R.E.P.O.

You are a small salvage robot working for a company that wants its property back. Each run drops your crew into a location full of expensive, breakable objects and things that would rather you left. Hit the value quota, get to the extraction point, keep your deposit.

The joke and the game are the same thing: you carry objects with a physics grabber. A vase is awkward. A piano needs three of you. A hallway corner is a genuine tactical problem, and every single time someone panics, whatever they were holding hits a wall and your quota takes the damage instead of your health bar.

• Proximity voice chat. Monsters hear you, and so does everyone else, and both are the point.
• Value is the objective. Broken loot is lost money, and lost money is a failed run.
• Between runs you spend at a shop: healing, tools, grabber upgrades, weapons.
• The quota rises each level, so runs get greedier and greedier until the crew overreaches.

1. 1

   Learn the grabber

   Hold, rotate, and set down gently. Practise on something worthless before you touch anything expensive.

2. 2

   Talk quietly, literally

   Voice volume is a game mechanic. Whisper near monsters, and save shouting for when it is already going wrong.

3. 3

   Scout before you haul

   One person finds the route to extraction, everyone else stages loot along it. Hauling blind into an unexplored corridor is how crews die.

4. 4

   Two on the big stuff

   Heavy items need cooperation and a plan. Agree who is walking backwards BEFORE you lift.

5. 5

   Bank early

   Get some value to extraction before you get ambitious. A safe half-quota beats a heroic zero.

6. 6

   Pull your crew out

   A downed teammate can be carried. Leaving them costs you a body and a pair of hands next level.

• Assign roles out loud: scout, hauler, spotter. Six people improvising is six people colliding.
• Call monsters by name and location, not by scream. "Big one, left corridor" saves runs.
• Do not crowd a doorway. Physics objects plus panic plus a bottleneck equals a smashed quota.
• Spend shop money on the crew, not on yourself. Healing and grabber range help everyone.
• When the quota is met, LEAVE. The most common wipe is a crew going back for one more painting.

The horror is real but it is played for laughs as much as for dread. Monsters have distinct behaviours, and learning them turns terror into a routine you can run.

• Sound draws attention. Dropped objects, sprinting and loud voices all cost you.
• Some threats want light, some want noise, some want you to stand still. Learn one per run.
• Hiding and repositioning beats fighting, almost always.
• Your value is more vulnerable than you are. Protect the cargo first.

The setup is deadpan corporate: you are property of a retrieval company, the Taxman wants his quota, and the places you are sent are somebody else's problem that has become your job. Nothing explains why the houses are like this.

• The robots are disposable, and the game is very clear about your value relative to the cargo.
• The environments imply lives interrupted: furnished, lived-in, and now full of something else.
• Corporate framing does the horror work. Nobody is coming to help, and the quota is not negotiable.
• It is funny first and unsettling second, which is a harder balance than it looks.

• Move slowly with anything expensive. Speed is the enemy of value.
• Set things down, do not throw them, even when it is faster.
• Keep one person free-handed as a spotter.
• Learn the shop before you spend. Some upgrades are run-changing and some are trinkets.
• If a teammate is being chased, do not follow them. Break line of sight and take a different route.
• Play with people you can laugh with. This is a group comedy engine, not a competitive shooter.

• The Steam page and the developer's patch notes for what changed in the last update.
• The community wiki for monster behaviours and shop item lists.
• Ask in our Discord, or just join a stream night. This one is best learned by being in the room when it goes wrong.