Mycopunk How To Play: Core Loop and Controls

Mycopunk is a four-player co-op FPS looter shooter: you pick an employee, drop onto a fungal moon, complete one objective, extract, and spend the rewards on hex upgrades for your guns and your character. A mission takes 10–20 minutes and the loop is entirely mission-based — there is no open world and no base building.

The loop in five steps

1. Pick a mission at the hub table: region, threat level and mission type
2. Drop in with your employee, one primary, one heavy, throwables and grenades
3. Complete the objective — clear, escort, defend or survive
4. Extract at the drop pod (most missions require it)
5. Spend GATS and resources on upgrades, crafting and weapon unlocks

Everything you keep is account-wide: weapons, upgrades, skins, resources. Nothing is lost on death except the mission's optional objectives.

Controls

Mycopunk is a standard twin-stick-style FPS on mouse and keyboard:

Controller support is full, and patch 2.0.3 specifically fixed controller input conflicts when placing upgrades with a mouse plugged in.

Your loadout

Each employee carries:

• One primary — 13 to choose from, unlocked by level, mission or crafting
• One heavy — currently only the A16 Beam Ripper
• Throwables — five elemental grenades plus the Photon Disc and Snowball
• A hex grid per weapon and a hex grid for the employee

The grids are the progression: levels give cells, missions give nodes, and placement decides how strong the result is.

Elements matter more than damage

Seven elements, each building to a five-stage saturation bar. Fire, Shock and Acid deal 160 damage over 3 seconds; Decay amplifies all damage by 20% and removes body parts; Rot lasts 60 seconds; Cryo freezes. A weapon with the wrong element for the enemies in front of you does noticeably less work than a weaker weapon with the right one.

Threat level and difficulty

Threat 0–7 on New Atlas, 8+ on X11-B. Higher threat means more enemy health, more overclocked enemies, more modifiers and bigger rewards. Enemy intensity is automatic since 2.0.2; the old intensity buttons are gone.

Co-op

Four players maximum. Enemy arm counts scale with party size (an Amalgamation has 4 arms solo and 7 with four players), shell health scales with threat and player count, and friendly fire is off except for self-damage from your own explosions.

Each employee has a team role by accident of design: Scrapper plants grapple poles for everyone, Glider heals with Rocket Salvo, Wrangler pulls downed teammates, Bruiser blocks projectiles with the Shield Projector.

First hour checklist

1. Finish The Fungal Moon (the intro) — it cannot be replayed
2. Run Regulated Rampage until you unlock standard missions
3. Place your first node (Upgrader achievement) and level a weapon to 3 for a curated node
4. Unlock Ouroboros at level 5 to feel what a full grid is like
5. Buy the Diffraction Driver after level 10, or push Expedition Alpha for the Mycologist

What not to expect

No base building, no gear score, no seasonal wipe, no microtransactions beyond the Supporter Pack cosmetics. Progression is horizontal: more nodes, more shapes, more combinations.

FAQ

Is Mycopunk single-player?

It is playable solo, and the game scales enemy arm counts and health down for one player. Four-player co-op is the intended mode.

How long is a mission?

10–20 minutes for a standard objective, longer for Ouroboros runs (28 rooms) and shorter for Abomination Assault (timed).

Does Mycopunk have crossplay?

Crossplay support is a platform question rather than a game mechanic; check the store page for the current platform list.

Still weighing options? The full weapon roster lines up every gun, grenade and gadget side by side, and the upgrade grid basics explain how the nodes on each one are laid out.

Sources

Threat, mission, element and resource values were read from the Mycopunk 1.0 build and cross-checked against the official patch notes and the Steam store page. Where a rule is only described in player-written notes, the Steam guide index is the second source.