I'm the same guy who created the Pacific Drive for Dummies guide, which you can find here, if you are curious about my bonafides for this game. Guide picture is some generic version of the "confused Jackie Chan meme" that I grabbed from Pinterest; please don't sue, is for funny because confused end users abound these days.

No infringement on anyone's anything is intended by this; just doing my part to help with a communal guide.

Feel free to post or link elsewhere; just please credit me if you do so. That's all I ask.

Yep.

There's tons of people crashing out on various forums, multiposting on threads complaining about how they cannot play the DLC they paid for, yadda yadda. Frankly, I have no idea how people manage to do these things to themselves, but seeing as I managed to get the DLC underway without managing to softlock myself, I guess that qualifies me to make this guide so other people do not suffer a cruel fate.

Whether or not the people who need this sort of guide will be the ones to actually read it is up to time and fate, but here we go.

Spoilers marked mostly for those who have not played the main game yet and thus do not wish their experience spoiled:

It's a couple of missions into the main game storyline. Specifically, it unlocks after you complete the mission in Sierram that has you jumping into Cappy's core..

So you won't be able to do it straight from a new or Jumpstart-new file. See below Discord screenshot from community rep iwblake for confirmation:


[TRANSCRIPTION]
[Anonymized user]: Maybe you can answer this now, starting at which mission will we be exposed to WitW content?
[IW Blake]: Shortly after you jump through Cappy in Sierram


You want to see this prompt:
...and at that point you know you're ready to begin the DLC.

• First, make sure the DLC is purchased before booting up the game. If you purchased it while the game is open, you will likely need to save your file and restart the game before it is registered.
  
• If you are currently on a suspended run, you might need to finish the run, either through exiting a gateway or by just abandoning the run back to the garage. If you choose the latter and do not wish for your things to be lost, toggle the loss/penalty options in the menu off, abandon the run, then toggle them back on when you return to the garage.
  
• When you hit the garage and get a pop-up saying something along the lines of "Thanks for purchasing the Whisper in the Woods DLC" you're good to go.
  
• If you have a file pre-Endless Expeditions, once you return to the garage and get the prompts from Francis to install everything in the ZETI system, you should get the DLC prompt after that.

• You will first need to complete the game up until you are sent to the Sierram mission before the DLC can trigger.
  
• Once you jump through Cappy and arrive back at the garage, you should get a pop-up saying something along the lines of "Thanks for purchasing the Whisper in the Woods DLC," at which point you are good to go.

After you have seen the "Thank you" prompt, there should be a marked Junction with an accompanying quest to go scan a "mysterious signal."
Go there, scan the thing, and make it back to the garage one way or another. It's marked on the minimap; you can't miss it.

After returning from the run that triggers the DLC as mentioned in the previous section, you will be asked to grab a thing called the Whispering Chart from a nearby room in the garage. Put the chart in the ZETI drive.


The long story short is that there are two kinds of WitW missions you can embark on. With the exception of the tutorial mission done with the Whispering Chart, it works like this:

• The Whispering Chart is this game's version of the free-roaming maps. You will unlock more and more Junctions as you go through the story, but there are no requirements to meet before embarking on Chart missions.
  
• The Audio Tapes are WitW's version of story maps. These will be found in the various Junctions you unlock on the Whispering Chart, and you must find each tape before being able to complete those missions. Tape missions come with prerequisites to meet before you are allowed to embark, and have conditions you must abide by during the missions.

So roughly speaking, your first tutorial will be a Chart junction tour, then you find the Tapes while on the Chart missions. Complete the Tapes to unlock more Chart junctions in order to get more Tapes, and so forth.

When interacting with the ZETI system, CLICK the E (interact) key to access the ZETI system's inventory in order to swap between tapes.

This is how you get them back out, especially if you want to return to the main game, which is simply done by leaving the ZETI system empty. I strongly suggest putting the ZETI tapes in the Refrigerator inventory, accessed through clicking on the ZETI drive; that leaves them right there for you to parse through with ease and you don't have to worry about dropping them on the floor and getting lost.

I will be keeping spoilers to a minimum, but by the nature of this guide, some will be unavoidable. Fairly ye be warned.

You will still be driving through various junctions until eventually exiting, either through failing the run or through a gateway, but the gateway mechanics work a bit differently here.

In order to exit a run, you must sacrifice the number of Artifacts (indicated next to the junction on the Route Planner) to an Altar of Sacrifice. As with Anchor prereqs in the main game and Endless Expeditions, not every Junction will allow you to open a gateway (look for the number), and the sacrifice altars will not become available without the prerequisite number of Artifacts.

• You may notice that there are multiple sacrifice altars. As with the main game's gateway points, this is so you have multiple options to leave in case one might be a particularly bad option and you need an alternative.
  
• DO NOT SACRIFICE ARTIFACTS AT MULTIPLE ALTARS unless you have no choice and need to open a different gate in an emergency. They do not add up to a total; one shrine needs the required number to leave.
  
• Once you sacrifice the required artifacts at one altar, the artifacts will disappear and, after a second, coalesce into an item called the Bounty of Shadows that resembles a dumpster pearl.
  
• You may notice some glowing stuff coming off the Bounty of Shadows from the shrine that looks like anime action lines forming a blue wind tunnel. This is the game letting you know the direction you'll need to travel for where the gateway will open.
  
• Once you take the Bounty of Shadows, the gateway will open and the escape will trigger. Use this knowledge to prepare as needed.

You will be given some blue-tinted car parts. Do not destroy those or the game won't let you into the Tape 1 quest. If you did, you'll have return to the chart and get more parts.

A new central mechanic around which WitW is designed is Artifacts. You can find these artifacts at designated Shrines that will let you pick one of two at each shrine.

Most have negative effects or are a tradeoff; some are positive. All Artifacts will subtract from your Synergy, so overload at your own risk.

As long as they are in your car or on your person, the effects of Artifacts work no matter where you are, including in main game runs. Be sure you manage your inventory between each run at the garage.

This is WitW's replacement for the timer mechanic. There is no instability storm in WitW. Rather, you have a visible bar right beneath your health meter that starts at 0 and goes to 100%. As the meter climbs, the game spawns more hazards until you are effectively being flooded with them, making it nearly impossible to avoid damage reliably. The mobs in question move slowly around the map, but some will chase you and others are meant to wander aimlessly.

The Tide meter will always increment no matter what, so you must watch out for this. How quickly it increments, however, is dependent on your Synergy level. Effectively, positive or neutral synergy means the slowest incrementing, while negative synergy makes the incrementing increasingly quicker.

When moving between Junctions, the game will add 10% onto the Tide meter when entering a new Junction. This is done to force the player's hand and encourage them to plan out trips into the Zone.

There are two kinds of relevant hazards related to the Whispering Tide.

• Clusters of goat-headed cultists that, if you run into them, will split up and surround the car. If you drive to close to an individual cultist, it will slap the car for damage. They don't hurt that much individually but there's always quite a few of them in any cluster, so be careful and don't panic-drive through an entire mob. You can tell they are nearby from the screen-warping effects and pronounced jingle of a bell. These will spawn at intervals of 10%, with extras being added to the field at 100% as dedicated chase units.
  
• The Maw, which is effectively a localized Red Storm. You will hear a stomping noise as they get close and, should you get very close, they will start to chase you even if they weren't aggro'd beforehand. The game will let you know if this happens when panicked, intense music starts playing and the screen begins warping. These will spawn at intervals of 25%, with extras being added to the field at 100% as dedicated chase units.

Some story levels change the mechanics on the Tide meter, so be mindful of that.

Watch out for any Artifacts with a "they notice you" modifier, as this will cause the Tide to rise substantially.

The aforementioned meter that encourages/forces you to take Attuned/Harmonic parts. Basically, the higher it is, the better. Possessing Artifacts lowers it, while having Attuned/Harmonic parts raises it. The higher tier the installed part, the more Synergy you get from the part.

This is the alternate health mechanic for Attuned/Harmonic car parts. You cannot repair A/H parts with standard means such as Repair Putty or Blowtorches; instead, you must effectively transfer health from one part to another. You can do this through a Resonator (see below).

A part that's hit "breaking" status (read: lost its first health meter) will not contribute to Synergy, and cannot be used to heal other parts. Like with standard game parts, everything has two health meters; when both are depleted, the part breaks. Only the first health meter on a part can be used to heal other parts; once it hits "breaking" all you can really do is either heal it with a different part or throw it into the scrapper for resources.

Most of your means of getting Harmonic Energy will come from using the many, many Souvenirs scattered about, as well as the many spare car parts lying about. Attuned Capacitors are effectively your batteries for Harmonic Energy, so make sure they're well-fed for emergency use cases.

The new tool that lets you heal Harmonic parts. It is unlocked after Tape 1.

The Resonator has its own "health" meter that depletes with each use; once it's been depleted, you must recharge it at a designated shrine, either at the garage or found out in the wild. Each use of the Resonator costs the same amount of health no matter how much is being transferred, so keep that in mind; you want to ration your uses out in between recharges and not spam them on healing 1 HP on every Crude Panel that just got dinged.

To use the resonator:

• You have to be close enough to the items for the click to register.
  
• First, click on the item you want to transfer health from...
  
• ...then click on the item you want to transfer it to. Simple as. The health transfer is slow but it will eventually get there.
  
• You can have multiple transfer beams going on at once, so remember that.
  
• Once the healing beam is created, it will last until either the healing process finishes or you remove the part in question (disconnect it from the car mid-heal, put it in your backpack) etc. Keep this in mind so you don't waste charges.

• Anchors still spawn very infrequently in this mode. They are there purely for you to take at your discretion.
  
• You can prep a Resonator beam and either drive or otherwise multitask while waiting for the transfer to finish. Use your time efficiently.
  
• Some Artifacts have incredibly useful effects. You may need to do farming runs to find the best ones.

That's it. Go out, and Ride the Wave! Thanks for reading, and enjoy Whispers in the Woods along with the rest of this fantastic title.

I will have a more comprehensive WitW guide, in the vein of my previous one, once I have completed more of WitW.