Ashfall

About Ashfall

Ashfall is a survival shooter with a campaign rather than a score screen. Eleven chapters run through a city that has already lost, and each one sets a goal — hold a position, clear a route, get someone out — instead of a wave counter.

What carries between them is a small, honest progression: XP and credits from the work you did, spent on health, damage and ammunition. There are three upgrade lines and never enough credits for all of them, which is the decision the game actually asks you to make.

Three difficulties, and they mean it

Story, Resistance and Veteran change how much the machines forgive. Story is for the campaign; Veteran expects you to know where the ammunition is before you need it.

Controls

WASD to move, Shift to sprint, C to crouch and Space to jump. Hold the right mouse button to aim and the left to fire, 1 and 2 change weapon, R reloads, H uses a medkit and E interacts. F boards or leaves a vehicle, and P or Escape pauses. The map key, M, is worth learning early — it is how you find the route rather than the enemy.

How to play Ashfall

1. Press Career mode on the title screen and choose an unlocked chapter. Set your difficulty under Controls & settings first if you want something other than Resistance.
2. Click the scene to capture the mouse. Move with WASD, sprint with Shift, crouch with C and jump with Space, which uses stamina.
3. Hold the right mouse button to aim and the left to fire. Press 1 for the AR-9 assault rifle and 2 for the BREACH-8 shotgun, R to reload and H to use a medkit.
4. Follow the amber marker to your objective. Most tasks are done by holding E: establishing an uplink at the relay, opening a supply cache or evacuating at the green beacon.
5. From the sixth chapter onwards you will need vehicles. F boards and exits, W and S control the throttle, A and D steer and Space brakes. Slow to under 11 km/h before you try to get out.
6. Press M for the map and click it to drop a waypoint when the route is not obvious.
7. Complete the chapter to earn credits and XP, spend them on upgrades in the career screen, then choose Next mission.

Ashfall tips and strategy

• Aim before you shoot. Holding the right mouse button cuts your spread to well under a third, which matters most with the shotgun. Its 8 shells each fire seven pellets, so it is deadly up close and wasteful at range, where the 30-round rifle does the work.
• Break line of sight with hunters. Red-eyed machine hunters take roughly twice the punishment of the infected and charge their shots before firing, so duck behind cover when they wind up. Head hits rupture their core, and each one destroyed gives back 12 rifle rounds.
• Heal from cover. A medkit takes a couple of seconds to apply and cannot be used while you are reloading. Step out of the line of fire before pressing H, not in the middle of a firefight.
• Open every cache. Supply caches either add a medkit or top up both guns' reserves, with 90 extra rifle rounds. A route past an unopened cache is usually worth the short detour.
• Buy the first level of everything early. Each upgrade line costs 180, 300 and then 420 credits. Vitality adds 10 maximum health, Ballistics adds 8% damage and Supply adds 30 rounds and 8 shells. First levels are the cheapest gains in the game.
• Kills pay as well as objectives. A cleared chapter pays a base reward that rises with each later chapter, plus 5 credits and 12 XP for every kill. A careful, thorough run is worth more than a fast one.
• Pick up side contracts while you drive. Visiting four districts, covering enough distance at the wheel and running down six enemies with a vehicle each pay bonus credits and 80 XP.

The eleven chapters

The first five chapters need no vehicle and teach the core jobs one at a time. Last Signal has you restore the relay and hold the uplink, Dead Streets asks for 14 infected cleared, Steel Rain sets five machine hunters as the target, Night Watch is a 90-second siege that grows worse as it goes, and Final Corridor stretches the uplink to 75 seconds.

From Blackwater Run onwards the chapters become routes across the city with several steps each. You carry an engine core from the harbour to the foundry, deliver medicine in Medical Mile, drive a bus of six survivors in The Last Bus, board a moving train in Night Freight and knock out three systems in Foundry Sabotage. Across the Ashes ties it all together with a rescue chain across four districts. Clearing all eleven leaves the chapters open to replay for better records.