RuneScape: Dragonwilds Controls and Keybinds

RuneScape: Dragonwilds plays like a third-person survival game, not like click-to-walk RuneScape. The default PC layout puts movement under the left hand, combat on the mouse, and every major panel on a letter key. Learn this page before you fight a goblin camp, then come back when you start building roofs or joining a co-op session. Bindings can be remapped in settings; the layout below is the stock map every guide on this wiki assumes.

The game entered Steam Early Access on 15 April 2025 as a Windows title. PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, and Nintendo Switch 2 bindings are scheduled to match this pad scheme when 1.0 ships on 15 September 2026. Until then, treat Xbox-style labels as the controller reference.

Keyboard and mouse

WASD moves. Space jumps. Hold Shift to sprint. C crouches. Ctrl evades; that tap is your panic button against claw slams and goblin lunges. Do not bind evade to a mouse button you already use for blocking.

Left mouse button is the primary action: swing, shoot, or place. Right mouse button is the secondary action: block with a shield, aim a bow, or charge a staff. Middle mouse button is the special action — melee specials unlock at Attack 8, so MMB stays quiet until the skills guide says otherwise. E interacts with NPCs, chests, lodestones, and stations. F is secondary interact, used for alternate station options and a few world objects.

Tab toggles inventory. B opens the building menu. J opens the journal for quests and First Steps notes. K opens skills. Q opens the spell wheel; you will live on Q once Rocksplosion and Axtral Projection come online. M opens the map and the pause menu. H opens emotes. Number keys 1 through 8 are the hotbar. R takes all from a container. X destroys a highlighted item. Hold Ctrl to quick-transfer stacks; hold Shift to split them.

Those letter keys matter in the getting started hour because thirst does not pause while you hunt for Tab. Put water and food on slots 1 and 2, a weapon on 3, a tool on 4. Spells stay on Q.

Combat rhythm

Primary, secondary, special, and evade are four different timings. A leather shield plus right-click is how you learn Parry at Attack 5. Evade (Ctrl) has i-frames; spam it and you will run out of stamina in Velgar’s poison puddles. Special (MMB) is a committed animation, so only press it when the skills page has unlocked the weapon’s extra move.

When in doubt, block, then evade, then swing. In co-op, call specials so two melee players do not overlap knockbacks on the same vault guardian.

Controller (Xbox layout)

Left stick moves. Click the left stick to sprint. Click the right stick to crouch. A jumps. B evades. Right trigger is primary. Left trigger is secondary. Right bumper is special. X interacts. Y toggles inventory. Left bumper opens spells and also tabs left in some menus. D-pad down opens building. The Menu button folds map, journal, skills, and the pause root together, which is slower than the keyboard letter keys.

Building on a pad is workable but slower. D-pad right toggles free placement (the keyboard Y equivalent). D-pad down repairs (keyboard T). D-pad up cancels (keyboard Esc). Left bumper destroys a piece; right bumper quick-interacts. Eye of Oculus uses the sticks to move the camera up and down. If you plan a multi-storey house, keep a mouse nearby or assign one player in the co-op group as the dedicated builder.

PlayStation 5, Xbox, and Switch 2 will follow this face-button pattern at 1.0: south face jumps, east face evades, west face interacts, north face inventory. Triggers stay primary and secondary.

Building shortcuts

B enters build mode. Ghost Mode lets you place transparent pieces before you have the logs. Y toggles free placement when snapping fights you on a slope. T repairs a damaged wall or station. Esc cancels the current ghost. Middle mouse destroys a piece you regret. Q and E tab the build catalogue left and right, the same keys that tab the top bar in the overworld, so do not rebind them to combat if you also build.

Roofs need walls beneath them. Tannery wants cover; the furnace wants open sky. Those rules live in the building guide. If a piece will not snap, toggle free placement with Y.

Settings worth changing

Invert look if you came from a console shooter. Lower camera shake if dragon meteors make you miss the evade window. Rebind evade off Ctrl if Ctrl-sprint feels awkward. Do not rebind E or B; every wiki screenshot assumes them.

Rotate hotbar 1–8 by region: antipoison before Velgar, Law Runes before a lodestone hop, pickaxe in the Highlands. The getting started guide still wants water and food on the first two slots. Muscle memory here carries through every later vault and through the 1.0 raid.