Gtfo is a 4-player cooperative first-person shooter, with elements of stealth, resource management and defending positions. This guide will act as a very basic introduction to the game and its mechanics, if you would like more information to look at the individual pages or learn yourself in game.
If you do not own GTFO you can purchase it on steam here:
The rundown:
The rundown is a set of levels grouped together for one update. Levels within a rundown will be inaccessible once a new rundown has been released. The length of a rundown will depend on both the difficulty and the amount of levels.
Expeditions within a rundown will scale in difficulty and distance underground with their letter, A levels will be easier than B, B will be easier than C, theoretically until Z. There has not been a limit on how low expeditions can go or the amount of levels.
How to find a group to play with:
If you already have friends with this game, this part of the guide will not be important to you unless you want to find out how to join lobbies using the lobby ID system.
The game currently does not feature a matchmaking system, the current workaround for this is using the Discord looking for group chats, there is more information on discord itself. Once you have 4 people ready to play you must either: add them as friends on steam to allow for invites or direct connect, or you can use the lobby ID system: When hosting a lobby you will be able to copy a lobby ID to your clipboard, you then give this to the other people playing, they copy it to their clipboard, then when in game you will have an option on the rundown screen to join the lobby.
While the game can be played with less than 4 players it is an unwise choice as there is not difficulty scaling, meaning you will face the same number of enemies with a lower amount of firepower. This does make for a good challenge if you find yourself bored with the current rundown.
Selecting your loadout:
When in the lobby within GTFO you will be able to select a primary weapon, special weapon, tool and melee weapon.
Primary weapons are generalised weapons which are meant be usable in most situations, they have large ammo reserves and less specialised.
Special weapons are meant for more specific situations, they have lower ammo reserves but excel in their own ways.
Tools are used to give tactical advantages, for both inside and outside of combat, they are meant to make situations more manageable, but have limited ammo like weapons.
Melee weapons are cosmetic only and have no effect on gameplay.
Prisoners
Prisoners are the player characters within GTFO, there are currently four different prisoners to play as, the prisoner you play as is determined by your position in the lobby. Prisoners have a few base items of equipment:
Flashlight can be turned on with F (Default), the flashlight will change depending on which weapon you are using, flashlights will make enemies stir and alert if they are shined onto them for too long, so be careful with it.
Pinging can be used on item boxes, items in boxes and doors, these pings will appear to all players and be visible from anywhere, they also are shown in the colour of your name in game.
There is also a map accessible, which can be used to navigate the expeditions and to temporarily draw on.
Prisoners can also crouch, which will reduce speed but make less sound allowing you to get closer to enemies within stealth, Sprint, which is faster but much louder, and jump which can be used to get to vantage points, though fall damage is very punishing so care should be taken when around heights.
Friendly fire is always on in GTFO, the only weapons which do not have friendly fire are melee weapons, turrets and mines will not target players however they can be damaged in the crossfire.
Prisoners can be afflicted with infection while in the complex, infection will cause your max health to be limited and slowly drain when above the limit. Infection can be gained from multiple sources and can be removed by multiple means. It is represented by a green bar above your health.
Expeditions
Expeditions are the levels within GTFO, taking place within the complex, an underground facility. The objective of an expedition is a task given by the warden; this is in the top left of the screen for most of the level, there is not time limit for any of these objectives or expeditions in general, take your time.
Warden Objectives
The objectives within GTFO are the only thing you should care about, if something isn't going to help you achieve your objective don't do it, and once you've completed your objective dont stick around, just GTFO. The objective for an expedition will never change however some parts of it may change, such as the locations of items you are collecting, however, the amount of items you must collect, and the amount of items in the level will always be the same.
Lockers and Boxes
Within expeditions there are items the players can find which can be helpful or necessary for completion of a level, they are found within lockers and boxes (distinct orange color). There are 3 types of items which can be found within containers: Consumables, Keys and Objective items.
All these consumables and their containers are procedurally generated with each level so they will not be the same each run.
Doors
Doors within an expedition will always be the same. They are useful tools if utilised correctly, minor inconveniences if not. There are two types of door when it comes to gameplay:
Normal doors which can be opened and closed at will, they can also be reinforced with C-Foam to withstand more punishment. If closed enemies will destroy them if they are in the direct path towards the player.
Security doors which can be opened and not closed after. To open a security door, you will have to complete a Bioscan, which requires either all or any number of players to stand in to complete. Not all but some security doors will be protected with an alarm, this means that when opening the door there will be additional scans which have to be completed in order to open it, and while these scans are being done there will be waves of enemies spawning. The number of extra scans can vary.
Locks
Locks are obsticals which will block a player from being able to open a door or resource locker/box. There are two types, physical and electrical. Physical locks can be removed by melee or bulllets and makes a noise in a small range around it when broken alerting sleepers. Electrical locks require a hacking minigame, which when failed will make a noise in a small range, alerting sleepers.
Zones and subzones
Within expeditions there are areas which are categorised into different zones and subzones. These are shown with both numbers and letters. Zones are separated with security doors, subzones are separated by normal doors. There are exceptions to this rule in the form of holes within walls you can walk through.
Terminals
Terminals within GTFO are the main source of information within each expedition, they can be used to see which items are in which rooms, find specific items and at some objective specific points do special commands.
On a terminal typing help and commands will be helpful to learn how to use them to their full potential.
Sleepers and dispatching them
Sleepers are the main enemy within GTFO, and as their name suggests you will find most of them within a dormant state, though there are some which prefer to stay awake.
Stealth
To succeed within GTFO a large part is being able to keep within stealth, this is not mandatory, but it saves ammo and health. Sleepers can be killed stealthily with the melee weapon, if you kill them in one hit, if you do not kill them with the first hit they wake up and if not killed quickly, alert the rest of the dormant enemies close to it, if you make too much noise and do not pay attention to the warnings of lighting up and they begin to thrash around, or continue to shine a light on them when the same warning signs happen. Killing a sleeper too close to another sleeper will cause that sleeper to wake up (~5 meters). Sleepers glowing are more vigilant and will detect a sleeper being killed from longer distances. Sleepers are affected by line of sight, killing a sleeper in an area where other sleepers would not be able to see it will not alert them even if they are glowing.
Biology
Sleepers are resilient, being able to live without their heads and all their top halves in some special cases, however they do have weak points which can be exploited in order to reliably kill them quicker and instantly in some cases. The different variations of sleeper have different health, damage and movement speed, these however are things you should find out on your own.
Tips
- Enable the "CROUCH TOGGLE" option.
- Aim for the head.
- Don’t waste ammo.
- Fall back if you need to.
- Utilise your environment.
And remember: They react to sound and lights.