The friendship system in Utara, explained
DAVE THE DIVER's In the Jungle expansion swaps the Blue Hole for Utara, a freshwater village built around a jungle lake. The 23 residents you meet here are not just background flavor. Build your friendship with each one and they hand over gifts that span house decorations, combat accessories, shop discounts, and daily resource collection. Most villagers reward you twice: once at 3 hearts and again at 4.
Resident Note heart tracker
How do hearts and friendship levels work?
Every villager tracks friendship through hearts, with a cap of 4 per person. Meeting someone for the first time fills the first heart automatically, so you earn the remaining three through deliberate interaction. The reward milestones land at 3 and 4 hearts.
Two hearts matters more than it might seem. Once an adult villager reaches that threshold, they start showing up at Bancho Grill in the evening as a paying customer. Serving them there keeps the relationship climbing at the same time you are running your restaurant.
A few villagers break the standard pattern. Jepun only has a single reward and stops after 3 hearts. Cinta skips the 3-heart gift entirely and only hands over a reward at 4. Marone is the earliest starter of the group, beginning daily material collection from 3 hearts rather than waiting for 4.
Complete friendship rewards list
The table below covers all 23 villagers, their rewards at each milestone, and what those rewards actually do.
Villagers dine at 2 hearts
Which friendship rewards are worth prioritizing?
You cannot always chase these in a clean order since progress depends on available quests, gifts, and which favorite foods you have stocked. That said, some rewards pay off fast enough that the villagers tied to them are worth befriending early.
None of these are required to finish the main story. The one actual progression gate is getting three adults to 3 hearts during Chapter 3, which lets Dave move a boulder blocking access to Setah Forest. Outside that requirement, treat everything else as quality-of-life rather than a hard unlock.
Perak's Blacksmith discount
How to raise friendship faster
Three actions do the heavy lifting here. Feeding a villager their favorite dish at Bancho Grill is the most consistent method, alongside giving them gifts they like and completing their friendship missions when those become available.
To hand over a present, talk to a villager and select the Gift option, then pick from your inventory. Any item the villager has confirmed as a favorite will show a heart icon next to it. One gift per villager per day is the hard limit, so save confirmed favorites for the people you want to level up first. Gifts are mainly bought from Rimbo's shop, which refreshes its stock daily, making it worth checking in every morning.
You learn a villager's preferences by talking to them and selecting Talk, then Favorite things. An N appears on that option when they have new information to share. Some villagers only reveal preferences as your relationship grows, so you may need to make progress before their full likes list unlocks. Checking a villager's reaction after gifting them something unknown is another way to fill in the gaps, and confirmed favorites get added to their Resident Note entry automatically.
For a full breakdown of what each villager wants to eat, the villager favorite gifts and dishes guide covers every preference in detail.
How to check friendship levels and claim rewards
Press up on the d-pad to open the Resident Note menu. This shows Dave's current heart level with every Utara villager at a glance. Selecting an individual entry pulls up everything learned so far about that person's favorite foods and gifts, which makes it easy to plan your next move.
When a reward becomes available at 3 or 4 hearts, a pink question mark appears above the villager's head. Walk up and talk to them to collect it. The item either drops into your inventory or installs as a decoration depending on what it is. A few rewards, like Marone's daily material collection, do not begin until the following day after you claim them.
Children and animals in Utara also have friendship rewards, though they cannot visit Bancho Grill at 2 hearts the way adult villagers can. This makes raising their affinity slightly slower since you cannot serve them food, but the daily collection rewards from Eka, Bima, and Marone make the effort worthwhile.
For more on what to cook and serve to maximize those evening Bancho Grill sessions, the full new recipe list for In the Jungle is worth bookmarking alongside this one. And if you want to cover every angle of the expansion, the complete Dave the Diver guides collection has everything from fish locations to crafting materials in one place.