It’s not easy being a prisoner sent to frightening places and forced to face off against evil extradimensional monsters… but you might have figured that out already. What you may not have figured out yet is how to play Darkest Hours. This multiplayer co-op survival has a ton of monsters, and so it feels pretty chaotic and unpredictable when you first start playing. But, there’s method in the madness of Darkest Hours, and we’re going to explain it all as best we can.
Below we run over everything of importance.
Darkest Hours is a multiplayer co-op horror game that drops you in one of many eerie liminal space maps, and fills them with horrid entities. It’s up to you, and the players you’re trapped with, to complete objectives over several rounds, survive the monsters loose on the map, and escape at the end before the gate closes.
You have a health bar, and a stamina meter. If your health reaches zero once, you go down, but you might get some help from another player. Second time, whatever entity is after you gets to do the finisher.
There are a few things you need to memorize to drive your ill-fated prisoner.
Each game of Darkest Hours takes place over four rounds. Each round comes with a certain objective, and these can be a bit cryptic when you first get the instruction. Knowing how to react to each is pretty key to how to play Darkest Hours. Below we’ll explain each objective.
When you get this objective, you’ll need to collect scrap that’s scattered around the map. The scrap resembles small metal objects surrounded by a glowing gold aura. Run into these items to collect them. A counter should appear at the top of the screen, which you collectively need to fill before the end of the round. This is probably one of the easier objectives, but can be tricky on darker maps like the outside areas in Neighbourhood.
In Capture rounds, three capture zones should appear around the map. These resemble circular platforms, with some kind of antenna in the centre. To complete these, players need to stand on the platforms and stay there until all of the sections on the antenna mast light up. The longer players stay there, the more progress. This can be a slightly trickier round vs Collect, depending on how aggressive the active entities are, and whether they’re homed in on the players around the capture zone. Sometimes having others running interference can make life easier.
Simple enough. When this objective comes up, all you need to do is avoid dying to any entities until the timer runs down. You may get this as an objective mid-round, if another objective is completed well ahead of time.
These rounds all come with a random modifier to make the round more difficult. Like extra entities, darkness, or fog.
This objective only comes up in Round 4, and is always the main objective for the round. It’s also generally the shortest one. You need to run for the exit as fast as possible. Red arrows will appear at your feet which should point you in the direction of the exit. Follow those and find a portal which resembles a white eye. Run into that to escape the map and complete the run. Keep in mind that entities will often spawn around the portal, so be ready to skirt round them.
Darkest Hours has a number of different maps, some original, some inspired by different horror media. Between runs, players can vote on what map they would like to play. Some are more challenging than others, and each has a difficulty rating to give you a rough idea of what to expect.
Below you’ll find a quick rundown of the maps available right now.
Infinite Ikea, inspired by the SCP Foundation story… and probably the Roblox title.
★★☆ Moderate Difficulty
You’re trapped in an old Windows screensaver. Clippy can’t save you now.
★★☆ Moderate Difficulty
Something from the Backrooms?
★★☆ Moderate Difficulty
An arcade with a classic 90s carpet.
★★☆ Moderate Difficulty
Feels like the floors must be sticky.
★★☆ Moderate Difficulty
A strange hidden facility.
★★☆ Moderate Difficulty
It’s a big maze. Originally from gmod.
★★☆ Moderate Difficulty
This liminal space need cleaning up, it’s in terrible condition.
★★☆ Moderate Difficulty
A weird warehouse full of bar lights and blank walls.
★★★ Hard Difficulty
This facility comes with a few dangers besides the entities, watch your back.
★★☆ Moderate Difficulty
A gloomy, multileveled grey doomscape.
★☆☆ Easy Difficulty
A gmod map.
★★★ Hard Difficulty
A huge corn maze, and its lobby building.
★★★ Hard Difficulty
Hope you like hallways.
★★★ Hard Difficulty
You’re in a game inside a game. Roll with it.
★☆☆ Easy Difficulty
A gloomy gmod map of a rundown area.
★★☆ Moderate Difficulty
This house is weird and has no exit. Based on the wonderland.jar area of the same name.
★★★ Hard Difficulty
Petscop in 3D.
★★☆ Moderate Difficulty
Hello TF2 map.
★★☆ Moderate Difficulty
The painted-on grass and sun are fooling nobody.
★☆☆ Easy Difficulty
A residential street where things don’t seem quite right.
★★☆ Moderate Difficulty
A large office building. Nobody’s here.
★★☆ Moderate Difficulty
Nothing like a relaxing trip into nature.
★★★ Hard Difficulty
I’m sure this is just a normal animatronic-themed pizzeria. Nothing bad ever happens in one of those.
★★★ Hard Difficulty
Catwalks, tunnels, lots of darkness. Lovely.
★★★ Hard Difficulty
Just a normal trip to the store. Maybe.
★★★ Hard Difficulty
Your happiness levels may vary.
★★☆ Moderate Difficulty
I think someone bald wants to teach me the basics of something here.
★★☆ Moderate Difficulty
TF2 jumpscare.
★★★ Hard Difficulty
A harsh industrial maze full of floodlights and rusty metal.
★★★ Hard Difficulty
The call is definitely coming from inside the house in this place.
★★★ Hard Difficulty
Help! I’m trapped inside a test card!
★★☆ Moderate Difficulty
It Steals.
★★☆ Moderate Difficulty
At least everything is clearly labelled.
★☆☆ Easy Difficulty
The classic Backrooms experience.
★★☆ Moderate Difficulty
Shh!
★☆☆ Easy Difficulty
A dream you’ve had before.
★★☆ Moderate Difficulty
A palatial place full of white marble and big windows. If only you could get out.
★★★ Meat Maze
Meat Maze
★☆☆ Easy Difficulty
A street with three accessible houses… just keep in mind that those houses are not safe.
★★☆ Moderate Difficulty
No time to play any of the cabinets sadly, you’re running for you life.
★★★ Hard Difficulty
In this economy, even the obbies are getting their power cut off.
★★★ Hard Difficulty
Backrooms? Is that you?
★★★ Hard Difficulty
Getting ripped apart by entities is just another day at the office.
★★☆ Moderate Difficulty
They didn’t lie, it is pretty orange.
★☆☆ Easy Difficulty
Welcome to the gmod nightmare.
★★☆ Moderate Difficulty
A nice sunny day at the vaguely-threatening liminal space pool.
★★☆ Moderate Difficulty
A gloomy campground lit by lanterns.
★★☆ Moderate Difficulty
A weird school with no exit. The courtyard is pretty, at least. Not to be confused with Here School.
★★☆ Moderate Difficulty
Despite first appearances, this is not a house.
★★★ Hard Difficulty
A map of confusing industrial tunnels.
★☆☆ Easy Difficulty
An extremely gloomy forest map.
★☆☆ Easy Difficulty
Wait, this isn’t Brickbattle…
★☆☆ Easy Difficulty
An abandoned storage complex. Use the open units to hide or scavenge in if you need to.
★★★ Hard Difficulty
A completely open area of checkered floor. Breaking line of sight can’t save you now.
★★☆ Moderate Difficulty
These walkways do not respect the laws of physics.
★★☆ Moderate Difficulty
Feels like this building should be occupied… but there’s just you and the monsters.
★★★ Hard Difficulty
A strange, disorientating construction of flat blocks and tiles.
★★☆ Moderate Difficulty
The mall-that-no-longer-exists from The Oldest View.
★★☆ Moderate Difficulty
A very dark swimming pool that’s probably not a swimming pool.
★★★ Hard Difficulty
A misty field of Minecraft trees that looks a little too orderly. Inspired by the wonderland.jar mod.
Of course, you’re far from alone in your weird space. Each round will introduce new entities from a massive roster, all who are very eager to make your acquaintance in the most violent way possible. We’ll briefly run over each.
A humanoid with a huge mutated arm, starts slow, but gets much faster when it sees you.
A weird doodle man. This entity will occasionally call a player. Answering the call will give you a few seconds headstart before he immediately runs toward you location… he’s doing that either way.
Very angry, but doesn’t actually look anything like a monkey. A dark shape with human eyes. Gets faster the more players are looking at her.
A bald man armed with a ruler. Moves square by square around the map with his ruler, and might force you to answer math questions.
What appears to be a chunk of cement and rebar with a hat on. Faster than you, so best avoided.
Two evil-looking Teletubbies. Relatively straightforward monsters, but watch out for their ranges attacks.
A tall caped figure with antlers, armed with a rifle. Watch out for his rifle sight.
A large spider-like monsters than breathes fire. Makes a lot of noise.
A bugged-out model. Getting close will start to ruin your picture quality. When you see the word ‘Hide’ get ready for an experience.
A collection of entities that chase the player.
A wonderland.jar monster resembling a Minecraft Steve with stitched-up eyes. Cannot see, but has very good hearing.
A large creature with red eyes all over its body. Opposite of Eyeless, the Eyemaster can see extremely well, and in all directions.
Non-copyright animatronic bear, rabbit, bird, and fox.
A large metal monster that can spew an AoE lava attack.
An Ao Oni monster that looks like a blue rectangle with arms, legs, and teeth. Basic chase mechanics.
Are those the Pac Man ghosts? Blue can hear you, red can see you, orange does damage when you look at it, pink chases whoever is closest.
Part organic, part machine, with a hook hand. Can launch its grappling hook to snag a player and pull them towards it.
A Guest back from the dead, and out for revenge. Attacks with a Roblox knife.
A dog-like monster with traffic light eyes. When it displays its red stoplight, stop moving to avoid an attack.
A Boston Dynamics robot dog turned evil, this four-legged entity fires its turret if it can get line of sight.
A big stomping mech with a cannon arm, which it will deplay on you if it gets a chance. It can also drop land mines.
A guy in a mechsuit which wields a big sword in one hand, and a throwable Morningstar on the other.
Sonic.exe. As you might expect, he’s really fast, but can run into walls and stun himself.
Someone crossed a cartoon cat with the monster from that old Prototype game. Can inflict a bleed status.
A robot with a red emergency light on its head. Can deploy both drones and land mines.
A giant carton of milk with a face and long shadowy limbs. The biggest entity in the game right now.
Shadowy block person with streaming white eyes in its natural form. Can turn into a double of a player, and will start trying to eliminate the original.
Is this what baby Teletubbies look like? Vicious little pack hunters whose cries attract others of their kind.
A red block person. Acts a bit like the Left 4 Dead witch. Try to avoid disturbing it.
Dark block person with a spooky map. Blends into the shadows extremely well. Deals damage on sight.
A humanoid entity with seaweed hair and a fish tail. Her song can cause players to walk towards her unwillingly.
…I don’t think that’s Steve. Slows down when observed.
An extremely fast animatronic bear. Footsteps are very loud.
A Content Warning monster resembling a humanoid with screens for heads, wielding a cattle prod. Doing it for the views.
A glowing red orb with a stick figure inside. Able to teleport after platers and noclip through walls, so hiding will not save you.
A continually growing army of organized criminals.
Another wonderland.jar monster, resembling a tall, dark, three-eyes humanoid. Slow, but able to teleport under the right conditions.
A grinning green fellow covered in thorns. Can throw his spiky ball at players to inflict Bleed.
A trollface on a skinny stickman body. Gets faster when observed.
A huge eyeball on a spindly body, this thing can fire a laser from its eye that can bounce off surfaces.
In the current stage of development, you get three random items when you start a round. We’ll explain each one briefly.
A metal baseball bat. You can swig it at entities to stun or destroy them.
Two uses. Restores health when used.
Use the item to place down a camera. After that, you can look through the camera on the tablet.
Three uses. Restores a small amount of health when used.
Looks like a weird little remote with an antenna. Displays a number indicating how far the nearest entity is from you. Green is far, yellow is moderately close… red is cause to panic.
A ranged weapon that can stun entities.
Use to charge, stunning an entity if you collide with them.
Restores your stamina and gives you a speed boost.
A sandwich with one eyeball and insect-like legs. Restores health completely, but also gives you a random debuff.
A red spring-like object. Two uses. Makes you go fast.
Use to give you HP regeneration for a short period of time.
Hope you enjoyed this guide! It’s fully human-made, with real gameplay shots. We used the Darkest Hours wiki to check some of the info used here, as well as using our own gameplay experience. If you’d like some more of our chunky horror guides, we’ve also got a huge Doors Paradox walkthrough.
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