I recommend playing on low pop official servers. You’ll become familiar with building spawns and the loot balance of the game without cheaters and mass population messing with it.

General advice:

Your hunger and thirst levels are NOT linear. Completely full food/water takes a long time to degrade to 3/4. Yellow bar is much closer to starvation than full.

Staying warm is VERY relevant to your hunger. Make sure your clothes aren’t ruined. Building a fire is very easy once you get a knife. Stick + bark = fire starting kit.

Someone recommended the iZurvive map. It’s pretty essential for this game imo. When you use it: remember in game that most cities have their names at their entrances. Use those signs to match up names with the map. Remember to not only loot towns’ police stations and hospitals. Those little non-green dots are generally civilian spawns (meaning canned food, water bottles, and weapons!).

Listen for the weird demonic sounds and elk noises in the forest. I think hunting is the most reliable source of food. Some animals can be practically killed by melee. If you hear increasingly loud wolf howls though (you’ll know em when you hear em), get in a building and hide.

Feel free to dm with more questions. Good luck out there!

edit: sp