Every crew meets something that is faster than they are. The skill is not winning that encounter. It is ending it with your haul and your life.
Rule one: straight lines, toward the exit
The worst thing you can do in a chase is turn into a side corridor because you always take that one.
Chases end at the ship. Run toward the way out, not toward familiar cover. A corridor you know that leads deeper into the facility is a dead end with good lighting.
Rule two: never corner yourself
A chase is lost in the last ten metres, when you turn into a room with one door.
If you are going to change direction, change it in a corridor, not in a room. The only rooms worth entering during a chase are rooms with a second door, and you should already know where it is before you go in.
Rule three: use doors against what doors stop
Doors are not a universal answer, but they are a real one against slow ground entities. Something that advances steadily can be held behind a closed door long enough for you to gain real distance.
What doors do not do is stop anything that moves fast, climbs, or follows you around a corner. Do not stop to close a door against a charger — keep running and let the corner do the work.
Rule four: corners beat speed
Some entities are faster than you in a straight line and useless in a turn. They commit to a direction, and a corridor that turns before they reach you is a corridor they hit at speed.
So when you know what is chasing you, run toward corners, not open ground. When you do not know, run toward the exit and accept the straight line.
Rule five: drop what slows you
Weight slows you down, and a chase is exactly when that stops being a small problem.
If you are carrying something heavy and something is behind you, the heavy thing is already gone. Dropping it deliberately buys distance; holding it “just to the corner” is how crews get caught at the corner with a full inventory.
Drop it, mark where you dropped it, and come back when the facility is quiet.
Rule six: split the chase, not the crew
If two entities are chasing a group, the answer is to separate the threats, not the people.
One player becomes the target, everyone else keeps moving toward the exit. The player being chased runs a loop and rejoins once the entity has committed to the wrong part of the building.
Two players running in different directions through an unfamiliar facility is not a tactic. It is two players who are now lost.
Rule seven: the ship is the end of the chase
Nothing in this game follows you inside the ship. Reaching it ends the encounter, whatever is behind you.
That is why the exit is always the direction, even when the exit is the wrong direction for loot, for teammates, or for the plan.
What not to do
- Do not fight. A chase is a chase because the thing behind you is not a fight.
- Do not hide in a dead end and hope. Hope is not a plan, and the entity knows where you are.
- Do not stop to scan it. The scanner is for after you are safe.
- Do not turn back for a teammate until you are both out. One death is recoverable. Two is a lost day.
Related guides
- Survival guide — the habits that stop chases starting.
- Best loadout — why the shovel sits with the player at the back.
- How to survive the night — why the safest chase is the one you avoid by leaving earlier.