The R.E.P.O. Survival Manual

R.E.P.O. by Semiwork has quickly become one of the most intense co-op horror experiences out there. As a Semibot, every extraction is a gamble — grab valuable loot while avoiding monsters that each have unique AI behaviors and weaknesses. Our guides are built from hundreds of hours of squad play, covering everything from beginner walkthroughs and monster tactics to Service Station upgrade priorities and advanced solo strategies. We've tested every approach so you don't have to lose your haul learning the hard way.

What R.E.P.O. Actually Is (It's Not a Shooter)

R.E.P.O. is a co-op survival horror roguelike from Semiwork, a Swedish studio. You play a Semibot — a debt-collector robot working for a mysterious AI overlord. Your job is simple on paper: walk into a haunted industrial building, grab physics-based loot, and reach the extraction point before the monsters reach you.

Forget hit points and headshots. Everything you carry has real weight and inertia. A heavy painting slows you down far more than a box of jewelry. Drop something loud and every sound-hunting monster in the building knows exactly where you are. That physics engine is the whole game — the comedy and the horror both come from it.

How Monster AI Works: The Three Detection Systems

Every monster in R.E.P.O. falls into one of three buckets. Figure out which one you're up against and survival gets a lot easier:

• Sound hunters are effectively blind, but their hearing radius runs 15–20 meters. Crouch-walk everywhere near them. Throw a small object into a far corner and slip past the other way — it works about 70% of the time.
• Sight monsters can't hear you, but their vision cones are wide. Break line of sight and keep it broken. Duck behind furniture, close doors, use pillars.
• Proximity enemies don't need sight or sound at all. Distance is your only defense.

The full breakdown — all 12 monster types, their attack patterns, and exact counter tactics — is in our monster guide.

The Upgrade Order That Keeps You Alive

The Service Station between maps is where runs are won or lost. Here's the order that actually matters:

• Stamina first. It's the single most impactful upgrade in the game. Without it you can't carry heavy loot, can't sprint long enough to escape, and you drop items more often.
• Health Pack second. You start with almost nothing — two hits and you're scrap metal. One extra health pip means surviving one mistake per run.
• Weapons last. The starting shove works fine on the first few maps. Don't be the player who wastes 2,000 SURPLUS on a weapon that weighs too much and gets you caught more, not less.

The complete upgrade priority list, with credit costs for every option, is in our upgrades and loadouts guide.

Mistakes That End Runs

• Sprinting while carrying a crystal vase. The vase shatters, the quota isn't met, and your teammates leave you for dead.
• Buying a weapon before Stamina. It looks cool and has big damage numbers — it also slows you down enough that monsters catch you more often.
• Using an open mic. A dog bark has ended runs because it alerted a sound monster.

If you're new, start with our beginner's guide — it's the 60-hours-of-mistakes shortcut.