The Midnight Walkers Strategy Guide · Cosmo Strategy Guides

01 · Before the Descent

The run is mostly decided in the hideout, before the elevator doors open.

Deploy with what you can lose Dying costs you everything you walked in with. Match the kit to the loss you can absorb.
Check which band is live The raid alternates between B1F to 7F and 8F to 15F. Deploy into the wrong half and the trip is wasted.
Plan for one floor, not the tower New runners try to sweep everything. Pick one level, learn its rooms and its exits, and leave.
Carry recovery you can actually reach Bandages, soda and cigarettes restore at different speeds and hold you still for different spans. Carry a fast one.
Leave grid space for the trip back An inventory packed at deployment has nowhere to put what you came for. Go in half empty.
Match the specialist to the party Solo and trio runs reward completely different picks. Decide in the hideout, not in a stairwell.
Take the objectives that fit your route Hideout tasks are tied to specific rooms. Stack two on the same floor and one trip pays twice.
Keep the crafted gear back while learning Mid-tier equipment teaches the building at a survivable cost. Save high-rarity crafts for floors you know blind.

02 · The Floor Cycle & the Gas

Nothing ends more runs here than a timer you stopped reading.

Gas takes floors at random Levels seal on an interval and the order is not fixed. Never memorize one route through the tower.
Read the warning, then move A message and countdown appear on the level about to close. That is notice to relocate, not to loot.
Stairwells and lifts stay clear The vertical connections are never gassed. You can ride straight past a sealed level to clean ground.
The connections are also the ambush Every runner in the building funnels into the same stairs and elevators. Treat each landing as contested.
Know which half you are in The active raid swings between lower and upper floors about every five minutes. Plan the objective around it.
Always keep one clean level behind you Know which adjacent floor is still open. Falling back only works if you chose the fallback beforehand.
Gas is not a survivable gamble Standing on a sealed level drains you fast. No loot pile is worth what it costs to reach.

03 · The Four Specialists

Four kits, four completely different answers to the same building.

Brick Sledgehammer, heavy plate, front line

Heavy swings that dismember at close range
The deepest health pool and the heaviest armor
The slowest movement of the four

Bring: Corridors, doorways, and fights you mean to finish.
Take: A body that survives mistakes the others do not.

Brick cannot close on anything that keeps backing away. If the fight opens up, you are the one losing it.

Crow Daggers, poison, speed

The fastest movement in the roster
Poison on the blade for damage over time
Slices that stagger a group and open an exit

Bring: Isolated targets, flanks, and routes that need a fast exit.
Take: The ability to leave a fight you never wanted.

A light health pool and light armor mean one bad corner ends the run. Crow wins by never being surrounded.

Lockdown Composite bow, traps, sightlines

Quiet ranged damage that does not wake the floor
Placed traps that seal an approach
Strongest on long, open lines of sight

Bring: Atriums, concourses, and positions you plan to hold.
Take: Kills that cost no ammunition and announce nothing.

Anything that reaches arm’s length is a losing trade. Trap the route to you before firing down it.

Bartender Mixed drinks, area healing, debuffs

Area heal over time that covers a whole team
Thrown brews that weaken what is chasing you
Sustain that saves your carried recovery items

Bring: Trio runs, and objectives that must be held.
Take: A team that outlasts a horde instead of outrunning it.

Bartender is the weakest of the four alone. The kit only pays back with other health bars to keep up.

04 · Floors & What They Hold

One building, fifteen levels and a basement, and only eight of them live in any one raid. Learn them by what they are worth.

Level	Band	What you go there for
B1F Parking Deck	Lower	Vehicle salvage: parts, lubricant, tire rims and cleaning spray. Dark, quiet, and a long climb from anything above.
3F Hospital	Lower	A supply warehouse of medicine and dressings. The densest healing items in the lower band.
5F Construction Zone	Lower	Lumber, scrap metal, nails, wire and metal pipe. The bulk crafting stock of the whole run.
6F Office	Lower	Electronic components, wiring, drills and payment terminals. Cubicle mazes with poor sightlines.
7F Botanical Garden	Lower	Plant matter and dried goods for recovery recipes. Long sightlines, very little hard cover.
8F Hospital Reception	Upper	The upper mirror of 3F: medicine and medical supplies. First stop when the upper band opens.
9F Broadcasting Station	Upper	Electronics and beauty goods. Small, dense, quick to strip if nobody contests it.
11F Fitness Center	Upper	Gym equipment that tasks ask for in quantity. Bring grid space; objectives here are bulky.
12F Casino	Upper	Gaming supplies, with the hotel lobby on 13F and the pub on 15F above it. Heavy traffic, contested early.

05 · The Infected

Walkers, runners, and the heavier things the complex has been growing.

A walker is a noise problem One shambler is trivial. The six it drags over while you deal with it end the run.
Runners close the gap immediately Fast variants give you none of the reposition window the slow ones do. Handle them first.
They come out of the geometry They push up from behind desks, crawl out of vents at ankle height, and drop through ceiling tiles.
Crowds do the killing Almost nothing takes you down from full condition in one hit. Three of them swinging together will.
Mutations need a doorway Heavier variants soak far more damage and hit far harder. Fight them in a choke, or not at all.
Bosses own their rooms A boss is a committed fight with a real reward. Work out the route back before opening the door.
Breaking contact usually works The infected lose you around corners far more readily than players do. Walking away is usually cheaper.

06 · Melee, Stamina & Recovery

Most of this game is swung, not fired. Learn the rhythm and the bar under it.

Melee is the default, not the fallback Blades and blunt weapons carry most encounters. The firearm is your emergency, not your primary.
Stamina gates every swing Attacking, sprinting and dodging draw from the same pool. An empty bar mid-corridor is how most runs end.
Swing in rhythm, not in panic Mashing attack drains the bar before the group is down. Time each hit to land as the last recovers.
Step back while the bar refills Stamina returns while you move. Two paces back between swings costs little and keeps you in the fight.
Recovery items have different speeds A bandage, a soda and a cigarette all restore condition at different rates. Carry more than one kind.
Recover behind a closed door The recovery animation is the most punishable moment you have. Break line of sight before you use anything.
Your numbers climb with your crafting The starting kit is slow on purpose. Sprint speed, defense and attack power improve as your benches do.
Hold a stamina item for the exit Keep one stamina item untouched for the final push to a pod. That stretch has no spare seconds.

07 · Ranged Weapons & Ammunition

You will find a firearm long before you find enough rounds to justify carrying it.

Rounds are the real currency Ammunition is the hardest thing here to replace. Every magazine spent on a walker is one missing later.
The bow pays for itself Arrows are recoverable and the draw is nearly silent. On a floor you want kept calm, it beats a pistol.
Pistols end fights, they do not start them A sidearm finishes what got inside your guard. Clearing a room with it burns what you cannot restock.
Every shot is a broadcast A gunshot carries across the level and pins your position. Fire only when staying quiet is worse.
Check what you can feed A weapon you have no rounds for is dead weight in a grid you needed for loot.
Gear wears with use Weapons degrade as you use them. A tool at the bottom of its condition fails when it matters.
Throwables solve what weapons cannot Thrown daggers and placed explosives handle grouped enemies and chokepoints far more cheaply than a magazine does.

08 · Noise, Light & Line of Sight

The complex is dark and it carries sound. Both facts are usable.

Move low to move quietly Crouching cuts your noise and keeps you under most of what is in the room. Slower, and worth it.
Sprinting is a decision Running is for known-clear ground, never for entering a space you have not looked into.
Listen before you open A closed door is the last quiet moment you get. Listen for shuffling and for footsteps, then commit.
Other runners hear your fight A melee brawl with a group of infected announces you to the level. Reposition the moment it ends.
Darkness cuts both ways Poor light hides you as well as it hides them. Think twice before lighting a room you want ignored.
Sweep the ceiling and the vents The infected use the building vertically. Checking only at standing height misses much of what reaches you.
Silence is information A floor gone quiet usually means somebody already cleared it. Treat calm as a warning, not a green light.

09 · The Scanner & the Pods

A run only counts once the pod door has closed behind you.

Only some pods are live Not every escape point activates on a run. Getting out is a search with a clock on it.
The scanner confirms, it does not navigate It beeps within a few meters of a pod. It confirms you are close; it will not route you.
Pick the floor before you climb Use the radar to work out which level holds an active pod. Guessing wrong costs a full traversal.
The unlock takes several seconds A pod does not open on contact. The sequence runs long enough for anything nearby to reach you.
Clear the room before you start it The unlock is the loudest thing you do all run. There is no second window once it begins.
Hold the approach, not the open floor Defend the corridor into the pod room during the countdown. Standing beside it in the open loses inventories.
Leave early rather than late The building keeps closing whether you are done or not. Extracting with a partial load beats losing a full one.
Have a second pod in mind Plan a backup on another level before you need it. A single-point plan fails to whoever arrived first.

10 · The Hideout Loop

What you carried out is only worth what you do with it at base.

Empty your loadout the moment you land Anything left in your carried inventory rides back in and dies with you. Move it into storage.
Five workbenches, five jobs Weapon, armor, recovery, utility and materials each have a bench. The last two must be unlocked.
Bench level caps what you can make A recipe needs its blueprint registered first, and the bench level, up to five, sets the rarity ceiling.
Materials are the real bottleneck Judge a run by the components you walked out with, not the one shiny item. Bulk beats rarity early.
Move on what your build will never use Surplus gear is worth more traded away than sitting in storage. That flow funds your bench upgrades.
Collect tasks before you deploy The hideout NPCs pay on top of your loot, but only for objectives you accepted first.
Raise the recovery bench early A better recovery bench turns plant matter and supplements into the consumables you keep hunting for.

11 · Pro Tips

Compound habits.

One extraction beats three good starts The tower rewards consistency. A modest load that reaches a pod beats a great one that never left 12F.
Learn one band before the other The lower and upper floors are effectively two maps. Know one cold before splitting your attention.
The timer is the real opponent Players and the infected are survivable. Running out of open floors is not. Count every decision in seconds.
Fight for the route, not for the kill An engagement that does not move you closer to an exit is a tax. Walk away from those.
Read your own deaths Two minutes of honest thinking about a death is worth more than the next three runs.
Take company to the upper floors The upper band punishes solo runners hardest. A trio can hold a pod room through an unlock; one cannot.
Greed is the building’s favorite weapon One more room is how a full inventory becomes nothing. Decide your departure floor before you deploy.