The story sends you to the first island pretty quickly. Here you get missions that are roughly 50/50 ‘advance the plot’ and ‘build things for villagers’. Missions and building level you up and unlock recipes. Once I’m done with the plot on the first island I can take all the levelled up recipes back to the hub (which is barren) and start building there, then go to the second island. I don’t think I’m meant to leave island 1 until I’ve done the plot here, and once that’s done I don’t think I’ll need to come back.