Finish the Tutorial and take your first Downtown loop

Finish the Downtown Tutorial before you treat Verna like an open playground. It is the first spawn, it pays 10 rank stars, and it is the only place that walks you through vault, mantle, springboard, wall climb, wall run, and momentum with hologram demos.

Before you leave the building

1. Play the course instead of skipping it. The skip elevator is behind the gray door on the right at the start. You can replay later from the elevator inside the checkpoint building, through the red door.
2. Watch the named inputs, not a fixed keyboard card. Settings lets you rebind ASCEND, DESCEND, DASH, and ATTACK. ATTACK defaults to left click and is only needed for Dropkick right now.
3. Open the tab menu with TAB on keyboard or SELECT on a controller. Player shows rank and level. Abilities shows what you have actually unlocked, with a short clip. Inventory, Missions, Loadout, and Crafting live in the same menu.
4. Expect a Downtown title card when you finish. The Tutorial building is still part of Downtown.

First hour outside

1. Sync every checkpoint whose light is flashing green. First-time syncs are a major source of XP, and undiscovered checkpoints are how the level tracks exploration.
2. Start Crystal, the basic time trial northwest of Main Spawn, before the tougher Downtown courses. Touching a trial lets you teleport back to it later.
3. Find Julian under the tree by the grass outside the Tutorial. His quest line sends you to Derek, who is usually around the Solar time trial, to buy the Runner Phone.
4. Do not buy a Grappler with tokens on minute one unless you want to skip the craft. The base Grappler is a recipe, and several of its parts are sold by Derek and Petra.

High jump and coyote time are real, but the Tutorial does not spell them out. Hold ASCEND to jump higher. Coyote time is the brief moment after you leave a ledge when the game still treats you as grounded.

The Net, default key Y, opens an in-game browser. 98.411.0/codex/home.gtms is the Runner's Codex. An ability entry there stays locked until you have that ability's book.