Zombies guide

How the horde works

Every round of Nothing 2 Lose is run by an AI director that decides how many zombies are alive, what kind they are and where they come from. It never drops zombies on top of you: new zombies appear out of sight, a good distance down the paths of the map, and walk or run toward the nearest survivor. That means the first contact of a round usually comes a few seconds after the start.

The director feeds two streams at once. The first is the horde: plain zombies that sprint without ever tiring. The second is a small set of seats, each of which respawns a zombie a few seconds after its last one died. A seat rolls what it becomes. At the start of a round most seat rolls are a normal zombie (85% on a Medium map), and over the first few minutes that share falls (to 55% on Medium), so the longer you survive, the more special zombies you face. Every special has its own weight: the Ticker, Edgar, Digger and Runner roll most often, and the Brute is the rarest roll of all.

After a calm opening of a few minutes, the director starts sending extra horde waves at regular intervals, and each wave is bigger than the last until it levels off. A wave lands as a quick burst of zombies within a few seconds. After an objective step that asks you to clear the area, the next wave waits a little, so use that pause to refill ammo.

The number of zombies alive at once has a hard limit set by the map tier, and that limit grows with the size of your squad. Survivor bots count for less than humans when the director sizes the horde, so filling your squad with bots does not make the round twice as hard. In co-op every extra player adds pressure, so a full room on a Hard map is a real crowd.

When a survivor falls

A survivor bot that dies close to the rest of the squad can rise again as a zombified version of itself, with its name in the kill feed and far more health than a normal zombie. Keep your bots alive, or move away from a fallen one before it gets up. If you die yourself you can watch your team, or choose to come back as a zombie (see the last section).

Zombies take no fall damage, and every zombie except the Swarmer takes x2 damage from headshots. You sprint at 27 studs per second, faster than any regular zombie (the fastest of them sprints at 22.5), so you can always outrun the plain horde. Specials are another story.

Difficulty tiers and what they change

Every map has a tier: Easy, Medium, Hard, Extreme. The tier is fixed per map, so picking a map is picking how hard the zombies are. The tier scales zombie health and the damage zombies deal to you, decides which specials may appear and how often, caps how many zombies can be alive and decides whether elite zombies roll at all.

Easy maps are meant for new players. Zombies have x0.8 health and hit for x0.6, the only specials that roll are the Runner and the Swarmer, and elites are rare (0.5% per spawn, at most 1 at once, one power each). Medium adds most specials but still no Brute from normal rolls, with x0.9 health and x0.8 damage. Hard is the full roster with every special including the Brute, x1.1 health and x1.05 damage, and specials make up a larger share of every roll. Extreme throws the biggest crowds (up to 90 zombies at once solo) and the most elites, but each zombie is weaker than on Hard.

On Hard and Extreme the special zombies pay less Cash per kill to balance their higher numbers; normal zombies, the horde and the Brutes always pay in full. The Cash and EXP in the tables below are the base values: the game adds its own bonuses on top, such as playing solo with bots or a kill streak.

Every zombie and how to beat it

Zombie

The basic walker, and most of what you will kill. Seat zombies walk at 13.5 studs per second; the horde version runs at 22.5 and never gets tired. Both have 125 base health and a 10-damage claw. One alone is no danger. The danger is ten of them in a corridor while you reload, so keep moving backwards and aim for heads.

Runner

A thin, fast zombie with only 75 health that moves at 16.5, quicker than a normal seat zombie. Its claw is weak (8), but it closes the gap fast and catches you mid-reload. It goes down quickly, so take it out as soon as you see it.

Edgar

A frail zombie (75 health) with a long tongue that reaches 200 studs. When it catches you it reels you in and you cannot use your weapon while it deals 4 damage per second and claws you once you are close. The Edgar cannot move while its tongue is out, so it is an easy target. If it grabs you, a timing ring appears: press jump (Space) while the ring is in the window. You get 5 tries, and breaking free also makes you immune to grabs for a few seconds. A teammate can free you at any time by killing the grabber.

Digger

Burrows under the ground, where it cannot be shot, and pops up next to you. A Digger that touches you knocks you over, and its sharp claw deals 10. Watch for the dirt mound moving toward you, and shoot it the moment it surfaces: it has 180 health and is open to hits while it digs back in.

Swarmer

Throws globs of honey (15 damage) that slow you to a crawl and stop you sprinting, and lobs beehives that leave a cloud of stinging bees for a while. Its hat blocks headshot bonus damage, so a Swarmer takes x1 on the head: just shoot its body. Step out of a bee cloud straight away; the stings go through walls.

Ticker

A zombie with radioactive tanks on its back and 350 health. Standing near it slowly hurts you through walls. Its rush is the real threat: it charges in a straight line and, once the charge has built up, explodes on the first survivor or wall it hits for up to 200 damage. Sidestep the charge instead of backing away in a line. Two hits on its back tanks blow them up, which hurts the zombies around it, but the blast also hurts you if you shot from close range.

Leaper

Crawls low on all fours and pounces from up to 40 studs away. A pounce pins you to the ground and disarms you while it tears at you. It is low to the ground, which makes headshots harder, and it has only 100 health, so shoot it before it jumps. If you get pinned, the same Break Free timing ring as the Edgar's appears.

Mini Brute

A smaller cousin of the Brute with 600 health and a heavy 20-damage claw. Its shove deals 15, knocks you over and flings you back. Unlike the real Brute it can be tripped and knocked back, so a knockback weapon or item buys you time.

Fire Elemental

A burning zombie that throws fireballs (50 damage) and sets you on fire if it touches you. Fire heals it, so never use fire weapons or fire grenades on it, and it cannot be frozen. When it gets hurt badly it can fully heal itself in a burst around it, or transform into the Electric Elemental with full health. Burst it down in one go instead of chipping at it. A fire extinguisher hurts both Elementals.

Electric Elemental

The other form of the Elemental, which only appears when a Fire Elemental transforms. Its lightning bolt locks onto one survivor from up to 60 studs away, stops them from moving and shooting, and ramps up to 50 damage per second. Break its line of sight behind a wall. Its touch shocks you too, and it can transform back into the Fire Elemental.

Brute

The big one: 2,500 base health, immune to trips and knockback. Its ground smash hits everything in front of it for 80 and goes through walls, and it throws its club for 200 on a direct hit plus an explosion. It can raise a shield that blocks all damage, and when it is badly hurt for the first time it shields up for a few seconds. Never stand in front of it, strafe sideways when it winds up a throw, and stop shooting while the shield is up to save ammo. Only 1 rolls at a time on Hard.

Charged Brute

When an Elemental transforms next to a Brute, the Brute becomes a Charged Brute with 5,000 base health. Its smash shocks you instead of tripping you and has a wider reach, and its thrown club flies faster with a bigger blast. Explosives deal x2 damage to it, so this is the time for grenades and launchers. Better still, kill Elementals before they reach a Brute.

Status immunities

The stats table lists what each zombie shrugs off. Fall damage is left out because no zombie takes it.

Elite zombies

Some regular zombies spawn as elites: a glowing zombie with a special power and its name on the tag. Elites are bigger, faster and claw harder than a plain zombie. An elite has x3 health (x4.5 with two powers, x6.75 with three) and pays x3 on the kill, so it is worth hunting down. Only plain zombies become elites, never specials or bosses. They only start some time into a round, and the number alive at once is capped per tier (see the table). On the hardest tiers a rare elite carries two powers at once, and on the hardest tier a very rare one carries three.

Read the glow and the tag before you fight it. A Volatile elite punishes you for meleeing it, a Mending one makes everything around it last longer, and a Splitter turns one kill into three. Kill healers and splitters first, and back away from anything that is about to explode.

Incidents: Blood Moon, Swarm and Bounty Runner

From the 2 min mark, every 60 s there is a 6% chance that a random incident starts. A banner and a chip on your screen name it and show how long it lasts. After one ends, the next cannot start for 3 min. Incidents change the zombies for a short time, and a few of them bring their own enemies.

The Bounty Runner is a single tough Runner with a gold outline you can see through walls. It runs away from you, and if you kill it in time you get $500. During a Blood Moon the normal zombies sprint the whole time, but still a little slower than you. A Frenzy turns a few zombies near you berserk with extra health, and each one drops loot when it dies. A Swarm sends a pack of one zombie type at you from all sides at once; on Hard that can be a pack of Brutes. The Easy tier skips Swarm and Frenzy.

Boss: The Hollow King

The Hollow King waits on the event map Hollow Patch, which you can pick from the map list at any time. The whole round is one boss fight. It is a giant pumpkin rooted in the middle of the arena: it never moves, it is immune to every status effect, and its glowing mouth and eyes are its weak point, taking x2 damage like a headshot. It has 40,000 health with one human player, and 35% more for every extra human in the room (bots do not count); the map tier does not change it.

Every attack is announced: a glowing warning shape appears on the ground and the boss winds up for at least 1 s before it hits. Watch the floor, not just the boss. Stay out of reach of its Vine Lash, keep moving so Vine Burst misses, step out of the lit lanes of Rolling Gourds and get behind cover or low for the Grin Sweep.

The fight has 3 phases. When it enters a later phase it raises the Lantern Ward: it becomes invulnerable until every lantern around the arena is shot out, and Pumpkin Heads come out while the ward holds. Split up and shoot the lanterns. In the last phase Pumpkin Heads keep trickling in, so clear them before they surround you. Pumpkin Heads are plain zombies with a pumpkin for a head (113 health here). Each lantern has 300 health. When the boss dies it bursts into a pile of tickets and loot chests rise from the ground.

Tip: Hollow Lanterns are targets, not zombies: they pay nothing, so shoot them out fast and get back to the boss.

Playing as a zombie

When you die you do not have to just watch. In most modes you can choose to come back as a zombie and hunt the survivors, or keep spectating your team. Once a round is 60 s old you can spend Cash in the zombie store to come back as a special. Each special has a cooldown that starts when you die as it, and the Brute can be bought only once per round. In co-op this is also how you can meet zombies the director never sends, such as the Stalker: a tall zombie that turns invisible when it stands still and carries survivors away on its shoulder. Player zombies move at full speed, faster than the AI versions.

Survival tips

• Aim for heads. Every zombie except the Swarmer takes extra damage from headshots.
• Kill specials before plain zombies. A Ticker rush or a Brute club does more damage in one hit than a dozen claws.
• Never use fire on a Fire Elemental, and kill Elementals before they reach a Brute.
• Keep your back to a wall only when you have an exit. Diggers and Leapers punish corners.
• Learn the Break Free timing. Pressing in the window frees you from Edgars, Leapers and Stalkers without help.
• Refill ammo during clear steps and the calm opening, not when a wave is already on you.
• Watch the tag colours. Elites glow, and the gold Bounty Runner is worth chasing.

New to the game? Start with How to play, then pick a gun in the weapons guide and a map in the maps guide.