How a run goes · about ten minutes

From the trench to the volcano, and back.

One run, in order: who you meet, the five biomes, what zombies can hear, where you can rest, what happens when you fill the ladle, and what dying costs.

Everything here is in the game. The numbers are the game's own, and every image is a screenshot.

1 · Other players

Every stranger is a real player.

No name over their head, no team colour, no map marker. To learn anything about someone, you have to get close.

Shake hands to become allies

Offer a handshake to someone a few metres in front of you. If they accept within three seconds, you're allies until the match ends. You see their name over their head out to 100 m, and nobody else does. Everyone else stays anonymous.

Allies can still betray you

North of the trench, nothing stops an ally from shooting you in the back. There's no penalty, and the game won't warn you. South of it, nobody can hurt you.

Their eyes tell you a little

Every player's eyes glow a colour set by the server. Nobody can hide or change it.

A lit station at night, from above: its lamp beam rising beside a building among the trees, a lake, the glowing Cut with its waterfalls, and the mountain's plume beyond. — Any light you see at night might already have someone in it.

DarkNo kill in the last 30 seconds, and nobody has shaken their hand. It tells you almost nothing.

RedThey killed a player in the last 30 seconds. It fades over that time.

BlueBrighter the more people have shaken their hand. Trusted by many isn't the same as trustworthy.

PurpleBoth at once: many allies, and a recent kill. You decide what that means.

Forty minutes together through the snow. They saved you from a pack twice. You were 400 m from the volcano when they stopped walking.

The game didn't script that. Two players did.

One frame from above in daylight: meadow and a river in front, the Cut with its waterfalls and bridges on the right, the dry country beyond, and the mountain with its plume.

2 · The world

Everything you can see, you have to walk.

The meadow, the desert and the volcano are one continuous world, with no loading screens and no fast travel, including on the way home.

The trench · where you start and finish Five stages · to the volcano Both ways · a winning run walks it twice

A river winding through green meadow past a station and its banners, the dry country beyond, and the mountain's plume on the horizon.

STAGE ONE

WHERE EVERY RUN STARTS

The green

Meadows and ruined towns. Zombie packs are small and easy to spot. This is where you break a stick off a bush, find your first bow, and maybe meet your first ally.

PRESSURE

Red dunes with cacti and dry scrub at dusk, the volcano and jagged peaks behind.

STAGE TWO

NOWHERE TO HIDE

The dry

Open dunes where anyone can see you coming, and canyons you can get lost in. There's little cover.

PRESSURE

Pine forest on a snowy slope, white mountains behind.

STAGE THREE

HALFWAY

The cold

Snow hills, tundra and dark pine forest. The ground is pale, so anything moving on it, including you, can be seen from far away.

PRESSURE

Dark rock ridges and crags at dusk, almost no light left.

STAGE FOUR

WHERE MOST RUNS END

The dark

Dead forest and bare mountainside under constant cloud. It has the most zombies in the world, and the gloom makes them hard to see.

PRESSURE

The mountain at night from above, its plume lit orange, with the glowing Cut running across the land below it.

STAGE FIVE

THE GOAL

The volcano

One peak with a lava crater at the top, its smoke visible from where you spawned. Everyone still alive is heading for the same slope.

PRESSURE

3 · Noise

Zombies see poorly and hear everything.

A ring on the ground shows how far your noise carries right now. It shrinks when you crouch, grows when you sprint, and grows at night, when zombies hear better. It uses the same number the zombies do, so the ring is exactly how far they can hear you.

Whistle140 M · QUIET The quiet call. Loud enough for a lost ally to find you, quiet enough not to draw every zombie around.

Yell250 M · LOUD Pulls every zombie that hears it toward where you shouted. Use it to warn someone, gather a group, or send zombies at another player.

Your voice40 M · 20 CROUCHED Proximity mic: 40 m talking, 20 m crouched, 240 m through the yell key. Zombies hear your voice like any other noise, and the ring follows how loud you actually are.

Text30 M · SILENT Text chat reaches only players near you and makes no sound. It's the one way to talk that zombies can't hear.

Every way of reaching a player can also draw zombies.

Night, up close: a zombie with glowing red eyes reaching for the camera, more red eyes in the flowers behind it, and the mountain's lit plume above.

4 · After dark

Some nights you don't travel at all.

At night the fog thickens, you lose the horizon, and zombies hear further. Travel by day. Spend the night at a safe spot you lit yourself.

Safe spots

A lamp, four buildings, and zombies waiting outside.

Safe spots run up the middle of the world. Each has a lamp house, an armory with a bow and arrows, a chest house, and a landmark (a watchtower, shrine, ruined tower or mill). Half start each match unlit, with a zombie nest in them, so lighting one means a fight. Once the lamp is lit, zombies won't come inside its light.

A station in the meadow by day, seen from above: a watchtower and buildings with smoke rising, a lake pouring over the edge into the molten Cut, and the mountain on the horizon. — A station by day, beside a lake that pours into the Cut. The mountain is on the horizon.

What you do here

Refill your arrows in the armory. Open the chest and pick an augment. Spend levels you earned in the field. If the landmark is a watchtower, climb it to see the ground you cross next.

And wait

Zombies gather in the dark outside but won't come in. It's the one quiet part of a run, and a good time to talk.

Other players may walk in

A lit lamp can be seen from far away at night, and players come to them. You lit it, but you don't own it.

"That'll hold. While it burns."
THE NARRATOR, THE FIRST TIME YOU LIGHT A LAMP

5 · The ladle

Fill it, and everyone knows where you are.

At the volcano you fill a ladle of molten metal. That's the easy half.

01 · THE GOAL

It only counts in the south

Carry the ladle back south across the trench to win. There is no other way to score it, and no credit for getting close.

02 · THE BEACON

Everyone sees roughly where you are

From the moment you fill it, every player sees your rough position, updated every two seconds and slightly out of date. Enough to hunt you, not enough for a clean ambush.

03 · THE TURN

Everyone turns around

Everyone spent half an hour walking north. Now they have a reason to come after you, and your allies see your position too.

"Somebody's got a ladle. They're turning around now."
WHAT EVERY OTHER PLAYER HEARS

Night: a big zombie with glowing red eyes lunging at the camera with one hand out, a second one behind it, and the mountain's plume above them.

6 · The way home

Going north is the easy part.

Everything you crossed on the way up is now between you and the finish: the dark, the cold, the dunes, and the other players. You carry the one thing worth killing for, and everyone can see roughly where you are. The last 70 m is an open bridge over the trench with no cover.

7 · Winning and dying

Carry it across the trench, and the win is yours.

Your name goes on a leaderboard that outlasts the match. The first delivery starts a ten-minute timer, so the match ends with everyone still carrying a ladle racing south. Runs are timed from when each player joined, so late joiners can still place.

WINNING

Permanent

Finished runs stay on the leaderboard after the match ends and the world changes.

DYING

A setback, not the end

You lose your gear and every soul you carry. Your augments and levels go back to what you had at the last safe spot you visited, and you choose which of your safe spots to respawn at. How far you push between them is the gamble.

AFTERWARDS

Vote on the next map

The game pauses for 60 seconds to show the results, and everyone votes on two changes for the next match, like a longer run, more safe spots or wider rivers. Then a new world is generated.

"It set. That one's yours."
THE NARRATOR, WHEN YOU GET ONE HOME

Every augment in the game →