It can be hard to see weakspots and nest nodes with default settings (red, yellow respectively) as they can be camouflaged. I've been using custom colours since last year that I had to change back to default to remember what the typical player sees.

I prefer white as it contrasts well with other colours but doesn't look unnatural.


Another key benefit with changing weakspot color (at least for me):
You can easily tell from a distance whether a snitcher is mutated without knowing corruption cards or the colour of the Christmas lights on its neck.

A refresher:
Mutated snitchers have red Christmas lights and always call a horde when killed.
Regular snitchers have yellow Christmas lights and can be killed without calling a horde.


Notice the mutated snitcher doesn't appear to have a weakspot on its neck. Its neck is always some dull creamy colour with red veins regardless of your weakspot color settings.


By default, the regular snitchers have a red weakspot on its neck. The bold red is pretty obvious so why change it? Some players may see red and get confused with it being a mutated snitcher. And we also want to change weakspot to something other than red since it can be less obvious on other mutations.


Here is the same regular snitcher with weakspot colour changed to white.

I always snipe snitchers out of habit when I see their bold, white glow-in-the-dark necks. I don't bother to look for any snitcher corruption cards or at their Christmas lights.

In the heat of battle, this might help avoid friendly fire as other cleaners won't look like zombies or camouflaged.

Here's Heng covered in blood.

Here's Heng with Blood Drench off.

It's hard to pewpew if camera shake is messing up your aim or causing motion sickness. Camera shake is most noticeable when a boss is around, so you can test settings to your liking at a boss spawn offline. I leave it on at a low number just to know if a boss is on my tail. But overall, I find camera shake is unhelpful at best.

I find the game pretty dark in general even with a bright IPS monitor.
I don't have it at max because it backfires in a few places that are very bright and bloomy.

For certain areas in Act 3 with "The Dark" corruption, my friends and I could barely see anything in front even with increased brightness.
Brightness 75, default contrast (50)


Brightness 75, contrast 30

Lowering the contrast significantly improves night vision. It has a more noticeable effect than increasing brightness. But too low (0 - 20ish) will make the game look too washed out, which also backfires for very foggy areas. I've found contrast 35 to be a good set-and-forget contrast without making the colours too washed out.

Increase FOV to improve peripheral vision. But increasing it too high distorts the view and gives the "fishbowl effect". Distant objects will be harder to see. I've found FOV 100-105 to be a good balance.

FOV 90 default

FOV 95

FOV 100

FOV 105

FOV 120 max

The banter gets old after hearing it a hundred times. I keep dialogue audible enough to hear when characters give cues such as "out of ammo" or when they spot items and hives.

I find the music bland overall and sometimes nauseating. I keep it low so I can hear the baddies around me. I leave it on to make Bar Room Blitz enjoyable and to hear Hag spawns.

I play with headphones that are easy to drive so I keep certain volumes low.
You'll have to play around with volume to see what works for your audio setup.



These are important settings as the default is off (or at least used to be). It'll alert you to when Mutations and Bosses are spawning or lurking.

Most of the dialogue is unhelpful and is just visual noise.

Unfortunately, the setting for Cultists' dialogue and actions is merged. Cultists give themselves away by talking, and their constant dialogue clutters up ambient and ridden subtitles.

Weakspots: white
Nest nodes: white
Blood/Vomit/Mud Drench: off
Camera Motion Strength: 0 - 30
Cleaner Dialogue Subtitles: off
Ambient Subtitles: on
Ridden Subtitles: on
Children of the Worm Subtitles: off

Brightness: ~70 - 80
Contrast: ~35 (all-purpose, set-and-forget), ~20 - 35 (for very dark levels), ~35 - 50 (for very foggy levels)
Cleaner Field of View: 100-105

Dialogue volume: ~20 - 40
Music volume: 0 - 10 (or to taste)
Master volume, SFX volume: at least 2-3x higher than dialogue/music

These numbers are just guidelines. Tinker and see what works best.


Thanks for reading! Check out my other guides::
https://steamproxy.net/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2904525297

https://steamproxy.net/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2670543389

https://steamproxy.net/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2929276667


No permission was given for anyone to copy, or publish this guide on another platform.