Hunting

Hunting is an escalating combat activity. Every hunting location has its own normal Zed, boss Zed and independent progress. The Zeds at a location become stronger each time you defeat its normal Zed.

How hunting works

A location begins with its normal Zed. Each victory adds one permanent Mutation level at that location, making its next Zed one level stronger. After ten normal victories, the next hunt is a boss fight.

Defeating the boss resets the ten-victory counter but does not remove any Mutation levels. The next cycle therefore begins against stronger normal Zeds. Only victories advance the cycle; losing or leaving keeps the same normal Zed or boss as the next encounter. Each location tracks its progress separately.

Hunting locations

The table shows the useful differences between locations. Hunt cost is consumed on every attempt. Access required is an item you must own but which is not consumed.

Location	Hunt cost	Access required	Normal Zed	Boss Zed
Concession Stand	4 × Rad Immunity	None	Crawler	Skinless Crawler
Hall of Mirrors	4 × Rad Immunity	None	Zombie	Zombie Pack Leader
Projection Room	4 × Rad Immunity	None	Bloater	Bloater Mother
Ticket Booths	4 × Rad Immunity	None	Spitter	Sapling Spitter
Central Atrium	6 × Rad Immunity	None	Raging Crawler	Glowing Crawler
Food Court	6 × Rad Immunity	None	Raging Zombie	Alpha Zombie
Loading Bay	6 × Rad Immunity	None	Raging Bloater	Bloater Queen
Storage Area	6 × Rad Immunity	None	Raging Spitter	Thorned Spitter
Dining Area	8 × Rad Immunity	None	Frenzied Crawler	Inflamed Crawler
Kitchen	8 × Rad Immunity	None	Frenzied Zombie	Zombie Puppet Master
Toxic Dump Site	8 × Rad Immunity	None	Frenzied Bloater	Bloater Matriarch
Sewage Plant	8 × Rad Immunity	None	Frenzied Spitter	Vine Riddled Spitter
Main Wall	8 × Rad Immunity	1 × Buddys Pass	Undead Soldier	Undead Commando
Courtyard	8 × Rad Immunity	1 × Buddys Pass	Bloater	Bloater Mother
Foyer	8 × Rad Immunity	1 × Police RFID	Undead Supervisor	Enraged Undead Supervisor
Armory	8 × Rad Immunity; 1 × Silver key	1 × Police RFID	Lurcher	Darting Lurcher

Mutations and NPC scaling

A location's Mutation count is the permanent level bonus its Zeds have gained. One normal victory adds one Mutation. Each encounter recalculates Health, Strength, Defense, Speed, and Agility from that Zed's original configured stats and current encounter level; scaling is not compounded from the previous encounter. Strength, Defense, Speed, and Agility can then receive a small additional random increase, while Health does not receive this variance.

For example, a base Crawler has 100 Health, 4 Strength, 10 Defense, 6 Speed, and 5 Agility. At level 11, before random variance, it has 111 Health, 4 Strength, 11 Defense, 7 Speed, and 6 Agility.

Boss victories do not add another Mutation. They reset only the ten-step boss progress, so the difficulty gained from normal victories is permanent.

Boss fights

Each location has a boss NPC distinct from its normal NPC. The boss inherits all Mutation levels accumulated at that location and receives a further 10-level boss bonus. This creates a noticeable difficulty jump after every tenth normal victory.

Bosses also provide better rewards than normal hunts:

• Three times the location's normal Hunting skill XP.
• Double the mutation-scaled Zed Juice payout.
• An additional location-specific boss loot pool.

Boss loot can include Boss Tokens and special armour with resistance traits.

Costs and rewards

Starting a hunt consumes the location's displayed cost, reduces Morale by 4–5, and begins a turn-based fight.

Guaranteed Zed Juice

Every defeated hunting Zed awards guaranteed Zed Juice. Mutation count can gradually increase this amount, Hunting Skill Bonus increases the final quantity, and bosses double this guaranteed portion.

For example, with a Rad cost of 4 and 1,000 Mutations, mutation scaling produces 5 Zed Juice. A +76% Hunting Skill Bonus raises this to 8 after rounding down. For a boss, the 5 Zed Juice is doubled before the Skill Bonus is applied, producing 17 after rounding down.

Bonus Zed Juice

Every hunt also has a separate approximately 10% chance to award bonus Zed Juice. Hunting Skill Bonus increases its quantity, but Mutation count, Rad cost, and boss status do not increase this separate bonus.

XP

Starting a hunt awards 10–20 player XP; winning adds no further player XP. The hunt also awards 30% of its Hunting Skill XP when it begins, while the remaining 70% requires victory. Losing or leaving therefore awards only the initial 30%. For a boss, the ×3 Hunting Skill XP multiplier is applied before the reward is split into these portions.

The normal and boss loot pools differ by location.

Preparing for a hunt

• Equip weapons and armour from your Inventory.
• Check the current mutated NPC stats rather than relying on its original difficulty.
• Match weapons to the Zed's weakness and prepare for its combat attacks.
• Restore enough Health and carry medical items for repeated hunts.
• Prepare carefully for a boss fight: it is substantially stronger than the preceding normal Zed.

A loss does not remove Mutations or boss progress, but the starting cost is not returned and your Health may need to recover before another attempt.