When night falls youll notice the freakers get way more aggressive, and their attack patterns become much more erratic with faster pursuit speeds. The key is watching their movement signals - they'll do this distinct twitching motion right before charging which gives you about 0. 5 seconds to react. Best positioning is usually near vehicles or buildings that have quick escape routes, and you want to keep at least 15 meters distance when possible since their grab range extends significantly after dark.

During swarm encounters, timing your resource usage becomes critical. The moment you see multiple freakers emerging from a nest, thats your window to toss a molotov - it creates this perfect 3-second stun effect while they're still clustered together. Maybe interesting: placing bear traps about 2 meters apart in a funnel pattern near chokepoints can create really effective kill zones, especially when combined with explosive barrels that have roughly an 8-meter blast radius.

If things get overwhelming remember the bed mechanic lets you skip exactly 12 hours forward, and freakers reset their patrol routes when time advances. The sweet spot for stealth movement is maintaining crouch speed while staying about 4 meters outside their detection radius which expands to roughly 25 meters at night compared to 15 during day. Just watch for that distinct screech sound they make right before calling nearby groups - that's your signal to either create a distraction or find cover immediately cause you've got about 5 seconds before they swarm