The controls
Every player can use whatever they have: keyboard and mouse, a second keyboard player on the arrow keys, a gamepad, or a phone as a controller. Everyone plays the same game on the same screen.
| Action | Keyboard + mouse | Gamepad | Phone |
|---|---|---|---|
| Move / aim | WASD / mouse | Left stick / right stick | Left stick / right stick |
| Shoot | Click (hold for automatic) | RT | Push the aim stick |
| Reload / swap | R / Q or wheel | X / Y or RB | Reload / Swap |
| Grenade | G or right-click | LB | Nade |
| Use (doors, boards) | E | A | Use |
| Build mode | X or the BUILD button | D-pad up | 🔨 |
| Flashbang / sky flare | C / V | B / LT | Flash / Flare |
Number keys 1–6 pick a weapon directly. In Explore you also have T to eat, H to heal and B for your backpack.
How a wave works
In Survival the horde comes in waves. A banner tells you the wave number and how many are left; kill them all to clear it. Each wave is bigger and tougher than the last, and the horde scales with the number of players, so a lone survivor faces fewer zombies than a full team of eight.
- Every fifth wave is a boss wave. A huge brute with thousands of health walks in with the pack. Focus fire, keep moving and use grenades.
- Every third wave is a night wave. It gets dark, the small ones sprint, and there are more of them. Survive it and everyone gets a $150 bonus.
- The pack changes as you go. Axe throwers, acid spitters and wall-smashing brutes join the walkers. See every zombie.
The break and the shop
Between waves there’s a short break (25 seconds, 20 on Hard) with the shop open. You earn cash from kills and share it as a team. Every player can ready up to skip the rest of the break.
Your first purchases, roughly in order:
- An SMG ($450) or a shotgun ($800): the free pistol never runs dry, but it won’t hold a doorway on its own.
- Armour ($250): soaks part of every hit.
- Batteries and a sky flare before the first night wave (wave 3).
- A self-revive ($600) once you can afford it: if you go down, you get back up on your own.
Stronger guns unlock as your level goes up. Our weapon rankings explain what each one is good for.
Going down and reviving
Run out of health and you don’t die straight away: you go down and start bleeding out (20 seconds, 13 on Hard). You can still crawl. A teammate who stands next to you for about two seconds gets you back up; no button needed, so it works the same on every controller.
If you bleed out you sit out the rest of the wave and come back at the start of the next one. The game only ends when the whole team is down at once, so never leave a teammate down if you can reach them.
Staying lit after dark
At night your flashlight is your lifeline, and it runs on batteries. A full battery lasts about three and a half minutes of darkness; when it gets low the beam flickers, and when it’s flat there’s no beam at all. Zombies drop batteries (more often at night) and the shop sells a full charge. A sky flare lights a whole street for 40 seconds, and nothing can put it out. More in the night survival guide.
Ten habits of survivors who make it
- Stick together. A lone runner gets swarmed; a group covers every side.
- Reload behind your friends, not in front of the horde.
- Hold a doorway or a corridor so zombies come at you one way.
- Keep the boards on your windows. Press E by a broken one to nail boards back (and earn a little cash).
- Throw grenades into packs, not at single zombies.
- Save a flashbang for when someone goes down: it freezes the zombies around them while you revive.
- Buy batteries before night waves, not during them.
- Spend team cash on what keeps the team alive: armour and self-revives win long runs.
- Build walls in the break, not mid-wave. See barricades and building.
- When a house falls, smash out through a window and regroup. Push into a window from inside to climb out.
Questions
What happens when everyone goes down?
The run ends a couple of seconds after the last player standing goes down, and you see the scoreboard and the XP you earned. A self-revive from the shop can save the run.
Does the game get harder with more players?
Each extra player adds about a third more zombies to every wave, so it stays a fight whether you play solo or with eight.
What does Hard difficulty change?
Bigger, tougher hordes, shorter breaks between waves and a faster bleed-out when you go down.
