01 CLEAR THE WAVES02 UPGRADE YOUR GEAR03 TAKE THE ASCENT
THE MISSION
Choose the Cinder Caverns or Cinder Spire. Start with a pistol and climb as high as you can. Follow a long main route through corridors and connected chambers, with turns and short dead ends along the way. Navigate by the bends, wall lighting, and landmarks to find the exit. Clear three waves per floor, then gather at the ascent. Routes cycle through a ladder, spiral staircase, and shared elevator. Move or slide into the entrance, hold forward to ascend, and pull back to descend. Keep looking and aiming freely. At the top, keep moving forward onto the landing. The elevator stays up while anyone steps off. The next floor starts once every living player reaches the landing. Face the Warden on the last wave of floors 10, 20, 30, and onward.
The Grave Hollows add a colder burial-cave route: pale bone formations, green mineral light, and deeper fog. Stay alert at bends and follow the wall lamps to the ascent.
STAY ONE STEP AHEAD
Push along the route. Use bends and cover to keep space, sprint to reposition, and keep the crosshair on the head. Recoil raises your aim; shotguns fire a spread. Grenades break up a crowd. Hold G or controller Y to cook, then release to throw with the remaining fuse. The fuse lasts three seconds; holding until zero detonates it in your hand. Missing grenades refill one at a time every 20 seconds of active play, up to three. Slide to reposition, then jump to cancel the slide. Watch your reserves: rounds and floors do not restore supplies or grant upgrades. Supply drops disappear after 20 seconds. White and red medkits restore health; olive crates with gold cartridges refill ammo. Walk over either to collect it. The larger violet and cyan weapon cache is a special drop: press E or controller X to open it, compare the gun previews, then choose one of three replacement guns. Rarity colors: silver Standard, green Uncommon, blue Rare, gold Legendary, and violet Mythic. Every choice swaps out your current gun. Only the collector chooses and stays vulnerable, while teammates keep fighting. Only one cache choice can be open at a time. Find 30 weapons, including rockets, a rotary minigun, close-combat blades, and chain or blast weapons. Higher tiers appear less often.
EARN. SPEND. SURVIVE.
Every player starts each run with zero cash. Each regular infected provides 50 cash in total, shared between attackers in proportion to the actual damage they deal across their hits. Bosses provide 250 total. Headshots increase damage and score without an extra cash bonus. Living players earn 75 cash when a wave is cleared.
At a station, press E, controller X, or tap the on-screen prompt. The Ember Vault costs 1,500 cash and rolls one random replacement gun, with improved rarity odds. A Vault appears on about 35% of floors, so finding one is part of the run. Claim its preview while your teammates keep fighting. All three perk stations appear on every tenth floor; other floors have about an 8% chance of one perk station. Vital Core (1,500) adds 50 maximum health. Rapid Feed (1,250) speeds up reloads by 25%. Steady Hand (1,000) reduces recoil and spread. Each perk can be bought once per player and lasts for the run. Cash is earned in play and resets with each new run.
FIND YOUR FIGHTING STYLE
The rocket launcher fires an explosive projectile that detonates on solid impact. Hold fire on the minigun to spin its barrels; watch its heat and release to cool. The hatchet, saber, and heavy hammer use the normal fire button for close-combat swings and need no ammunition. R3 still gives a quick punch while preserving your equipped weapon.
LINE UP YOUR SHOTS
Some precision rifles penetrate several enemies in a line. The arsenal and cache previews show the maximum number of enemies a shot can hit, including the first, and how much damage carries into each additional target. Line up the horde to make those rounds count.
PLAY ONLINE
Choose ONLINE CO-OP at base. Create your account at delirium.monster, then sign in inside the game. Find a public squad or create a private room and share its six-character code. A controller keypad lets you enter a room code. Ready up; the private host chooses the map, difficulty, and deployment. Public squads deploy after at least two players are ready. Each player uses one screen, keyboard and mouse or their own controller. Opening a menu only pauses your controls; the room keeps running. Online career rewards and purchases belong to your account. The Outfitter lets you switch between the account collection and the separate local collection used for offline play. Passwords are never saved by the game.
BUILD YOUR LOOK
Prisms are your persistent cosmetic currency. Earn one for every five cleared floors accumulated across runs, two for each defeated boss, and one extra for completing all three challenges in a single run. Bank them when your run ends; ordinary hits and kills do not award Prisms. Visit the Skin Shop at base, choose a local player and a weapon, then spend Prisms on its exclusive skin or on a grenade design. The wallet and owned collection are shared on this device; each player keeps a separate equipped look for every weapon and for grenades. Skins change the model and finish without changing combat statistics or grenade fuses. Run cash remains separate and resets to zero.
DRIFTER Steady pursuit.SPRINTER Fast. Fragile.BULWARK Heavy. Armored.VAULTER Winds up, then lunges.CINDERCASTER Dodge its bolts. Use cover.VOLATILE Orange core. Explodes when killed.
Glowing volatile infected explode immediately when killed; keep your distance and use solid cover. Their orange pressure vessel and hazard cage identify them before you fire. Vaulters and Cindercasters join the horde from the third floor. Keep moving when they wind up, then attack during recovery.
THE CONTROLS
MoveW A S D
Aim / ShootMOUSE / CLICK
Sprint / JumpSHIFT / SPACE
Reload / Cook grenade (hold)R / G
Fists / Gun / Grenade1 / 2 / 3
Slide / Open weapon cacheC / E
Team leaderboard (hold)TAB
PauseESC
On touchscreens, use the left stick to move. Drag the right side or the FIRE button to aim. Tap JUMP during a slide to cancel it. Hold the grenade button to cook, then release to throw. With grenades selected, hold and release FIRE instead.
CONTROLLER / LOCAL CO-OP
Left stick: move. Press left stick (L3): sprint. Right stick: aim. Press right stick (R3): quick melee punch, keeping your current weapon and slot. RT: fire. A: jump. X: open a nearby weapon cache, otherwise reload. B: slide. Press A during the slide to cancel into a jump, including as you land. Y: hold to cook a grenade, release to throw. LB / RB: cycle fists, gun, and grenade. These are the only controller buttons that cycle the loadout during play. Hold D-pad left: team leaderboard. Release to close it; the fight keeps going. RT uses the active slot; hold and release RT to cook and throw a selected grenade. Start: pause.
Choose SOLO, DUO, TRIO, or SQUAD before deploying. Up to four players share the ascent, each with separate health, ammo, and loadout. With fewer controllers than players, controllers join the last player slots; players one and two can use their keyboard controls. Three players need at least one controller; four need at least two. With one controller per player, everyone uses a controller. Gather all living players at the cleared-floor ascent. Ladders, spiral staircases, and shared elevators alternate as you rise. Move or slide into the entrance, then hold forward to ascend or pull back to descend. Keep looking and aiming freely. At the top, move forward onto the landing. The elevator stays up while anyone steps off; the next floor starts once every living player reaches the landing. Use either controller’s D-pad or left stick to navigate menus. A / X selects and B goes back. The collector uses the D-pad and A / X to choose a cache weapon while teammates keep playing. Use left/right to adjust settings, up/down to change focus, and the right stick to scroll. Hold the left stick forward to ascend and step onto the upper landing; pull back to descend.
Player two keyboard: I J K L to move, arrow keys to aim, Enter to fire, U to reload, hold and release O to cook and throw grenades, P to jump, N to cycle loadout slots, slash to slide, M to open a weapon cache, and period to sprint.