The infected

The dead don't think, but they see, hear and smell. Most of staying alive is keeping them from noticing you in the first place.

Noise

Everything you do makes noise: running, a heavy pack, an engine, a gunshot, and your own voice on the microphone. A whisper reaches only what's beside you and a shout reaches most of a block. See Your voice is noise. Walk rather than run near them, crouch with CTRL to move quietly, and remember that one rifle shot can pull in a whole district. Gunfire, alarms and generators are remembered too: the streets around a big fight fill up over the next few hours.

Staying unseen

• A calm infected only sees what's in front of it. Come at them from behind or from the side.
• Crouching in a bush, a hedge or crops hides you well. Long grass and reeds help a little. Running or sprinting breaks your cover.
• At night they see much less, unless you carry a light. A flashlight or lantern gives you away. A chemlight or a candle is gentler, and standing in someone else's light or under a working street lamp is worse than either.
• Smell matters. Raw meat, fish and rotting food in your pack make you easier to track, and so do blood and sweat. Wash in clean water to lose the scent.
• The wind carries your smell. Infected downwind of you smell you from much further away, in still air they smell you a short way all round, and upwind of you they only smell you from right beside them. The chevron on your compass points the way the wind is blowing, and the Scent cue under the compass tells you whether it's carrying to the infected near you. See Hunting for how to read it.
• If one loses sight of you, it keeps coming for a few seconds, then searches where it last saw you before it gives up.

Tools of the quiet

• Throwables. Use an empty bottle, a tin can or a stone from your inventory and it goes into your hand. Aim with RMB, throw with LMB, or press G to put it away. The infected walk over to where it lands. A bottle shatters loudly on concrete but barely makes a sound in grass.
• Lean. While aiming, hold Q or E to lean out from a corner and peek without stepping into the open.
• Quiet takedowns. Crouch behind a calm stray or bolter with a blade in your hand, look at it, and choose Take it down quietly. The only sound is the body falling. Specials are too big or too dangerous for it.
• Speaker lures. Use a Bluetooth Speaker or a Party Speaker from your inventory to set it down playing music. The dead within about a hundred meters walk towards it for a minute and a half, and a party speaker pulls them from further for longer. It's used up, so get clear before they arrive. A bear trap will hold one of them, too. See Traps and live capture.

What you'll meet

Most of the dead are strays, slow and shuffling, and bolters, which run. Head shots end both. Then there are the specials: bulls that soak up bullets and hit like a car, springers that close the gap in a heartbeat, swells that burst into a cloud of spores, criers whose scream wakes everything nearby, and Choristers, which hang back and never seem to rest.

Herds and nests

The dead move. Herds drift between regions, lean toward noise, and stop to shelter in storms. Nights are worse: herds move faster and form more readily. Where they gather for hours, a nest forms, the area around it fills up, and specials turn up more often. You can break a nest by killing its area down, or by thinning it and then burning it. Cleared ground stays quiet for a few days, until a herd walks back in.

Swarmed

One infected is a fight. Three at once can put you down in seconds, and a crowd pulls you off your feet. Don't let them surround you: back through a doorway, climb onto something, or run while you still can.

Breaking a grab

Some swings latch on. When one grabs you, a short run of prompts appears. Press each key as it shows (Q, E, F or SPACE) to shove it off before it bites. Every miss costs you, and with several of them on you, you only get a moment's breathing room after you break free.

The dead never open car doors or drag you out of a vehicle. They will smash the glass and reach through it, though.