How To Play
Characters
Weapons
Prizes
VHS Beginner's Guide
Introducing the VHS Teens
Brett Faith Gloria Jess Leo
Teens are the co-operative, team-based survivors in VHS.
Their objective is to seek out crafting tables to create various weapons to attack the monster with; successfully
damaging all four of the monster's stigmas will end the match as a win for the teens.
Teamwork is very important in VHS, as you'll need to work together to save endangered teammates and co-ordinate attacks. To help with this, VHS offers both voice chat and a simple ping system, which is essential to use whether or not you also choose to use voice chat.
Each teen has their own unique perks, unlocked through their character journey, the progression system in VHS. Completing a full tier of one teen's journey will make that tier's perks available to all other teens. Teens also receive a small discount on the cost of equipping their own perks.
Teen Health States
Each teen has a health bar which depletes with each hit received.
A strike on a teen will put them into a damaged state until healed by another player or at a healing station. A strike on a damaged teen will down them, leaving them only able to slowly crawl, and destroying any weapon they were carrying. Downed teens must be healed by another teen before they eventually bleed out and die.
While downed and injured teens can be restored at any time to a regular state, the health lost is permanent. As a match progresses, teens will have progressively less health, and will eventually reach a point where the next down will outright kill them.
Healthy
Injured
Downed
Will die if downed again
Dead
Spectral Form
While a teen is downed, they have the option to release — leaving their prone body behind and floating
around as a spectral.
While in spectral form, orbs of light called luma become visible. These are scattered around each map and can be collected by spectrals to fill up the teen's recovery meter, which can be seen by all teens as a blue progress bar beneath a teen's portrait.
The more luma that is collected, the less healing time is required from another teen to recover a downed teen. Importantly, luma collection can fill the progress bar completely but you'll always need a second player to finally pick the prone teen up.
Spectrals can be seen by other teens, but monsters cannot see or detect them.
A dead teen can also release to spectral form, with the special goal of looking for the lockbox containing the Book of the Dead — a powerful item which grants a second chance at life.
Introducing the VHS Monsters
W.A.R.T. Werewolf Doll Master Deathwire
Monsters are the solo, killer side in VHS.
Their goal is to hunt down and attack all of the teens, wounding each one enough to kill them, while
avoiding attacks from teen weaponry.
Once all four teens are dead or downed at the same time, regardless of how much remaining health they have, the match will end as a win for the monster.
Each monster has their own unique perks, unlocked through their character journey, the progression system in VHS. Completing a full tier of one monster's journey will make that tier's perks also available to all other monsters. Unlike teens, monsters don't receive any perk point discounts.
While each monster has their own distinct abilities, they all share the ability to scream, enrage, and feast.
Whenever a monster successfully hits a teen, they'll let out a scream which disrupts any nearby teens,
preventing them from attacking, healing, using items or crafting for a short time. Disruption is a powerful
way to deal with multiple teens attacking a monster, as only one needs to be within attack range to completely
negate all of their attacks.
Monsters have a rage bar, which gradually fills over time. Successful attacks on healthy teens boost the rage bar by about 33%, though downing a teen (or being wounded) completely depletes the rage bar. Once the rage bar is full, the monster is enraged, and their next attack will down a teen regardless of their current health.
Monsters can choose to feast on downed teens. This is a channelled (continually cast) ability which slowly increases the monster's rage bar, at the cost of having the monster visibly revealed mapwide to every teen during the feasting.
Stigmas and Weapons
Monsters have four separate health states called stigmas, each representing a different element.
The first time a monster is successfully damaged for a full stigma, that stigma is permanently depleted and the monster is banished for a short time, becoming invisible, unable to see or interact with teens, but able to move at high speed in order to set up a good position to respawn after a short period.
Short bursts of a weapon, such as a single swing from a Cursed Sword, are not enough to fully damage a stigma, and if the monster isn't continually damaged they'll very quickly heal, so teens need to focus fire — catching the monster in a full assault from a weapon without letting the monster quickly duck behind cover.
Striking the monster with a stigma type that is already depleted will instead stun the monster for a few seconds.
Each stigma has three different weapons that teens can craft. Successfully striking the monster — whether wounding or stunning — will remove that weapon from the attacking teen.
Items
There are a number of consumable items that teens can use in matches.
They can be found scattered across the map either sitting on furniture, hidden in searchable wastebins, or available from single-use vending machines.
Pre-match consumable offerings called prizes can influence the number of items, making more spawn than usual or letting a teen start the match with a particular item already in hand. Conversely, monsters also have prizes available which can reduce the number of items spawned.
Tapping F will use an item; hold the key down to place a Noisemaker or resurrect a teen with the Book of the Dead. While next to an itemless teen, tapping R will give them your current item. Tapping R in other situations will instead drop the item.
Clash Cola Grants a teen a strong burst of speed for a few seconds.
Chompie Bar Restores one attack's worth of health to a teen. Does not change a teen from injured to healthy.
Noisemaker Can be placed on the ground as a proximity alert. When the monster gets too close to the noisemaker, it'll trigger and all teens will be able to see the monster for a short time.
Walkie-Talkie Can be switched on and off at will. Has a short battery life. While on, auras of other teens are visible and facing the monster's direction will emit static.
Book of the Dead Hidden inside a lockbox. The Book is a one-time item which can be consumed to resurrect a dead teen.
The Book of the Dead is unique among all items. Only one is spawned per match, and it resides within a searchable lockbox — the location of which is randomized between 25 different spots.
Spectrals of dead (not downed) teens are able to hear the lockbox chanting while their spectral is within a few meters of the box, which helps a small amount in finding the very well hidden lockboxes.
The VHS Ping System
VHS offers teens a simple but flexible ping system to help players communicate, regardless of whether they also use voice chat or not. Using pings to keep your team informed is essential to winning as a teen.
Clicking the middle mouse button will ping whatever the dot in the center of your screen is over, and will show a generic ping if nothing is selected. Double-clicking the middle mouse button gives a danger ping.
Tapping C triggers a smart self ping. This ping icon will change to reflect what you're doing, such as being chased, crafting a weapon, or healing another teen, and will fill the ping icon to show current progress on healing and crafting.
Each teen has a small colored dot next to their status on the HUD — their pings will always be this color.
Generic
Often used for "I'm here"
Danger
Often used for "monster here"
Chased
Being chased by monster
Crafting
Shows stigma and craft progress
Healing
Shows progress of healing
Doll
Doll Master's doll
Lockbox
Contains the Book of the Dead
Corpse
For resurrecting
Newbie Teen Tips
Crafting weapons is usually better than healing up. A monster chasing a healthy teen can permanently remove twice as much health than just downing an already injured teen.
If you have a weapon and you find or heal a teen who doesn't, guarding them while they craft is a solid play.
A close group of armed teens is extremely difficult for monsters to deal with. Group up!
Monsters emit a constant humming sound while banished. Listen carefully to know if they're preparing to respawn near you.
Monsters look upwards for a couple of seconds after every hit and can't see you. Break line of sight during this time to escape.
Crafting and sprinting are both very loud. If you can hear the monster's tension track, they can hear you crafting. Don't run if the monster is nearby unless they have already seen you.
Newbie Monster Tips
Fire bomb and slingshot pools can be absorbed on purpose by W.A.R.T while using his Acid Armor. Breaking the armor counts as a health state loss and will remove the teen's weapon!
Heading back to a downed teen while banished is a good way to catch players — though be careful of any armed teens who'll expect this play.
Feasting is rarely a good idea; you'll be exposed to all of the teens and giving them free time to craft weapons.
Each map has large open areas which teens love and are dangerous for the monster to travel through, such as the Highschool's central courtyard or the Facility's main lobby. Stick to areas with plenty of cover as much as possible, to give yourself a chance to duck behind objects if attacked.
Capturing a rift is loud enough to mask approaching footsteps, and teens will expect you to go for rifts. Assume teens will attack, pre-emptively use intel abilities such as Echolocation and Hunt, and have defensive abilities such as Acid Armor or Howl ready to cast in an instant.
Coming from Dead by Daylight?
Teens (survivors) don't leave any kind of scratchmarks in VHS. Injured teens do leave small pools of chromatic aberration, similar to pools of blood in DBD, but they're harder to see and more sporadic. You'll need to rely on sound much more in VHS for tracking.
Teens also don't make any grunts or groans of pain, even while injured, so playing stealthy is more common for unarmed teens.
Monsters (killers) are not unstoppable forces of nature. Once teens craft weapons, they are a serious threat. There is a constant push and pull between each side in VHS, with both teens and monsters needing to learn when to be aggressive. Monster players need to learn to anticipate how the teens may be co-ordinating instead of blindly chasing down any player they see and walking straight into an ambush.
Hiding spots (lockers) aren't nearly as effective in VHS. Tracking abilities, such as W.A.R.T's Echolocation, as well as being exposed (constant aura visible) will show you even when inside a hiding spot.
