Sleep and exhaustion

Your body keeps count of how long you've been awake. It builds while you play, a little faster at night and when you sprint, swim or fight, and slower when you sit or drive. A normal session of a couple of hours won't touch you. Long raids and nights out will.

What it does to you

• Past about twenty hours awake a small Tired mark appears above your health. Your first shot after you raise a gun comes a beat late, your breath comes back slower after a sprint, your sights drift, and the edges of your vision close in a little.
• Past about thirty hours you start nodding off: the screen drops out for a second or two and nothing you press does anything. At the wheel, the car carries on without you.
• You'll start hearing things too: footsteps behind you, a twig snapping, whispering close by, and at night something like a choir humming far away. There's nothing there. Probably.
• Coffee, energy drinks and caffeine pills hide the worst of it while they last. They don't pay back the sleep, and sleeping on them isn't restful.

Sleeping

• Your own bed: a camp bed, sofa, sleeping bag or bedroll you've set down. Look at it and choose Sleep.
• On the ground: open the emote menu with F4, go to Sit / Lie and choose Sleep, then stay still. A sleeping bag or bedroll in your pack is rolled out under you: warmer and softer.
• In a vehicle: stop, open the Vehicle menu inside and choose Get some sleep. Lock it first if you have the key.
• A bed or mattress you find: look at it and choose Sleep here.

The night goes by in a couple of minutes for you, but the world doesn't wait: you're lying there where anyone can find you. Pain, hands on you, the infected close by, an alarm or the cold will wake you. You can wake up yourself at any time with ESC. Under about four hours awake, sleep won't come.

How well you sleep depends on what's under you, a roof, warmth, how safe the place is, how quiet it is and whether anyone is watching over you. A warm bed under a roof inside your own walls is best; the bare ground in the rain is worst, and you never wake properly rested off the bare ground. Six hours of good sleep leaves you rested for an hour.

Sleeping rough in the cold is how people die of hypothermia. A fire, a sleeping bag or a roof makes the difference, and when you're exhausted the cold has to get bad before it wakes you.

Keeping watch

Look at a sleeping squadmate or ally and choose Keep watch. While you're near, everyone of yours asleep close by sleeps better and deeper, and if the dead come, or a stranger with a weapon out, you shake them awake. Walk off and the watch is over.

Logging off

Logging off counts as sleep. Log off in your own bed or inside your own base and you come back fully rested. Log off out in the open and you'll come back less tired, but never fresh.

Eyes in the dark

Stand in the dark for a few minutes and your eyes get used to it: shapes and edges start to come out of the night. Light takes it away in seconds: your own flashlight, looking into a fire, headlights or a flashlight in your face, your own muzzle flash. A flashlight shows you the way, but it costs you your night eyes, and at night the dead can see a beam from a long way off.