But still, you know, it's an actual guide, it's well written, it's entertaining at points, and we're being entirely honest about the language we wrote it in. We want the visibility because we want to help people get better at the game. With that said, please read it if you're interested, or sorry for the slightly clickbaity thing, but we're sure we'll help more people than we'll annoy.

The gameplay tips might be helpful, but the guide's no longer updated. Thanks for the reads, people. Have a good one.

Hey there, I'm Nally. I'm about level 60 in WN2, and I've spent some time figuring out what the best loadouts and ways to act in-game are. My win to loss ratio is something like 40/5, too.
For many of you, this might just be common sense, but I still feel it's worth putting out there.

Hey again! Now this is Teku speaking. I'm around level 50 in WN2 and I help Nally with his research on the game. Also when Nally is too busy I'll be the one fully updating the guide to keep it fresh and updated. Most stuff written in italic is written by me, Teku. Furthermore I'll be the one providing the pictures and screenshots for this guide and I can't stress this enough, click the images to expand them and have a better look at what they say. Anyhow, thanks for stopping by and I hope you have fun reading our guide!

Right now, WN2 is dominated by monster players who to be fair, aren't even very good. Survivors yell, split, stare forever, pick horrible team compositions and just perform horrendously. This, of course, means that most of the time, four dudes are losing to one dude. Much like in similar titles, this does not sustainable community make.

To do my part, I will make sure that you know how to play and sometimes even how to behave with other human beings while you're stuck in a dark building with them. By the end of this guide, you'll be a perfectly competent survivor AND monster player, able to give everyone you play with a good game and in turn get one yourself.

So, let's get started.

Our last update: As of update #30, the game's become much too easy to really require any guides. We've streamlined ours, it's still the one that started the whole meta as well as all the lingo. I guarantee it contains 100% of what you need to know to kill it, minus all the fluff. We took out playmaking scores and the like to make it an easier read. We'll do a release day stream, and you might see me cheesing people down. (Amazing pun, I know) I'd like to thank Milkstone for making the game, the community for all the fun games and Teku for the help. Stay together and stay safe, investigators!

Hold up there, Sanic the Horseflu! In the main menu there's a really helpful section in Extras and it's called How to Play. You should give it a look! Alternatively, you can keep reading this guide! And you could also do both! Everything works here. No wrong options.

I'm not saying you need to be the best and have 39 hours in solo play before you even play your first online match, but having a rough idea of what the hell you're doing will make you a much better asset for your team. The skill floor isn't very high, but a lot of people don't make the cut anyhow. You start a game, you see people going "I just got dis lul" spamming scream, getting eaten right away and rushing off to a refund while they still can.

I'm also not saying there's a proper way to play videogames, but that is just not enjoyable, plain and simple. When you're a part of a team, double so. You are losing, which is already bad enough, but you're making another 3 people lose as well, and odds are someone's gonna be mad at you for it.

One or two solo runs will help you get a grasp on where the tapes might be. And for all that's dear to you, don't walk in and ask "What's a tape?" I've seen that. The results were not pretty.

Yes, child. We are. Ahhh... Videogames.

Remember when not every game was teambased? I remember. Back in the days when buttonmashing was the safest way to ensure victory, arcade games were obnoxiously hard, (Hell, you could find arcades back then. Brings a tear to these old eyes.) and you'd shove a coin on the side of the screen going "I call next."


Back then, as now, in some places, weird places, you could access something called co-op gameplay. This meant two people shooting at a screen full of zombies, with gloriously bad voice acting accompanying the whole ordeal. Yes... I remember like it was yesterday. I remember.


Alright, alright! Reader, you're no fun, I tell you that much. Okay, so: The more players in a game, the harder it is for the enemy to win, right?


So, in old arcade games, think the House of the Dead saga, or Time Crisis, when 2P joins, the difficulty went bonkers most of the time. This is why in ye olden arcade parlors, you wouldn't join into someone's game of Virtua Cop unless you KNEW you could pull your weight and not make him squander his credits. Many times you'd couple a player who had went through it a thousand times with a novice, just to find out that the veteran could simply not carry his pal to the finish line, but he could do it alone no problem.

Point here is, a lighter version of the same principle applies. When you join in, you're taking a slot, giving the monster extra cooldown reduction to balance out your mere existence, and putting 2 more sigils up on the finale. This is your buy-in. Again, everyone was new once, I'm not saying you need to be like Mad Max in the finale of a Mad Max film before you even consider joining teams, but your team IS DEFINITELY, ABSOLUTELY COUNTING ON YOU. Your team needs you to pull your weight. The game expects you to do so. This is the main reason for reading this guide: Learning how to play, so you can be a welcome addition to any team, instead of literally dead weight. The game is quite ruthless with how useful a dead player is, so try your best, for the sake of your teammates.

For starters, let's talk about the human characters. They being up to four, you're gonna play a lot more of this than monster, at least on paper. Them being 4 means they also get work division in an informal way. The starters are just nerfed versions of the classics, so once you've unlocked those, there's very little reason to stick to the former. Except for Rinko, anyway.

The Leader: Your average carry role, nowadays it's done mostly by shoving the Smartphone onto a Guard. You get high-ish survibability with great map clearing. Iker, Jean and Rinko are the best choices. There must always be at least one. With the community taking a turn for the worse nowadays, Leader is thankless as ♥♥♥♥ and you'll often hear stuff like "Shut the ♥♥♥♥ up" for trying to help a bunch of friendly guys win a game, so pretty much pick at your own risk. A Leader without a team is nothing but a gimped split.

The Guard: Hannah with a Toy Torch, or just whoever the Toy Torch guy in your team is. They never die, and they can keep everyone else safe under mostly any circumstances, except ludicrous fails by the Investigator team. High survibability and great playmaking, but horrible map clearing.

The Split: By force of meta, and how unpleasant it has become to play with randoms in general, this becomes the main role to pick if you want to win. Pick someone with higher stealth than the rest, bail on them ASAP and hope you can collect enough tapes to win the game while they just get relentlessly hunted. I wouldn't be surprised if in the future we start seeing teams of four splits beacuse nobody wants to be arsed to even try to work as a team. Splits are mostly average and have pretty weaksauce strengths, so you depend mostly on your own game sense.

The Caboose: They have average mobility and a long range light. They fish stuns methodically rather than on reaction like the Guards do. Nowadays, you could probably just pick a Guard instead, but they have their place countering Rusalka spammers and the like. Chuck and Phileas fit the role best. They should roll at least 5 range lights to fulfill this role. Back into the not much reason to pick them again. However, slowly making your way across the map looking for the monster might help in teaching you the game.

Speed: How fast you walk and run.

Endurance: For how long you can run, and how fast you recover your Stamina when winded. Also seems to affect tiredness recovery.

Bravery: Everyone has an HP bar, so to speak. Bravery determines how fast it goes down. Every time you take damage, your cap goes down a little. Sprinting also makes it go down. There's a hard cap for how little you can have.

Battery Management: How long does your battery last. Doesn't seem to affect how much you get back from batteries.

Stealth: Determines from how far can the monster get an outline on you.

Exploration: How fast your skills come off CD. This includes Glowstick and Compass. I wouldn't know if yell's affected by it, since it's barely ever used. It also determines the range at which you start hearing the tapes.

Vitality: This determines how long it takes for the monster to consume you. Anyone still dies on the third grab, Phileas dies on the fourth and Vincent on the second. Only Phileas has high vitality while Vincent has the lowest of all investigators.

Quick overview of the default keyboard buttons and their use (as always, click the image to expand it). Further explanations below.


You have just three. R for Compass, which points in the general direction of the tape. Red means far, yellow means less far, blue means close. Once you're really close, it becomes a blue dot, which means around the area you're in. You should hear the tape soon.




And G is for scream. This is heavily frowned upon, but if you're completely lost and it's your last option, you might as well try. It gives your character a glowing outline. At worst, the monster comes to hug you for comfort. At best, a teammate was near and saves you. Mind you this does have a distance cap and neither the monster nor your teammates can hear you if you're too far. The same distance cap carries over to the ghosts.

Throw a glowstick with Q. Lasts two minutes and has... Pretty wonky physics. This is mostly used to keep the monster at bay when he uses Disable. If you're lucky, your team will build a wall of green to kite the monster around. Drop a glowstick in place by holding Q.

You can grab items with leftclick. If you're "channeling" a pickup or an item use, you can leftclick again to stop doing it. Same applies to monster skills.



Stun and Run: Staring will get you mad and dead. Bad idea. Don't do that.

Grab items or cover those who grab them: They're broken beyond belief and will carry your ass through anything even if you never check back. This is the one thing you need to win.

Don't lose sight of your group: I'm still amazed by people getting lost, and it's still a HUGE issue to this day. Just don't.

Two Guards, two Leaders, two teams. This composition is made usually by Iker and Rinko or Hannah, who pull monster aggro due to low stealth and Kurt and Jean, who don't. Fast clears, really hard to take down, overall a very hard to beat strategy for any monster player. I would say this is the meta right now, if you can get an organized team of four going. It's important that the Guards run back checks often, and if they're on tape duty, the Leaders have to.

Basically what the starter composition is. Leader leads, Guard keeps track of monster and runs for tapes, Caboose holds the back, Split splits. Faster than average clears at bigger than average risk. With any luck, the stealth rework might make it so that the Split barely gets any pressure on them and can get the team way ahead.

All four together. This has the benefit of being ridiculously hard to kill, but can be a little hard to maintain. A heavily favoured composition at the lower levels, any team can do it, of course, but it's not very efficient. I'd reccomend to run at least one Leader even if he doesn't have a Guard. Four guys should be able to manage one monster if they stick together... Right? Just remember to run checks often.

Basically what you'll run if you're three and you're not running 2 and a split. You just stick together. If someone gets grabbed, he moves in the center, Leader leads, Guard keeps track of the monster, Caboose or second Guard holds the back. It can be done with any combination of two Guards or one Guard and one Caboose character plus a Leader. Caboose should be the one to check the most often.

Self explainatory, I believe. Guard, Leader and hopefully Split, but it can be done with say, a Rinko splitting. It's less efficient, but it can work.

Any 2 man composition roughly boils down to either a Caboose sniping the monster and a Leader or a Guard keeping the monster at bay and running for tapes and a Leader. Very effective with good teamwork, doomed to fail without. Both are strong if done well. I just reccomend you don't run two Guards or two Cabooses.

There are many flashlights indeed, and you should pick one that suits not your, but your character's playstyle. Picking based on looks is not an option here.

Click the image to have a closer look at what each stat does.

Standard: You're stuck with it for a while, so you might as well use it. It's not that good. It's meant to be an easy introduction to the game and has high battery management.

Oh wow, it's a flashlight!

The noobtrap: It got buffed! It's still an entirely inferior spotlight, and it should still never ever be picked, but at least the one guy who insists on Anna+Spotlight won't ♥♥♥♥ you over immediately. It has nice range, which means the monster can set you up around corners. Borderline useless on open maps and down right detrimental on closed ones. Give it a pass.

Wanna be a Professional Dumbass?

Periscope: Nerfed lighter, looks cool though. Low spread is definitely an issue, pick something else.

Everyone who played Silent Hill 5 Homecoming remembers this flashlight... as for it's use here, it might as well have stayed in SH5.

Rusty: Iker can still roll it with his Holiday Suit and he'll be slightly faster but slightly less cheesy than with a smartphone. Your call. Standard range and High speed make it a great choice in almost any situation. If you have no reliable Guard, it's still a great choice that will allow you to both lead and live through stuff. Doesn't bob down while running.

The Vanilla Leader's choice.

Spotlight: The main Caboose light since times immemorial. Chuck can really bring out the juice on this one. It will require you to grab batteries, but it's still pretty alright.

Spotlight on the monster! No pun intended.

Light Bar: Being a very high speed, not as much endurance alternative to the Toy Torch, it still sees some use. It's not a bad choice, and not entirely outclassed either. Doesn't bob down while running.

I wish I was a toy.

Camping Lantern: Used in the primordial soup of the game as a way to get a Leader who could hear tapes from ten kilometres away, nowadays we have the smartphone, so it's largely falling out of use. If you're splitting, the JoL will do much better.

Can't we just bludgeon the monster to death with it?

Traffic Wand: It'll turn Vincent into a very weird supporty off meta Guard and it will turn everyone else into sub optimally built whatever. It's not great at all, Lighter outclasses it for Guarding, Rusty outclasses it for Leading. Give it a pass. Doesn't bob down while running.

It's red to signal that you should STOP picking it.

Jack O' Lantern: Gives you good stats, gives you good stealth, you can't really see much, but you can slap it on Sarah to split. It's alright for that. It's alright for staying grouped too, not much else to write about.

Spooky, scary, candle lights, recharged with batteries.

Reading Lamp: Sort of a nerfed Light Bar. It also bobs down when you run which isn't exactly helpful when you want to know where the hell you are going.

Looks more like a big laser pointer or a vib... Nevermind.

Toy Flashlight: Less range than Spotlight, more survibability. It's alright, for the most part. Stick it on a Caboose and go to town on the monster, it works fine.

Guaranteed to be okay. The light, I mean. Not you. Definitely not you.

Chinese Lantern: Buffed Standard! You won't find many characters that want to take an endurance extender as their main light other than Anne Marie. Again, standard range is actually quite good, but it's not very remarkable. Doesn't bob down when you run.

Remember, ordering takeout doesn't mean getting taken out by the monster.

Toy Torch: You'll run fast, but not so much forever with this thing. Good on Hannah, mostly. Everyone else tends to be better off with the Lighter. Speed is a weird thing.

The Guard is coming for you, monster! With a torch! Made of cheap plastic, bought off a dime store!

Cinema Spotlight: THE BIG STRONG LIGHT FOR BIG STRONG MEN LIKE CHUCK!!! And much of the time, Jean Luc. This thing is ridiculously bad, UNLESS you have an Anne-Marie as your partner. Then it becomes ridiculously overkill. You're still reasonably fast with it, can hear tapes for miles, light up the whole place, and this huge thing doesn't even bob down when you run with it. It's a VERY risky choice, however.

Hey, I think I saw a fly. Let me grab my orbital laser.

Smartphone with a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ selfie stick: The go to Leader flashlight. It extends your exploration to unheard of levels, but it makes your individual strength go down. Sub par range and spread means you won't see much, even if you can hear really well, so you need a team to cover you. If you have one, this is definitely the best light you can find, if you don't, go for Rusty instead.

Just one more cat video, then I'll use my Tapefinder (TM) App.

Electric Lighter: The best FLASHLIGHT in the game for most people. Phileas, Jean and Rinko can all run forever as long as they have it, which makes them borderline invincible. You gotta manage your tiredness a bit, but it's really no big deal. This is basically that one extremely broken unlock you've been waiting for.

The first functioning lighter that can't light things up, what an amazing invention.

Heater: A niche pick for Sarah splits, it makes her a mediocre duelist rather than a dreadful one. It's uses kinda begin and end there. Still, it can be pretty good.

"So we're gonna explore an abandoned hospital at night? Okay, let me bring my... Battery charged heater. Yes."

Tiny disclaimer: As of update #15 you can now drop items on the ground by holding the T button (or whatever you mapped your item button to) to give an item to another investigator.

Statuette: Confuses the monster's compass until broken. Also kills the outlines. Best used as a "Free Finale" item.

Medkit: Restore one life. As for cover, it takes a year.

Incense: Reveal the monster. His outline will be green.

Transmitter: Reveal the next nearest tape. I shouldn't have to tell you that it's better used later on when there are less tapes, but I'm telling you, just in case.

Painkillers: Restore sanity and increase bravery for a short amount of time.

Energy Bar: 20 seconds of being much faster. Another gamebreaker for the investigators. Least this one has a use time.

Get out of jail completely free card: YOU NEEEEEED FLASHPAAANKSSSS. Old Jettan references, ha. Throw it with T, it works like a glowstick and explodes in 2 seconds. You must throw it in the general postcode of the monster at least, so it's BALANCED TM. Use it after they used a big skill like Shutdown or Mourn. It's an amazing crutch.

Ah, good question.

A tier list is a ranking of each character's metagame. In layman's terms, a tier list is a comparison between every playable character to see who's best at what, or plain best. A mainstay of fighting games since... Forever, they can be applied to most competitive games.

A quick Frequently Heard Statements section for your information:


Simply put, tiers exist. It's a fairly in depth analysis of a game and the metagame, (How everyone plays with and against one another) although they're in no way determinant. You won't win simply by picking something that some dude has said is totally great, neither will you lose for picking something that a dude has said is terrible. However, tier lists can help you determine what you want to pick. These characters are not simply our favorites: A lot of thought and a fair amount of testing goes into each of these, to give you the best possible guidelines to form a playstyle around.


X, Iker in this case is outclassed by everybody else in his role. Everyone does what he does better, and that's why he's ranked where he is. Is he bad, per se? No. Every character has strengths and weaknesses and this being a PvP environment, every character has a fair shot at victory. However, some characters are plain better than others at what they do, they do it with less effort, or they do it without a gimmick, therefore they place higher.


Every character is tested against mid-high level players. For the Investigators, Survibability, Clearing Times, and Playmaking Ability are the main standards, coupled with simply how likely are they to actually win. For the Creatures, Stalling Ability, Playmaking Ability and Hit Success Rate are the main concerns. For both, Ease of Use and Straightforwardness play a big part in deciding whether something is actually worth reccomending or not.

If you have any questions, feel free to ask in the Comment Section.

These characters have a fair shot at winning with randoms, and are almost certain to win if you have a team. They're very strong in any situation and pretty much must picks. You might want to click the pictures to read every character's traits.

Jean Luc: Helpful good. Pick Jean for Helpful. He can also run for the longest time, and he's generally very welcome to any team.

Low risk, ridiculous reward.

Reccomended build: Old Rocker skin, Either Smartphone and Leader role or Lighter and Guard role.


Hannah: Fastest in the game, she can do stuff no one else can. Needs a Leader.

THE ONE THAT'S ACTUALLY FUN TO PLAY! Enjoy her, we're not getting another high speed character.

Reccomended build: Amber, Toy Torch, Guard role.


Iker: Best Leader in the game, he's an okay fighter with Rusty. And a great Leader with Smartphone.

Iker Jiménez isn't even the best mistery investigator in Spain, guuuuys! Ever heard of Mercedes Valdeón? I swear. Such mainstream! Very not good.

Reccomended build: Holiday Suit, Rusty Flashlight or Smartphone depending on your preference.



Fairly strong, with very exploitable pros and cons that don't matter all that much.

Phileas: Ridiculously broken since the completely uncalled for buff, Phileas is ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ invincible and will let you know it. If he gets a medkit, the fun begins. Even as a meatshield, he's ridiculous. He can't run all that well in every situation but it hardly matters when he just tanks for his team.

The Highlander. Because he can't die. Get it? Do you get it?

Reccomended build: Professor, Lighter, Guard role.


Anna: Another completely cheesy monster. Anna, you'll see, doesn't get crazy from running, which makes her able to run... All the time. This turns her into a complete cheese powerhouse with Gothic and a Toy Torch. There's no catching her, there's no baiting her into a stun, and her high stealth helps her escape abilities faster. No way of beating her in a group.

Screw the meta, I am a free soul! I should not be enjoying this, but I am! Yes, monster! Strangle me harder! HARDER!!!

Reccomended build: Gothic Girl, Toy Torch, Guard role.


Sarah: More of a traditional split that works alone, she's a tough one to beat even in groups thanks to Shadow. She gets less punished for sticking around than Anna, but she's stronger due to being very slippery. Slightly slower too.

The Horsefaced Master

Reccomended build: Racer skin, Heater, Guard/Split hybrid.


Rinko: Fast and brave, she's an alright Guard, but outclassed by the far cheesier options nowadays, and by Iker or Jean as a leader. Not a bad pick per se. Her negtrait is a ♥♥♥♥♥ to deal with if you die though, so you should probably stay away from her until you know what you're doing.

"Aaanything you can do, I can do better, I can do anything better than youuuu"

Reccomended Build: Fake Blonde, Lighter, Guard role.

Anne Marie: Much stronger than you'd think, but I can't put her higher than this. She's hard to use right.

Jinkies! I am just a Scooby Doo reference!

Reccomended Build: Blank and Purple although it is totally Pink, Chinese Lantern, Caboose role.


Chuck: Tough to use well due to being a hybrid Caboose/Split, stick him with a spotlight and leave him with the group, he'll protect them alright. Acts as a dinner bell though.

THE BIG MAN

Reccomended build: Spotlight, Caboose role, skin at your preference.


Kurt: With Jean being slightly less Kurt dependant thanks to all the new items and so, Kurt's back down. He's an okay everything who should be played as a Leader. Rusty or Smartphone at your call. Default skin is usually the way to go.

Boring but practical

Reccomended build: Rusty, Default, Leader role.

These characters are weak enough to be considered detrimental to your team just for being there. The key point is to just pick one of the better ones.

Vincent: Ho, boy. The joke character. Completely useless except to die with, he turns Iker into something horribly broken but that's the end of that. Detective skin and Lighter don't even save him from getting winded. Give him a pass.

The Dead Man

Reccomended Build: Pick someone else.

Maria: I know you're picking her to grab everything and leave your teammates with nothing, so don't. That is all. She can split, and she can sorta lead, but most players make her into an unbearable machine of trolling, so unless you know what you're doing...

Reccomended build: Rinko with a Lighter instead of her.

When you die, your stats carry over. Rinko still has a better compass, Kurt and Iker still get frequent compass, and Anna with Camping Lantern becomes the queen of God Tier, but of course, we don't really count dead players helping as a good thing. You are the fastest thing on the game regardless of who you were in life, and you run everywhere without getting tired. Try to get on tapes and ping your teammates with G, the monster can't see this, but it can see you. You can't see them, however. So beware of helping the monster set up a trap by leading your allies into a dark corner or an interior where the monster might camp.

You have also likely just screwed your team over, because your buy in the game is to get 2 more sigils in the finale, so... Yeah. Try not to die.

When I say get on the tape and G, I mean get ON the tape and G. Try to use your body as an indicator for where your alive teammate has to click, and try your darndest to not mislead them. I've seen ghosts go G at random, and a savvy investigator is always gonna assume that you mean there's a tape there. Also, going G and TAPE SOMEWHERE ON THIS ROOM... Not really helpful. All you're doing is leading your teammate into a cramped corner and the monster is more than likely to have your number. You can also banish idols as a ghost, so go ahead of your teammates and banish them, highly annoying for Rusalka since it increases her cooldowns again.
As of update #14 ghosts can now put spirit flames down with Q which work like a glowstick only that these are not thrown but placed beneath you, they slow the monster down and light up the area. Ghosts can also banish 1 sigil in the finale now.

Once you've picked up all 8 tapes, the monster gets free outlines on you and every single one of your teammates. You need to break twice as many sigils as Investigators you had at the start of the game. This means, if you've given a ton of free grabs through the game, the monster might still get you, and if you're alone, you're dead meat.

The way you play this is simple: If you're split, regroup as quick as possible. G, sticks, whatever it takes, make sure you're near somebody. Move towards the artifact and make damn sure one of you is keeping a lookout, usually the guy with the largest light. Sigils at least give points now. Everyone breaking sigils can be done ONLY AFTER GETTING A BANISH. If you move on the sigils while the monster's up, he grabs you for free. If someone was at 1 life, he's done for. If the monster gets the drop on you before you finish off the sigils, and you were the last man standing, that's a loss.

Splitting at this point makes no sense, since with the outline, the monster will put an end to you really quickly. Tanking the grab for a teammate who's close to death tends to be always worth it. The Finale can be more or less easily done with 2 guys, even if it's the 4 man version, but there's no way you're finishing it alone unless the monster is literally AFK. Just remember, the tables have turned and you're not coming at the monster's tapes getting past him any more, he's coming at you to kill you.

If you died without breaking a sigil, wait until the last sigils to start breaking. The monster can't interrupt you and you can really help your team out. This is common sense, really, but most ghosts break right away. Don't. This is awful.

Speed: How fast you walk and run.

Horror: How fast you decrease investigator sanity when in their sights.

Perception: From how far you can get an outline on the Investigators.

Light Resistance: How hard does light slow you down.

Skill Usage: How often you can use your skills, pretty self explanatory.

Idol Influence: How much money you make at concerts. Actually, it's how fast you can set up an idol and it's effective range afterwards.

Strength: How fast the monster eats you.



Worth mentioning that monsters can cancel casting any and all spells by pressing leftclick, and this will NOT put it on cooldown.

Pros and cons of each idol coming soon.


Blister: Each Idol summoned decreases Investigators' Exploration by 3%.

Annoying to deal with, but won't keep good players down for very long. Blister has middle of the road stats, so it's okay-ish for Olkoth.




Pustule: Each Idol summoned increases your Skill Usage by 4%.

This allows for some silly "Punching Bag" Rusalka build that lets you spam G literally all the time, but it's not really that great. It has a low winrate, and it's barely worth raising since the nerf. Pick something else.



Sphynx: Investigators within 15m of an Idol will recover Sanity 300% slower.

The numbers on this are too big. Coven is similarly broken, so pick this or that. 23 and Rusalka can make great use of it. 300% is ridiculous. The Investigators literally can't help but go insane in it's vicinity, unless they just rush forward and tank the grab, which thanks to medkits and so, they can totally do. But it stalls groups.



Watcher: Investigators detected by an Idol will be marked for 10 seconds.

If you're playing Olkoth or Darcy and can't track very well, you might want to give this a shot. Overall, it's nothing to write home about.



Bark: Each Idol summoned increases your Light Resistance by 5%.

It's alright. Light resistance doesn't come easy to Rusalka or 23 but they might get something out of it with slightly longer stunned lifetime. It's what I'm using most lately.



Thorns: Investigators within 15m of an Idol will move 25% slower.
Set up some neat Darcy combos with Mourn into Thorn range, but it's still mostly avoided by players altogether. The other three have flat out better options now.



Coven: It's broken to the point of me thinking remaking the whole idols section into a big red arrow pointing at Coven and a tagline "PICK THIS ONE." As opposed to everything else this just makes free grabs happen in the lategame. This is invaluable and I'd pick it for everyone. So run to try it, before they undoubtedly nerf it to the ground. As of writing, it's 2% less endurance and vitality.

Tiny disclaimer: Just like with the investigators and flashlights click the pictures to fully read their traits and skill descriptions!

Olkoth has been changed into a thing that just gets stunned all day and then goes G for the weakest link and leaves the best for last. It kinda works. Invisibility is useless, Decoy is mostly useless, and G is quite broken. Stigma is great to have.

The Beginner Monster, pretty much.

Recommended Olkoth: Rotten.



The monster has a set of abilities to use in his pursuit of the Investigators and it's all about walking into them and facilitating the walk into them parts of the game. No hookshot to make them come to you if you can just hit it or whatever.

Sprint: A mobility tool. Not useful against people who know better than to not check back, but it lets you get around. Use it on spawn coupled with R to close the gap, and use it again if you're far. It breaks if lit up. It also breaks when you're at 6M from the nearest investigator, but it's silent. So if they're not checking back, you might get lucky. Or checking side, whatever. You can usually combo it with Disable for a quick reposition and all in, in case you need to.

Invisibility: Exactly what it says on the tin, it breaks at 5.5M from the nearest investigator and it makes a loud noise. So it's flashable on reaction. You can't cast an ability as you break out of it either, and it's not very good on it's own, but it's mildly useful as a repositioning tool. Or if you can cage someone in a cramped room and suddenly reveal yourself in his face. Your main tool to get around the dreaded fields of green, AKA glowstick spam.

Shutdown: By far your most useful skill. While this is on, you're faster than the investigators, easily resulting in grabs. This is well worth waiting for a perfect chance, so try not to squander it. Trying to get them to run to you may sometimes work, but is quite risky.

Teleport: Pray to RNGesus hard enough and you might not get a red spawn on the other side of the map. You can use it if you feel really lost, but otherwise you should tank the stuns and wait till the banish just happens so you can get Rancor cooldown reduction going.

Decoy: It spawns a larva that sounds like a tape. This is down right useless in the finale, but before that, it can be okay. It wastes compass, so use accordingly.


It's in Spanish, but the action is fairly universal. I reccomend watching in mute with music if it's not your language. We might caption it as well.

Rusalka is a monster with a very low skill floor and a somewhat high skill ceiling. She'll do fine with Pustule and Korowai, spamming that G until all the pretty dumb Investigators are scared out of their wits or something and die. It's rather telling than most people don't even USE Q, her one ability that requires some foresight.


Pick her, go spam, win the game. Easy peasy. It will work 80% of the time.


Bandworms: Her F ability. It spawns a lot of tiny little idols that will make dumbasses go mad from staring. It's meant to disorient them into a Q, but you'll never get to use it that way, so just spam it every time it's off CD for EVERLASTING sanity damage. Pretty cool skill, this.

Pustule Trap: Ah, yes. You can chain two of these together for a one shot one kill type of deal. It's not likely to happen. So just fire and forget, it does last forever.

Ambush: Just a little spot check. Test your opponent's reactions, and be amazed when they reliably fail. It will spawn you at their back.


Same deal as Olkoth's. It's in Spanish, captions coming. Probably.

Subject 23: New 23 now plays like he used to back in WNO and he's a harder creature to use effectively. At first glance, Unfazed is just nerfed Shutdown since their lights stay on, Ancient is cute but less effective than Stigma, Summoner is ehhh and Scarecrow gives up Decoy. Prescience however is flat out better than invisibility. Regardless, 23 has RIDICULOUS mindgame potential and can play just about anyone well, no matter how experienced. His Speed and Horror are still High compared to Olkoth's Standard, but he fundamentally is weaker unless you've got the skills to make him work for you. On the very basic level, 23 can just use Prescience to get to a tape, fill that up with Scarecrows and camp until the Investigators get there, but he's capable of much more than that. 23 is a decent tracker thanks to high Perception and Speed, making him able to catch up easily, although his all in is fairly weaker than Olkoth's, and he favors long games more than Koth does.

Sexy Subject 23.

Recommended Subject 23: Raw


Anyway, 23 in depth:


23 is more fragile than Olkoth is, and unlike him and Rusalka he does NOT reward a careless or spammy approach at all. 23 needs to go in and actually grab you whenever possible. He does not get as much advantage from simply grabbing a Cooldown Reduction or just grinding away at your Sanity slowly.

His mindgame potential is off the charts with Scarecrow and Unfazed combos. Prescience lets you get to where the enemies are going before they do, so you can actually come at them from ahead or behind by choosing how you track them, or down right set up camp in a room they're bound to visit shortly. 23 can take on just about anyone, new or experienced and he stands a chance against them all. You might need to get clever about your approach, and in some cases you'll have to get dumb to get one of those WHO PLAYS IT LIKE THAT sucker punches on a good player, but 23 allows by far the most creativity in your monster game out of all 3. 23 also has nothing but contempt for you if you don't know the ropes already, so I suggest you pick him up last and learn the game with the other two.


Speed: High. This gives you an edge over not high mobility Investigators, who you can just run down with Unfazed if they don't get help. You still shouldn't rely on it as a weapon rather than just for mobility, however.

Perception: Very High. Surprisingly handy, 23 gets outlines on Investigators from really far. Specially if they're low Stealth. This allows you to carefully prepare your assault rather than go in blind.

Horror: With actual weapons to hit your sanity now, High Horror becomes much more of a weapon rather than a footnote in his arsenal. 23 CAN make you go mad from staring at him with Ancient-Scarecrow combos. He can also make you guess which one's the real one. I wouldn't center my whole strategy around this, but it's useful for a sucker punch here and there, and it keeps you unpredictable.

Light Resistance: Very Low. This means that light slows you harder, and you get banished faster. It's a pain to work around, and it's a big part of why 23 can't just rush in every time like Olkoth or Rusalka and still get something out of it. If you get lit, you're boned, period. Unless the Investigator ♥♥♥♥♥ up spectacularly, that's a no grab attempt.

Skill Usage: Low. Meh. As fun as it'd be to just fill every room with Scarecrows, that wouldn't be much fun for the Investigators. So this is basically 23's downfall. With no ways to get his cooldowns reduced, you're casting the least out of the three monsters by far, so your spells have to count.

Idol Influence: 23's not very popular, so his gigs are always empty. Hardy har. It means his Idols deal less sanity damage and reveal in a shorter range. You can hide a Scarecrow in them, and it's actually really hard to spot, so it's a quite painful combo to Investigator Sanity. Idols are okay-ish, but I generally don't favor them much. If you get spawns near a tape you got to with Prescience, setting up a couple tends to be worth it, however.

Strength: High. You kill people you've grabbed faster. Due to the meta, most people you grab are gonna always be either already dead or completely safe, so it's not all that useful.


Unfazed: His big "Let me grab you, thanks" spell. 23 becomes immune to stuns for a bit. Not light, stuns. You can still be slowed and the enemies better try their darndest to slow your advance. The trick to using this correctly is get in as close as possible, or bait them into thinking you're a decoy by facing some odd way and standing still. Then use your Summoner reduced cast time to jump at them. I know the description sounds hella OP, but really, it's just nerfed Shutdown. Even with your High Speed. It can be about as effective as it, but it requires better judgement to use properly.

Scarecrow: An afterimage type deal. It's hard to spot, it deals a ton of damage to sanity and it's... A little hard to counter. For starters, you can pretend to be one. You can put three in a room and position yourself poorly, only to suddenly jump at them with Unfazed up. It lingers forever and it reveals on hit, granting you a free track. You can also couple it with your own High Horror to try to get at their Sanity, and unlike Rusalka, you should NOT try to tank the stun while you're at it. Scarecrow can be disabled by WALKING up to it with no light and leftclicking on it.

Prescience: It takes you to the next tape the Investigators SHOULD arrive at, if they follow their compass well. Against good players, this will make you be on their ass 24/7, but bad players might not find their way around to the tape and you any time soon. Remember, you CAN use this, but you shouldn't ALWAYS use this. Good players will start expecting you to be near tapes if you get predictable, meaning they'll know they can just rush you and grab it, AND they'll use a spot on you as an indicator that they must be close.

Sprint and Teleport, just like the others: Sprint's still good for repositioning, and 23 SHOULD actually teleport on grab if his target is safe. Unlike Olkoth, he gets nothing from the stun, so no point in remaining there.


Ancient: You can't be stunned if immobile, unless the enemy's at 5M range. They can TOTALLY afford to just get in your face and stun you, even the Standard speed ones, however, so don't go assuming this is broken as balls and abuse it. You need to have a plan if you're gonna try to pull this. A lot of the time, even simply walking back can help confuse the Investigators into making a poor snap decision. Ideally, you'll pair it up with Prescience and Unfazed. It's important that you keep in mind Ancient is great if you're coming from the front, but pretty useless if you're coming from the back. Just like the rest of 23's tools, don't rely on it too much, use all your arsenal.

Summoner: It helps, but it's nothing big like Rancor or Stigma. Little impact things can go a long way, but it's still likely to go unnoticed. It does help you pull the Ancient Or Scarecrow baits better, and mostly reduces your downtime a lot. It's worth noting it affects idol raising times.


Spanish, captions coming at some point in the future.

Ms. Fluffikins, murderer of men and devourer of hearts, esq. She's the tank monster. Mourn makes the investigators slow, misfortune lets you shrug off a stun, and cairn teleports whoever you grabbed away from the group if it's sunny and you're wearing a green tie and a St. Patrick's hat. (This means that it doesn't work all that often.)

As every other monster nowadays she should run Coven Idol, raise a lot and just enjoy free grabs on bad players. Alternatively, raise a lot of Coven idols and be a punching bag because the enemy team is organized.

Her gameplan is this: Make them run as much as possible before you get stunned, then Misfortune that. Make sure you don't get stunned again and Mourn them. Now they should be tired enough for you to get a free grab. You're playing the long game here.

Reccomended Build: Lady of the Lake, Coven idol. This cuts down one of her weaknesses and lets you track Investigators somewhat fast. The one that raises your Light Resistance with Bark is pretty overkill. What you want is to tire them out and more importantly, be able to find them, not get stunned and last a lifetime. Plus that one takes too long to get rolling.


Same deal as the others. Spanish, captions coming at some point in the future.

We will post the latest changes in the guide here for better visibility, be sure to check this out when a new update for the game comes out and know what has changed in the guide.

- (02/04/2017) Aaand we're done! Right now the guide's less deep than it used to be (No playmaking scores, for example) but it contains all that you really need to know to be good at the game. While this is the first guide that was written and a bunch of others draw inspiration from it and it's formatting, they're a lot less outdated. We no longer support the guide, either, so thanks for all the reads and have fun out there.

- (13/01/2017) Added the Update Log
- (16/01/2017) Investigator Tier Lists fully updated for update #15
- (16/01/2017) Monster Tiers fully updated for update #15
- (16/01/2017) So many flashlights! section fully update for update #15
- (16/01/2017) Added a tiny disclaimer in the Items section because of update #15
- (22/01/2017) Added the Idols section because of update #16
- (24/01/2017) Investigator Tier Lists fully updated for update #17
- (09/02/2017) Maria's in, monsters are updated, Idols are updated. New tips on Finale and other sections. No longer relevant sections removed.

Thank you for reading, and we hope it helps. Remember to use your sexy brain to apply common sense to stuff and don't split from your team, or alternatively, try to get the enemies to split. Have fun out there.