The Drowned

The Drowned are the dead the Ankou drags back from the sea and the flooded Seine: fishermen and soldiers on Ker-Ys, Métro workers and Parisians on Nec Mergitur. They are the enemies of every ordinary round. Alone, they are slow and fragile at first; in numbers, and from round 10 on, they become the real threat of the match. This page covers everything you need to keep them at bay; the special enemies (hounds, Divers, rats, chimeras) have their own page: Special enemies.

Health per round#

A Drowned’s health depends only on the round (and the difficulty), never on the number of players. The values below are base values; Normal difficulty multiplies them by 0.9 (health) and 0.85 (hit damage):

• round 1: 150 health;
• rounds 2 to 9: +100 per round (250 on round 2, 950 on round 9);
• from round 10 on: health is multiplied by 1.1 every round (exponential growth).

Realistic difficulty gives the Drowned 25% more health (×1.25). Easy difficulty and the guided match for beginners (Discovery difficulty) weaken them (×0.6), the newcomer step-up a little less (×0.75).

How many Drowned you must kill in a round (and how fast the wave comes) is explained in Rounds and difficulty.

Speeds#

When it spawns, each Drowned rolls a gait: walker, runner or sprinter (with ±10% individual variation). A Drowned whose legs are blown off becomes a crawler.

The share of each gait depends on the round:

On Realistic difficulty this table is shifted two rounds earlier (sprinters show up from round 6); on Easy and Discovery, two rounds later (one round with the newcomer step-up).

From round 3 on, the last Drowned of the round starts running if it was walking: it comes looking for you instead of dawdling at the far end of the map.

Spawning#

The Drowned only spawn in active zones: zones holding at least one player (standing or Down) and the open zones next to them. Opening a door makes the playing field bigger… for the dead as well. There are two ways in:

• through a boarded window (a grate in the Métro): the Drowned walks up from outside, tears off the boards, then climbs through (1.6 s);
• rising from the ground (1.8 s), never within 6 m of a player.

The game favors spawn points at a reasonable walking distance from the players (roughly a dozen to forty meters of path; less in the Paris tunnels), picks windows slightly more often, and avoids reusing the same point twice in a row. A round starts about 2 s after it is announced; then one Drowned comes out every 2 s on round 1, then faster and faster (−5% per round, about 0.3 s on round 40).

Horde limit: at most 24 Drowned and hounds on the map at once, whatever the number of players. The rest wait for a free slot: the faster you kill, the faster the round moves.

Recycled Drowned: a Drowned that is stuck (7 s without progress), has no path to you (6 s), or has stayed too far from every player (about fifty meters for 12 s; less in Paris) vanishes if nobody can see it, and comes back through a normal spawn closer to you. It still counts for the round: hiding at the edge of the map does not make Drowned “go missing”. A Drowned stuck in plain sight is first nudged a few steps, then moved elsewhere if it stays stuck.

Barriers#

A window usually has 6 boards. At most two Drowned work on it at once (about one board per second each); the others queue behind them. Once 3 boards or fewer are left, the first two reach between the boards and hit you through the barrier with about 1.3 m of extra reach: don’t hug an almost bare window. When every board is gone, the first in line climbs through.

Rebuilding boards earns points: see Doors, barriers and Power.

Attack and damage#

A Drowned strikes when you are within 1.25 m (1.15 m for a crawler), on the same level and in line of sight:

• a wind-up of 0.45 s, then the blow; at most one blow every 1.15 s;
• blows that grow with the match: 25 damage on round 1, a little more each round, up to 50 around mid-game (roughly between rounds 9 and 13), then 50 to the end (base values: ×0.85 on Normal, so 21 then 43; ×1.5 on Realistic, so 75 at full strength; ×0.5 on Easy and Discovery; ×0.7 with the newcomer step-up);
• runners and sprinters keep moving during the wind-up: backing off at the last moment isn’t always enough; a walker stops to strike.

You have 100 health: four blows put you Down early in the match, two once the Drowned hit at full strength. With Menhir (250 health), it takes five at full strength. Your health regenerates at 60 per second after 3.2 s without being hit: breaking contact for a few seconds is enough to get back to full. The Sailor’s Shield absorbs blows from the front (equipped) or from behind (stowed): see Buildables.

The Drowned go for the nearest player (a player on another floor counts as farther away) and re-evaluate their target every 1.4 to 2.6 s, staying somewhat loyal to their current target. A Korrigan draws them all to it.

Weak points and dismemberment#

Each weapon has its own multipliers per body part (weapon page: Weapons):

Grenade launchers, Wonder Weapons and the knife hit the same everywhere (×1).

• Lynx Eye multiplies headshot damage by another 1.5, and Lead Hail doubles bullet damage.
• Insta-Kill kills any ordinary Drowned in one hit.
• A frozen Drowned (Frost effect) takes 50% more damage.

Crawlers: an explosion has a 35% chance to blow both legs off a Drowned it doesn’t kill; a big hit to a leg (at least 30% of its health) has a 30% chance to do the same. A crawler moves at 0.7 m/s and strikes from closer: it’s the ideal Drowned to keep alive at the end of a round to catch your breath (rebuild, buy, reposition), as long as you don’t let it get close.

Big hits can also tear off an arm, or make the Drowned stagger for a split second (enough to follow up).

Points and rewards#

Explosions don’t earn the 10 hit points. A kill also earns XP (+45, +20 for a headshot, +30 with the knife). A slain Drowned can drop a Power-up and, outside the guided match, a material for the Hideout (8% chance: the one of its outfit, otherwise Scrap), plus very rarely a Pocket watch (rare, about 1 in 500) or an Anaon soul (ultra-rare, about 1 in 3,300): see Loot and materials. The full economy is on Points.

Outfits on each map#

Each map has its 28 Drowned outfits, picked at random. The outfit tells you which material the Drowned can drop for the Hideout:

On Ker-Ys, the Drowned climb through the boarded windows of the houses and rise from the moor; in Paris, they slip through the station grates, rise from the track bed and the tunnels, and even board the trains.

Tips#

• Keep an exit. A sprinter is faster than you walking: from round 8 on, move at a sprint and never get cornered in a dead-end room.
• Circle a large area (“training”): the Drowned follow you in a line, and you only have to turn around to fire into the pack. The 24-at-once limit makes this safe if the space is clear.
• Solo, hold a window in the early rounds for points, then switch to moving as soon as runners dominate (rounds 4–5).
• As a team, split the windows of one zone between you: the Drowned only spawn around players, and a team spread too thin activates too many zones at once.
• Step back from a window down to 3 boards: past that point, blows get through.

Checked against the game on November 8, 2026