Monsters, Hunt phases & how to counter each threat

Let a fake complete payment and walk out, and the shift pivots. Crews get roughly sixty seconds to board doors, drop Bear Traps, and grab arsenal guns before the Entity floods the shop. Whisper on proximity chat — open-mic shouting pulls sound-reactive threats.

Prevention is still cheaper than a Hunt: execute before checkout, or deny service. See customers and detection.

The Entity is the spider-adjacent stalker that answers a missed doppelganger. Early nights are survivable with boarded doors and a Bear Trap choke. Later nights hit harder and can stack adds (dolls, Demented, Marionette). Blood-moon framing in some builds is the same Hunt, louder audio.

Role split that works: Warden on barricades, Scout on audio, everyone else on guns. Full hiding doctrine: survival.

• Shrieking Doll — crawling Hunt add. Fast in groups, fragile. Killing one unlocks Silenced.
• Demented — Weeping-Angel rules. Direct stare freezes it and also blocks damage. Break eye contact to walk it onto a Bear Trap for Freed.
• Marionette — Jack-in-the-Box from Shift 9. Rewind fully to skip the fight, or let three melodies finish and kill it with guns for Last Performance. July 23 lowered its HP and made the box louder. Full walkthrough: Marionette & music box.

Story Mode spends the campaign hinting at the Dentist. He arrives on the last night. Reliable finale reports (GameRant and ending guides) agree: he does not go down to player weapons or floor traps. Keep moving through the chase, take shots only when a window is forced, and let Sheriff Clyde close the fight in the cutscene.

Some older community posts mention fire or kiting damage — treat those as Hunt-phase notes, not a kill condition for the finale. Ending routing (Clyde call + $250) is on all endings.

The July 29 balancing patch added Rakes that slowly walk out of the forest in Endless and post-story nights. Shoot them before they reach the playable lot or “bad stuff” happens — Bun Muen’s words. Same patch removed the patience bar in those modes, so Hunt pressure no longer matches Story habits.

Assign one player to forest watch on marathon nights. Q4 2026 still promises exclusive Endless monsters on top of this. Track that on the roadmap.

When the morning bus arrives, walk to the side window and look at the driver’s seat:

• Empty seat — usually the real bus. Board.
• Someone at the wheel — doppelganger driver. Do not confirm exit. If two players mash the leave button on a fake bus, the Fast Red Creature spills out, disables guns, and ignores most boarded doors.

Counter the red creature with a Bear Trap placed on the approach before you inspect the bus. Weapons are the wrong tool once it has spawned.

These show up less often than the Entity, but each punishes a different habit:

• Phantom — closes distance when you look away. Keep eyes on it and walk it into a Bear Trap (same family of logic as Demented, much faster).
• Gnome — shop disruption in staged beats. Shoot it early rather than watching the gag finish.
• Demon — phases through walls. Community consensus is to avoid feeding it damage; a chest/confetti spawn can telegraph the arrival.
• Screaming creatures — slow, then lunge. Sidestep; do not backpedal in a straight aisle.

July 23 also tuned Marionette HP; later crash patches (including August 21) adjusted some monster health and stopped enemies sticking on indestructible barricades. Re-learn timings after a content drop.

1. Buy at least two Bear Traps during calm retail — one for Demented/Phantom, one for the bus approach.
2. Know where the Emergency Weapons Arsenal is before the siren.
3. Rewind every Jack-in-the-Box unless you are hunting Last Performance.
4. Mute open mics; use push-to-talk.
5. On Endless, glance at the tree line every minute for Rakes.

Weapon buy order and the July 29 second store-hour gun: weapons & traps. Achievement list: achievements.