Permafrost: start here in Early Access
If A Way Home is blocked at Butcher’s crate, preserve your saves and avoid starting a new playthrough for now, as the developer advises. Restarting the game means reopening it and loading the existing save; that is a different action and is not a confirmed quest fix. Permafrost launched in Steam Early Access on October 9, 2026. The 10:24 a.m. PDT RTX 20/30 hotfix was followed by RTX 40/50 Hotfix 2 at 2:14 p.m. PDT; both disable FSR on the named GPU families to reduce crashes. Check Steam’s update state. For crashes before settings, the developer recommends -dx11; otherwise try the graphics changes one at a time. Startup, performance, joining and inventory after rejoining need separate checks. DX11 recovery reports and the hotfix announcement do not establish full recovery. Follow the quest’s construction order: do not repair the church stairs before prompted. Pick Anna’s church key up individually, avoid Take All and reserve it for the church roof door. Early construction, key pickup and optional-container consumption are separate issues. The October 11 hotfix announces conditional replacement keys for three named quests; that does not establish recovery for every quest blocker.
