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Two types of threat
Blight: Survival has two broad categories of enemies. First, Blighted creatures, the reanimated dead twisted by the fungal infection into new forms. Second, human enemies: soldiers, knights, and bandits still fighting the war or trying to survive in No Man's Land. Some encounters pit players against both at once. Some infected retain twisted remnants of their former selves, including the ability to wield weapons, which makes them especially dangerous.
Blighted enemy categories
The developers confirmed six categories of Blighted enemies. The design direction was partly shaped by a community poll conducted on Twitter/X in May 2023, where fans voted on which enemy concepts they wanted to see developed. The six categories are:
Hybrids
Animals fused with humans. The Blight doesn't distinguish between species when it reanimates and combines dead matter. A horse and its fallen rider might become one creature. The results are unpredictable in both appearance and combat behavior. These enemies are among the most visually striking because they combine body plans that were never meant to coexist.
Armoreds
Humans and infected organisms merged together, retaining pieces of armor from their former lives. These are tougher than standard infected because the armor still provides real protection, and the Blight has grown around and through the metal and leather. Attacking the armored sections is less effective than finding exposed weak points. The directional combat system makes these encounters tactical puzzles rather than damage races.
Hiddens
Infected that play dead or hide among the corpses littering No Man's Land, reanimating when players get close. Not every body on the ground is just scenery. Hiddens exploit this ambiguity to ambush unwary players. They make the environment itself feel threatening, which feeds into the horror atmosphere. Cautious players learn to watch for subtle signs of dormant infected before walking past them.
Mini-bosses
Larger creatures formed from multiple organisms fused together. These represent the Blight at its most extreme. The combination of several bodies into one mass produces something that fights with more aggression and durability than any individual infected. Mini-bosses require coordinated team effort in co-op or careful, patient solo play to bring down. They often serve as the high-stakes encounters that make extraction feel earned.
Swelters
Heavily infected creatures formed from the merging of two enemies that emit airborne toxic spores. Swelters create hazardous zones around themselves, forcing players to either deal with them from range, rush in and kill them fast, or find a way around. The toxic gas lingers after the Swelter is killed, so positioning matters even after the fight. In enclosed spaces like dungeons, a Swelter can make an entire corridor impassable for a period.
Decayeds
Old, decomposing infected that have been reanimated for a long time and are falling apart. They're weaker individually but appear in groups. Their decayed state makes them slower, but it also makes their behavior more erratic. A Decayed might stumble unpredictably or collapse partway through an attack, making their timing harder to read than stronger enemies with consistent patterns.
Named enemy types
Item | Description |
|---|---|
Rattlers | The most common Blighted enemies. Reanimated peasants or knights that shamble and attack. Rattlers are the baseline threat on every run. They're manageable individually but dangerous in groups, especially when they swarm a player already engaged with a tougher enemy |
Bellowers | Merged creatures that scream to attract more infected to the player's position. Killing a Bellower quickly is a priority. If the scream goes off, it brings waves of Rattlers and worse. A single Bellower turning a quiet stretch of map into a swarming fight is one of the game's tension spikes |
Nightstalkers | Revealed in the September 2025 devlog in early development form. The developers described Nightstalkers internally as "one of those encounters the developers want players to approach with caution." A Nightstalker finisher animation was shown, created by principal animator Richard. The visual design was still being finalized as of the devlog, but the enemy is already functional in the dev build |
Human enemies
Enemy knights, bandits, and soldiers populate No Man's Land alongside the Blighted. These human combatants use the same combat mechanics the player does, making fights against them feel like duels rather than monster hunts. They can parry, dodge, and use directional attacks. Some still serve one of the two warring kingdoms. Others are just desperate survivors trying to make it through the same wasteland the Writhen are operating in.
Multi-stage enemies
The developers confirmed multi-stage enemies that change behavior or form as the fight progresses. This applies to both mini-bosses and certain regular enemies. The dismemberment system feeds directly into this. An infected that loses a limb doesn't just take less damage and keep going. It adapts, changing its attack patterns and movement to compensate. A one-armed Blighted might charge more recklessly. A legless one might drag itself toward you with surprising speed. The fights evolve as you damage the enemy.