Top tips to make your first run more forgiving in GTFO

Developer 10 Chambers GTFO got infamy among the gaming audience back when it came out in 2019 for being hard. A co-op survival horror shooter with puzzle elements, the game puts a lot of emphasis on teamwork and resource management. With the game recently dropping its 1.0 update and leaving early access, a lot has changed since then.

While my experience with the game has been really pleasant because of having friends who knew what to do in the game, for others, it might not be. The game in design is quite a challenge, and new players might feel overwhelmed and clueless. Hence, here are a few tips to make your first few runs of GTFO a more forgiving one. After all, these helped me enjoy the game.

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GTFO: Tips that can make the sleepers sleep for good

Before we move on to more important things, let's get one thing out of the way many interested players might be curious about. GTFO has been built ground-up as a co-op game with heavy emphasis on teamwork. However, with the release of the 1.0 Update, players can now add in up to three bots, which makes up for a great single-player experience. But the real experience of GTFO lies in teaming up with friends to complete the tasks of the game.

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1) Variety of loadouts amongst team-members are always good

One great thing about GTFO is that there is no level-based progression or ability-based characters. What matters a lot in GTFO for a successful mission is what loadout each team member is carrying. The more varied a loadout is, the higher the chances of survival increase.

Image via GTFO

Players can only carry one of each category of loadout. Our runs comprised a mix of submachine guns, shotguns, and as for tools, two auto sentries with my team members, one C Foam launcher to freeze the doors, and a bio-tracker to track the enemies. This made our 6-hour Rundown experience a more pleasant one.

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2) Take atleast one Fog Remover along with you

Throughout the rundowns I played recently in GTFO, my teammates emphasised how useless the Fog Removers are. Some areas of maps in GTFO are foggy, limiting the vision and making the enemy and item detection difficult. Even though most players overlook the usage of Fog Removers in the game, I find them pretty useful during the early hours of playing the game.

Image via GTFO/10 Chambers

Finding Fog Removers depends on their availability of them on the map. Since they don’t come with the loadout, they have to be scavenged from the maps. In one instance, we ran out of them and got into a pretty tough situation where stealth was necessary. Still, the visibility made it extra hard. Hence, stock up on at least one fog remover in certain sections as that will help one in the early sections until a player gets the hang of the game.

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3) Turn off flashlights after opening each door

Almost every enemy in GTFO reacts to the flashlight. The most common one, sleepers, comes in hoards of a dozen if alerted, which is not great for resource management.

Image via GTFO

One of the most common mistakes the new players make, which even I did when I started the game, is that the flashlight is kept on throughout the experience, which in particular is not wrong seeing how dark the game is and reliance on the flashlight is fine.

The best habit new players can do while starting up the game is to turn off the flashlight every time they enter a new room and keep it closed for a few seconds until they are sure that the coast is clear. Keeping flashlights off won’t alert the enemies immediately and will give a bit of a breathing room.

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4) Taking down a sleeper

Sleepers are the most common enemy in GTFO. Generally sleeping, these come in a dozen inside a room and, once alerted, are a pain to deal with, provided that they take quite a bit to take down but hit very hard. My first experience with them was nothing short of unpleasant, with the sleeper waking up because of my flashlight being turned on.

Image via GTFO/Fanbyte

To silently and effectively take down a sleeper, certain things are needed to keep in mind. Firstly, flashlights are an absolute big no no while trying to take them with stealth, so always keep it off.

Secondly, Sleepers upper body glows red in certain periods, and sleepers themselves will move a bit when that happens. This is your cue to absolutely, under no circumstances, don't move. GTFO never explicitly says this in the game, so most players believe that moving silently is the only thing they need to do.

Image via GTFO

Thirdly, crouch. This comes as a no-brainer, but crouching will make less noise. Finally, aim for the head with a melee weapon from your loadout. Charge up the melee weapon and swing it hard on the head of the sleeper. Following these steps will hardly ever alert any sleepers and exhilarate the experience.

Of course, players always have the option to go ballistic, but in GTFO, that is never a wise decision.

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5) Stealth goes a long way in this game

Compared to the other co-op games in the genre, GTFO is quite hard and unforgiving, especially in certain game mechanics. The biggest one is the intentional design of making resources very scarce and limited. Even if a player runs out of ammo for their tools or guns, finding them on the map also needs quite a bit of work, and the probability of getting the right resource is always mixed.

Image via GTFO

In such cases, stealth is definitely the way to go. Shooting things is undoubtedly fun, especially for a co-op shooter. In the case of GTFO, the same is not great, primarily because the amount of speed and numbers the enemies come in will surely take a whole team down or, at worse, eat your resources away.

Image via GTFO

Stealth allows for the conservation of ammo and resources and makes the game much more fun and tense. During the sections where stealth was performed, the saved resources will come in much handier during late games, where doors have alarms rigged to them, and opening them up guarantees a showdown between your team and swarms of enemies.

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GTFO is currently out of early access and is in its 1.0 phase. Developed and published by 10 Chambers primarily for PC, it is a team-based co-op first-person survival horror shooter where maps periodically change. Teamwork is a crucial and helpful tool.

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Note: This article reflects the opinion of the writer. The way you play the game is up to you.