How to Play

The Round Loop#

Outbreak runs continuously in five phases. A full cycle takes about thirteen minutes, and you can join at any point.

Lobby#

The countdown only runs once enough players are present who have not opted out. Below that, a bar at the top of your screen shows how many more are needed.

This is the only place you can spend gold on zombie classes and buy weapon upgrades, so use the wait.

Opting Out#

The barrier item in your hotbar sits you out of the coming round. You stay in the lobby with full access to every menu, and you do not count toward the minimum player requirement.

Once the round's starting infection has fully turned, you are handed a Join Game item and can drop into the round mid-game as a zombie. Opting out sticks between rounds until you toggle it back off or reconnect.

Map Vote#

Three maps go up for a vote. The list is filtered to maps sized for the current player count, and you will never be offered two versions of the same location at once. Voting ends early the moment everyone has voted, and the winning map is pushed to the back of the rotation so you are not playing the same place twice in a row.

See Maps for the three locations.

Item Shop#

Fifteen seconds to spend gold on the loadout you spawn with. You buy slots, not stacks: three by default, four with Gold rank, five with Platinum. Buying more of something you already hold merges into the same slot, so one slot can be a full stack of bandages.

Everything is refundable at full price until the round starts. Full details on Item Shop.

The Round#

Twelve minutes on the clock, shown as a bar at the top of your screen.

The Starting Infection#

One player in every ten starts infected, with a minimum of one. They spawn among the zombies but still count as human, with a red haze around the edge of their screen, and they receive a quiet warning that something is wrong. Everyone else is told only that someone in the group is secretly infected.

Starting infected fill with radiation on a timer and turn after about 60 seconds. Crouching doubles the rate, so a starting infected who wants to turn early can crouch their way there in about 30 seconds. Nothing cures them: syringes and tablets are refused.

Players who set their preference to Zombie are drawn from first. Players who asked for Human are drawn from last.

Winning#

• Humans win when the clock runs out with at least one survivor still alive. Everyone still human gets the win.
• Zombies win when the last genuine human is infected or killed.

If the lobby empties out below the minimum mid-round, the round ends with no winner, but you are still paid for the minutes you survived, the humans you infected, and the damage you dealt.

The Final Two Minutes#

With two minutes left, every zombie is handed a Human Tracker compass that re-points at the nearest survivor once a second. Hiding stops working. Anyone who turns after that point gets a tracker as soon as they respawn.

Results#

Ten seconds of scoreboard while gold is paid out. Typing gg in chat during this window is worth an extra 15 gold, once per round.

Keeping Your Loadout#

If you finish the round still human, your entire shop loadout carries into the next round for free. You keep buying on top of it. If you died or turned at any point, you lose it and buy again from scratch.

Being picked as one of the starting infected does not cost you your purchases, they are held for you.

Note this covers shop purchases only. Anything you looted or crafted during the round is gone.

Team Preference#

The Team NPC in the lobby, or /team, lets you ask to start as a Human or a Zombie. This is a Platinum rank perk, it is a preference rather than a guarantee, and it resets when you disconnect.