34 articlesUpgrading workbenches in Hytale sounds simple on paper, but once you start aiming for higher tiers, you’ll quickly realize that lots of upgrade materials are tied to specific biomes and enemies.
Suddenly, you’re staring at material names you’ve never seen before, wandering into biomes you weren’t prepared for, and questioning whether that drop even exists yet.
Since Hytale is still in Early Access, a lot of this can feel confusing or unfinished, so I put together this full guide to walk you through every workbench, every upgrade tier, and where to actually get the materials without losing your sanity.
How to Upgrade The Original Workbench in Hytale
How to Upgrade Workbench From Tier 1 to Tier 2
The original Workbench (Tier 1) is the backbone of your entire crafting progression, so this is where you’ll start.
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How to Get Gold in HytaleJan 21, 2026At this point, the early upgrades are friendly enough. Copper and Iron Ingots come straight from caves in the forest biome. Meanwhile, Iron tends to sit deeper in caves, while copper can show up almost anywhere inside.
Linen scraps are just as simple once you know the trick: kill enemies that are wearing clothes. Skeletons inside small structures are perfect for this, and you’ll usually get linen scraps very quickly.
That sums up your upgrade to Tier 2.
How to Upgrade Workbench From Tier 2 to Tier 3
Things ramp up once you push toward tier three (Tier 3). You’ll need Thorium Ingots, Cobalt Ingots, Heavy Leather, Shadow Weave Scraps, and Essence of Fire.
Thorium is easiest to find in desert mountain ranges, where it spawns directly on mountain sides and is easy to spot thanks to its green crystals and the sharp ridges on the map. Cobalt works the same way, except it lives in snowy mountain regions and is just sitting out in the open.
Heavy Leather starts as heavy hide, which drops from large animals like polar bears. Take that hide to your tanning rack, and you’re good. Essence of Fire comes from fire-type enemies deep underground in the starting green biome. Fire golems are the obvious choice, but fire mages, fire skeletons, and candle-headed goblins also drop it.
Lastly, Shadow Weave Scraps come from humanoid enemies in snowy villages, and there are plenty of those scattered across the map.
Once all of that is collected, your original workbench hits tier three and is fully maxed for now.
How to Upgrade Builder’s, Armorer’s, and Arcanist Workbenches
The Builder’s Workbench is refreshingly simple, since it doesn’t have upgrade tiers at all. Instead, it functions as a dedication station for construction, and it also receives new recipes based on your current progress.
The Armorer’s Workbench, however, takes a bit more effort. Tiers 1 and 2 require Copper Ingots, Bone Fragments from skeletons, Medium Leather from medium-sized animals or armored beasts, and Azure Logs.
Azure Logs come from blue-tinted regions in the starting area, where the trees themselves are visibly blue and easy to identify.
Tier 3 is where things get spicy.
You’ll need Thorium, Cobalt, Shadow Weave Scraps, Sturdy Chitin, and a Void Heart. Sturdy Chitin drops from armadillos in the desert, usually one to three at a time. I’ve had the best luck finding them in hardened clay areas rather than pure sand, though those zones are packed with dangerous enemies like hyenas and alligators.
The Void Heart is the real grind, as it only drops from purple void enemies that spawn at night in any biome, and it’s extremely rare. I only managed to get a couple in an entire day of playing, so expect to farm night mobs for a while. Once you have one, you can finally max out the armorer’s workbench.
The Arcanist workbench currently stops at Tier 1, so there’s nothing extra to worry about there. However, it’s still essential for magical equipment, enchantments, and advanced spell-related crafting.
Alchemist, Chef, and Farmer Workbenches
The Alchemist Workbench has changed significantly since launch.
While the early versions of the game capped the station at Tier 2, Update 4 introduced additional upgrade levels, allowing it to progress to Tier 5. Hence, you should continue upgrading the station if you’re aiming for advanced potion crafting.
Early upgrades still require Silver, Gold, Boom Powder, and Bone Fragments. Boom Powder drops from bomb-throwing goblins, which are far more common in desert and blue-tinted regions than in the starting biome.
Silver is most common underground in snowy areas, while gold shows up underground in desert and fire regions.
Then we have the Chef’s Stove, which remains one of the simplest crafting stations in the game. It’s still capped at Tier 1, so there’s no long grind here.
Lastly, there’s the Farmer’s Workbench which also received major changes.
The earlier versions came with tiers that seemed inaccessible because some materials were not obtainable. With the changes in Update 4, however, progression has become a lot more streamlined.
As a result, you should now focus on gathering crops, logs, and Essence of Life instead.
How to Upgrade Furnace, Tanning Rack, Feeding Trough, and Blacksmith Anvil
These supporting stations follow the same progression as the main ones.
Most upgrades require materials you’ve already encountered while upgrading your primary crafting stations, including Metal Ingots, Processed Hides, Specialized Woods, and biome-specific resources.
Because many upgrade materials overlap across stations, it’s usually more efficient to gather resources in bulk before committing to multiple upgrades at once. Recent updates have also improved overall workbench functionality.
Crafting stations now display queued crafts more clearly and continue processing more reliably than they did at launch, making large-scale crafting operations much easier to manage.
Wrapping Things Up
And that’s everything you need to upgrade every workbench in Hytale as far as Early Access allows. Some upgrades are smooth, others are a grind, and a few are clearly waiting on future updates, but at least now you know exactly where to go and what to hunt for.
If you find yourself stuck on certain upgrades that need darkwood, especially after accidentally grabbing the wrong logs as I did, you’ll definitely want to check out my guide on Darkwood Trunk Location in Hytale.
When you want fancy upgrades, but the trees are chillier than you are, that guide will save you a lot of wasted climbing and disappointment.
