a bet your pack has to agree to together.

Unlike most extraction games, building and fighting happen in the same breath rather than in separate phases. You're placing a turret with one hand and throwing a hostile off a cliff with the other. Jumping in without a plan usually ends with your base half-built and your pack scattered across the map, so treat the first few shifts as a chance to learn the rhythm before you push into the riskier planets further out.

02Choosing Your First Gravhound

GRAVHOUNDS launched Early Access with five playable dogs: Luna, Zane, Dozer, Selene, and Finn. Octopus Panic has only detailed two kits in full so far: Dozer runs explosive bone bombs for crowd control and base defense, while Zane carries a physics-driven shockwave bark that shoves enemies and loose objects alike. Selene and Finn's exact kits are still unconfirmed outside of early hands-on impressions, so don't commit to a build around either of them until you've actually tested them in a shift yourself.

If you want a steer on what the current playerbase is gravitating toward, Octopus Panic's own numbers say a lot: Zane is the single most-picked Gravhound at 28% of players across PC and Xbox, with Luna close behind. For a first run, Zane's crowd-control bark is forgiving if you misjudge an engagement, and Dozer's bombs are the easiest way to clear a swarm that's already piled on top of your generator. Pick based on what you want to practice first rather than just chasing the popularity numbers — every Gravhound can carry a run once you actually know its kit and how it plays off the rest of your pack.

03Mastering the Grav Beam and Your Mobility Kit

The Grav Beam is the one tool you'll use constantly, and it does more than the name suggests. It grabs and hauls objects, places your Build Kits, and lets you throw anything you've picked up at teammates or enemies. Smaller enemies can be ripped straight out of a fight with the beam and flung somewhere less inconvenient, which is the fastest way to buy your team breathing room when a job's swarm escalates faster than expected.

Two warnings are worth taking seriously from the start. Volatile materials carried with the Grav Beam can detonate if you're not careful with them, and Octopus Panic's own store listing bluntly notes that mishandling them "may result in unforeseen loss of Gravhounds." Get comfortable throwing cargo to a teammate rather than walking it across the map yourself, especially once a job calls for anything explosive. Pair the beam with your propulsion rig — which lets you boost in any direction, jump, and hover — to reposition under fire or race to a teammate who's about to lose a fight alone. Once you've connected a pipeline between two points, stepping onto it gives you unlimited high-speed boost, which is by far the fastest way to cross a planet once your base starts sprawling outward.

04Setting Up Your First Base

Your base is built from deployable generators, turrets, and fabricators, connected by pipelines that carry power and move resources across the map. The order that works best for new squads is generator first, then one turret covering your main approach, then a fabricator once you have power to spare. Pipelines aren't optional scenery either — they double as your escape route, so lay them toward your extraction point rather than just toward resources.

Early Access currently includes 21 turret and defensive system designs, from the MLRS and Electrocoil to Cryo Rockets and the Ballistic Shield, all of which can be upgraded mid-shift. You won't see most of these on your first few runs, but it's worth knowing they exist so you're not still running a single basic turret by the time you're pushing into harder planets. Reaching farther out for better resources also means defending a wider perimeter, so only extend your pipelines as far as your squad can actually hold without spreading too thin.

05Playing Solo vs. Running With a Full Pack

GRAVHOUNDS supports 1 to 4 players, and the game is built around a real choice between the two. Go lone wolf and you can expand the operation faster — more pipelines, more turrets, more ground covered — but you're also the only thing standing between the swarm and your base. Stick with a full pack and you trade some of that raw expansion speed for the ability to combine Gravhound kits and improvise when a fight goes sideways, which is where the chaos the game is built around actually shows up.

New squads tend to do best splitting roles loosely rather than rigidly: one or two players holding the base and defending the perimeter while the rest range out for resources and points of interest. Don't be afraid to call everyone back in when the swarm spikes — GRAVHOUNDS rewards a pack that regroups fast far more than one that insists on finishing a side task while the base is under pressure.

06Reading the Swarm and Knowing When to Extract

GRAVHOUNDS calls its enemy waves "the swarm," and it escalates the longer you stay on a planet, culminating in the Early Access boss, the Juggernaut, on a planet's harder shifts. The game is explicit that this escalation is the entire risk-reward hook: hostile planets carry rarer materials and bigger rewards specifically because they get more dangerous the longer your pack lingers. There's no hidden timer to memorize — watch the pressure building on your base's perimeter and your squad's ammo and health instead of trying to clock-watch a shift from the start.

The habit worth building early is treating extraction as a target, not a last resort. Decide before you drop what would make the shift a win, and call for pickup once you've hit it rather than pushing for "just one more" resource node while the swarm keeps growing around you. Losing your pack deep into a shift usually costs you more than an earlier extraction would have, and if you're playing solo to expand the operation rather than sticking together, that math gets even less forgiving once things go wrong.

07Reward Pods and Your Early Loadout

Reward Pods drop for contributing to a job and contain randomized weapons and upgrades you can unlock and stack mid-shift, which is how a run starts to snowball if the swarm doesn't overwhelm you first. Beyond Reward Pods, Early Access ships with 60 unlockable mods in total, including 12 higher-tier "Showstopper" mods such as Gravity Bomb, Live Wire, and Life Sap, all shaped between runs through the Mod Deck. Early on, prioritize mods that make your base more self-sufficient — anything touching generator output or turret uptime — over purely offensive picks, since a base that can defend itself frees your whole pack to go fight or gather instead of babysitting the perimeter every shift.

Your First GRAVHOUNDS Shift, Step by Step

1. 1Zane's shockwave bark is forgiving crowd control if you misjudge a fight, and Dozer's bone bombs clear a swarm that's already on your generator. Both are the most-tested kits so far.Mission 1
2. 2Your first shift should be a short salvage or extraction job on an easier planet, not a deep-dive. Use it to learn the Grav Beam and your propulsion rig before the swarm gets serious.Your first shift
3. 3Place a generator the moment you land, then one turret covering your most obvious approach. Don't add a fabricator until you have power to spare.First 2 minutes
4. 4Run a pipeline from your base toward your planned extraction point, not just toward resources. It doubles as an escape route and gives you unlimited boost once you're on it.Early game
5. 5Reward Pods drop for contributing to the job and can be unlocked mid-shift. Stack generator- and turret-focused upgrades first so your base can hold itself while you range out.Mid-shift
6. 6Decide your win condition before you drop, then call for pickup the moment you reach it instead of pushing for one more node while the swarm keeps escalating.Before the swarm peaks

“Reaching Early Access is a huge milestone for our team, but we see it as the beginning of the next chapter.”Josh Holmes, Co-Founder, Octopus Panic

GRAVHOUNDS' Early Access launch trailer, published by Octopus Panic on November 2, 2026.

Zane fans, you're officially the biggest pack in GRAVHOUNDS. 🐾 With 28% of players across PC & Xbox picking him, Zane leads the way, closely followed by Luna. So, who's YOUR go-to , and why? Drop your main in the replies 👇🏻 #Gravhounds #IndieGames #IndieDevs

— GRAVHOUNDS (@Gravhounds) · Nov 6, 2026 on X