Can't Place a Grave Marker in Graveyard Keeper 2? — Fix & First Grave Walkthrough
Can't Place a Grave Marker? — Fix & First Grave Walkthrough
Quick answer: Tombstones and markers are not placed by plain interaction — equip the hammer, interact with the grave, select the top slot, then choose the tombstone from your inventory. A greyed-out button almost always means no hammer is equipped, or the grave isn't dug and filled yet.
Why it happens
The placement prompt appears before the grave is ready and tools must be equipped by hand — it reads as a dead end until you notice the tool requirement. It's confusingly timed, not broken.
The fix, step by step
- Equip a hammer (it's in the graveyard chest area at the start).
- Interact with the finished grave plot.
- Select the top slot.
- Pick the tombstone or cross from your inventory.
The wooden tombstone button stays greyed out until the grave has been dug, the body placed, and the plot covered with soil — plus the hammer requirement above.
Full first-burial sequence
- Put the body on Autopsy Table I (picking a pocket first is worth a free blue tech point).
- Carry it to the graveyard, place an Empty Grave, dig it, lay the body in, fill with soil.
- Attach a Wooden Sign — the tutorial loops on "you need to put a sign" until all of that is done.
- Then place the marker with the hammer (above).
Known issue — first-corpse soft locks
Two reports were filed during the demo, neither answered by the developer:
- Setting the body down outside the tutorial's accepted area loops the sign prompt and pushes the character back — the only known recovery is reloading an earlier save.
- Skipping the opening dialogue and dumping the first corpse in the river leaves the main quest stuck and the hammer unobtainable.
TBD: whether the retail build fixed either. We have no post-launch source confirming a patch, so we are not claiming they are resolved. If you hit one, reload an earlier save.
Related
- Removing a marker later: take the headstone off the grave first to expose "Exhume Body" (exhuming needs a Certificate bought from Januarius).
- Beginner guide — full opening flow · Walkthrough · Graveyard quality
Sources: Steam discussion threads (multiple), ProdigyGamers and post-launch guides (tposegaming). The two soft-lock reports were filed in the demo and their retail status is marked TBD rather than assumed fixed.