So I've just started the game, got through the opening cutscene and spoken to Diego. Then I turn left, and there's a torch on the ground. I try to press every button I can, and I can't pick it up. I'm using the alternate control scheme, and Action is mapped to Left Control, but that doesn't pick it up. I thought maybe you're not supposed to pick that up for some reason, so I walk a bit further and there's some beer sitting on the ground, which I still can't pick up. What am I supposed to do here? Is there even a "pick up" key? Is something weird going on with my Action command?

Ah, thank you, that helps. Kind of an odd choice on the part of the developers, though. I've learned just by poking around on this forum a bit that the game has pretty bad controls, though, so I'm not too surprised.

This did not work for me any other ideas

You hold whatever key you have bound to action, the press whatever key you have bound to move forward.

It's not that they are bad, it's just that they are quite different from most games. When you think about them, pretty much everything makes sense, so you get used to the controls pretty quickly.

thanks got it now just held the left mouse button down