In HUSH [Zombie Extraction], Blue Code Studios’ Roblox co-op PvE extraction shooter, Nightmare is the highest difficulty. It takes place on the same map as Normal and Hard: quarantined Stillwater, where blind infected follow sound and your squad must loot before reaching an exit ahead of the town’s lockdown. Nightmare preserves that objective but makes survival tougher: darkness lasts all raid, bites act faster, unique bosses appear, and a successful extraction awards cash unavailable on lower difficulties.
Quick answer: Nightmare is night-only with fast bites. It hosts the Sergeant Hale and The Surgeon boss tasks, and extracting alive pays a Nightmare cash bonus plus +3 EP. Dying pays nothing.
How Nightmare differs from Normal and Hard
You choose the tier in the lobby before queuing for Stillwater. The game describes each one in a single line, and the gap between them is easy to read.
| Difficulty | In-game description | What it means in a raid |
|---|---|---|
| Normal | The town as it is | Baseline infected and loot |
| Hard | More, faster infected | Denser, quicker swarms |
| Nightmare | Night only, fast bites | Permanent night, quicker infection, bosses |
Nightmare does not bolt on new systems. It leans harder on the ones HUSH already has, so noise, weight, durability, and infection all matter more. Hordes are heavier, armored looters roam the town, and specific bosses only spawn on this tier. Before deploying, the raid screen lists the active Nightmare terms.
- Cash bonus: “NIGHTMARE – 60% of the lost value, paid in cash”
- EP reward: +3 EP
- Trader rep: the extra rep from a looter extraction is awarded only to traders at Lvl 4 or above whose rep is under 150
The standard death rule still applies on every tier. Die inside a raid and you lose everything you carried in, with only your secure case coming home. A “KILLED IN ACTION” screen pays no Nightmare bonus, so a full bag of boss and supply-drop gear can vanish in one fight.
Nightmare raid modifiers and live events
Individual Nightmare raids can roll an extra condition on top of the difficulty. Two have shown up so far, and both change how far your noise and your light travel.
| Modifier | Effect |
|---|---|
| POWER IS OUT | Every street and building lamp is off; you need your own light |
| LOUD NIGHT | Nighttime noise up 40%; quiet steps carry far |
Power Is Out also brings rare night looters into the streets. Loud Night is paired with a 10% cash bonus, which is the game’s way of paying you for the extra risk of every footstep drawing infected from farther off.
Separate from modifiers, Stillwater fires timed events mid-raid, each announced with a banner. Three have appeared during Nightmare nights.
- LOOTERS ARE OUT brings armed humans to posts and adds loot; extracting with their equipment grants a cash bonus equal to 10% of its loot value.
- SUPPLY DROP INBOUND / LANDED brings down a crate marked by a vertical red beacon; its whistle may alert other survivors as well.
- THE SCHOOL HORDE IS AWAKE unleashes a huge wave of enemies from the high school.
The school horde is a different scale of threat from checkpoint waves. Once awake, it forms a long chain of infected that follows you down the main road, and the only workable answer is backing away while firing bursts until the tail thins out.
Nightmare bosses and the tasks tied to them
HUSH lists five bosses in total. Two of them, Sergeant Hale and The Surgeon, are locked to Nightmare and each anchors a trader task. A third Nightmare task, Echo Company, targets armored looters and the Military Gate rather than a named boss.
| Task | Objective | Rewards |
|---|---|---|
| STAND DOWN, SERGEANT | Put down Sergeant Hale, Military Checkpoint | $40,000, +20 Gunner rep, 30x 7.62x39mm AP, title |
| SECOND OPINION | Put down The Surgeon; hand over red blood bags | $30,000, +5 Doc rep, First Aid Kit, title |
| ECHO COMPANY | Extract via Military Gate; kill armored looters at night | $45,000, +5 Gunner rep, Military Armor Rig, title |
Each task also unlocks a matching title: STAND DOWN, SECOND OPINION, and ECHO COMPANY. A finished task is turned in from the tasks menu back in the lobby, which is where the cash, ammo, and reputation land.
Sergeant Hale at the Military Checkpoint
Hale is a Scrapper task target who spends the whole night at the Military Checkpoint with a shotgun and the remains of his squad. His task text frames him as a good soldier who never got his last order. In practice he is heavily armored and flanked by armed and armored infected, and the approach runs through the northern woods and the Quarantine Zone perimeter fence, where alerted swarms and runners collect.
The outpost itself is a bad place to get pinned. Fighting from inside the guard building leaves no exit when the swarm arrives, and a first attempt ended exactly that way, overrun after 16:59 in the raid with 52 kills and +977 XP to show for it.
Hale does not have to die inside the base. He was put down in the woods near the military gate on a second run, after a sustained firefight against swarms and armored guards outside the compound. His body yields a Combat Helmet + Lamp, high-tier armor, and ammunition, and the outpost’s weapon crates and military boxes are worth clearing afterward.
The Surgeon at Stillwater General
The Surgeon belongs to Doc’s Second Opinion task and lives around Stillwater General Hospital, in what the task calls the surgeon ring. Killing him is only half the job. The task also wants red blood bags found in raid, and the hospital’s rooftop helipad supply crate and medical cabinets are where to look. Roaming packs gather around the ambulances in the parking lot, and close-quarters fighting inside the wards is where infections tend to happen.
Infection, fractures, suppressors and weight on Nightmare
Fast bites make infection the defining status effect on this tier. A bite starts a countdown of roughly four minutes, shown on screen as “INFECTED: 3:59 UNTIL YOU TURN”, along with blurred vision. Antiviral Capsules halt or slow it. Run out of time and your character turns and dies.
Physical damage brings its own problems. Fractures slow movement sharply until a Splint is applied, and zombie hits cause bleeding that drains health until you use a Bandage. On a map where outrunning a horde is often the only exit, a broken leg is close to a death sentence.
Suppressors wear out during raids. After about four minutes of steady fighting, one broke with the warning “Suppressor worn out! Your shots are loud again. A workbench can repair it.” From then on every shot is full volume, and a noise meter in the bottom-left of the HUD shows how much attention you are pulling across the map.
Weight penalties arrive in stages, and the second stage is far worse than the first.
- “Overweight! you walk slower.” Movement speed drops.
- “Overweight! you can’t sprint.” This prevents sprinting altogether.
- “No space in your pockets, rig or backpack.” Nothing more can be picked up until you drop something.
Right-click a weapon to remove its attachments individually, including scopes, lights, angled grips, and suppressors. The smaller pieces fit into rig slots, but the heavier guns stay behind; that tradeoff matters on Nightmare, where you can’t outrun a school horde on foot.
Stillwater extraction points on Nightmare
The town map, opened with M, lists every exit and its condition. Highway Roadblock is the only one with no condition attached. Requirements for the others are not fixed and can change from one raid to the next.
| Extract | Requirement |
|---|---|
| Highway Roadblock | Always open |
| Gas Station Pickup | Car battery + fuel can |
| Storm Drain | No backpack |
| Smuggler’s Boat | Crowbar + padlock key, or pay $2,000 |
| Military Gate | Military key card |
| Hospital Helipad | Light a flare on the pad |
Smuggler’s Boat has asked for a crowbar and padlock key in one session and a $2,000 cash payment on the river dock in others. Hospital Helipad also only appears on some maps. The condition shown on your map at spawn is the one that counts.
Highway Roadblock sits between police cruisers and requires holding position inside the zone for an 8-second countdown. Late in every raid an evacuation siren sounds, warning that 4:58 remain before the town is sealed. Anyone still inside when it closes does not get out. A successful exit ends on a green “EXTRACTED” screen, and on this tier it carries the “NIGHTMARE SURVIVED” bonus.
You cannot use Storm Drain while carrying a backpack. Although tasks require an extraction there, that restriction makes it unsuitable for most heavy Nightmare hauls.
What a Nightmare raid pays out
Two successful Nightmare extractions show what the bonuses add up to. One was a solo run that leaned on the Looters Are Out event and a supply drop. The other was the raid that killed Sergeant Hale and left through Smuggler’s Boat.
| Result line | Solo looter run | Sergeant Hale run |
|---|---|---|
| Cash / net raid value | $168,572 | $150,875 |
| Nightmare bonus | +$66,115 | Nightmare Survived |
| Extra loot bonus | +$16,857 (10%) | — |
| XP | 119 | +894 |
| Other | Score +1501, 20:28 raid time | 47 kills |
On the solo run the Nightmare bonus was the largest single addition, and the 10% extra-loot bonus from the looter event stacked on top. The Hale run also paid out the Stand Down, Sergeant task on turn-in, adding $40,000 and 30 rounds of 7.62x39mm AP. Both players spent the money the same way, restocking ammo from Gunner. The lobby’s other traders are Doc, PWS, and Scrapper.
Nightmare loot: weapons and armor
High-end gear on Nightmare comes from dead looters, brutes, bosses, and supply drops. Brutes are among Stillwater’s tougher infected and can carry weapons themselves.
| Item | Type / caliber | Where it turned up |
|---|---|---|
| R-15 Rifle | 5.56x45mm | Starting loadout |
| AVK-42 Rifle | 7.62x39mm | Checkpoint looters, supply drop |
| CB-5 Short Carbine | 5.56x45mm | Brute remains, supply drop |
| Bolt-Action Hunting Rifle (“HUNTER”) | .308 Win | Crate at Highway Roadblock |
| Military Armor Rig | Class 4, 20 slots | Looters, supply drop |
| Combat Helmet + Lamp | Helmet | Sergeant Hale |
The red-beacon supply crate provided the richest haul of all the containers: several AVK-42s and CB-5s, Military Armor Rigs with 100/100 durability, suppressors, and weapon receivers such as the VB-9. Sorting everything with inventory swaps took more than two minutes. In newer footage, Hale started runs carrying an AVK-62 rifle and P17 pistol; searches near Miller Hardware and the Stillwater Diner yielded tools, electronics, and cash for the trip out.
The Halloween lobby and Blackmarket restock
Halloween decorations currently appear on the Stillwater main menu, while the Blackmarket displays a “MARKET RESTOCK LIVE” banner. Restocks last for a limited time, with three crates in rotation. At restock, a Field Case cost $160,000 and was delivered to your stash through the Mail menu. Each crate has an odds window showing rarity percentages and weapon skin chances; the R-15 can have Hazard, Ember, or Static finishes.
| Crate | Opens with |
|---|---|
| Field Case | STANDARD KEY or $333,000 |
| Tacet Case | STANDARD KEY or $333,000 |
| Vault Case | VAULT KEY or $333,000 |
The Blackmarket sells the Violet Flare Shell as well. Where it lands, it summons a cargo helicopter, which lowers a 6 by 6 crate for you to open. Use it only on open ground, and only once per raid. Separate weekly leaderboards cover Normal, Hard, and Nightmare.
HUSH beta status and squad limits
HUSH remains in open beta, and the developers caution that bugs and changes are to be expected; Nightmare’s bonus amounts and extraction rules may change before the full release. For now, raids are PvE, while a PvPvE mode is planned. A raid can hold as many as 12 survivors, divided into squads of up to three friends.
Nightmare’s math is simple once you’ve seen it play out. Permanent night, fast bites, and armored bosses put an entire loadout on the line, and only a live exit converts that risk into the bonus cash, task rewards, and titles this tier is built around.
