The Volatiles, the 666 and the revolver: the seven combat feats

Gunslinger: the spot that makes twenty seconds plenty

Gunslinger — 25.14%. Land 6 headshots in under 20 seconds with a revolver.

It sounds tight and it is not: twenty seconds across six shots is over three seconds per shot. There is time to aim calmly. What you need is a place where the zombies stand still and bunched up, and that place exists.

The statue outside the town hall. Climb it, draw zombies to the base and shoot from above. Up there they cannot reach you, they barely move and the angle is already set.

Two warnings that save a retry:

- Ignore the Virals. They move too much and make you miss, and one miss eats three seconds of your margin. - Reload between batches. Running dry halfway through the count is the most common way to lose the attempt.

House Special — 74.09%. Kill an enemy with a Quick Kick. It is the first skill on the Strength tree and costs a single point, so you can have it ten minutes into the game. You perform it by jumping and pressing the action button twice.

And the trick that makes it instant: use it on a rooftop or beside a ledge. The kick knocks the enemy backwards and a fall kills them outright, without the kick needing to deal enough damage itself.

The Volatiles: why melee is a bad idea

Apex Predator — 83.46%. Kill a Volatile.

Volatiles are the zombies that only come out at night: they run faster than you at full sprint, soak enormous damage and empty your health bar in seconds.

Head-on with a melee weapon is a bad idea. The practical answer is throwables, mines, C4 or the saw launcher: heavy damage without letting them close.

That 83.46% is far higher than the description suggests, and the reason is simple: the story forces you to run into them. It is not a trophy you need to hunt.

The same applies to its upgraded version, I'm the Alpha Now, the Volatile alpha added in a later update: same approach, more margin. Throwables, mines and C4 before melee, and at night you have nowhere to hide.

Experiment Loose — 99.07%. Defeat your first chimera. It pops practically on its own: it is the reference trophy against which to read every other combat percentage in the game.

The three counters: 500, 666 and 112

Hexakosioihexekontahexaphobia — 19.44%. Kill 666 enemies using the beast powers. The name is the term for fear of the number 666.

It is not hard, it is cumulative: use the powers normally and it falls on its own. And since the powers are this game's central mechanic, the only way to miss it is playing deliberately without them.

These Things Aren't Funny — 36.3%. Kill 500 zombies with your vehicle.

It is a pure counter and comes on its own if you travel by driving rather than on foot. Five hundred sounds like a lot and is not: a road with a horde leaves dozens per pass.

And there is a useful overlap: the driving skills you buy for Travis's races — efficient driving and collision expert — also make roadkill more productive. Buy them for Kylin McCrane and this trophy accelerates by itself.

Emergency Pyromaniac — 20.47%. Kill 112 enemies with the flamethrower.

It is the most resistant of the three, and not through difficulty: it is that the flamethrower is not the weapon anyone picks when the map is full of better options. As with Blacksmith and its 50 repairs, the obstacle is habit.

The way to avoid giving it a session of its own: take it while doing the safe zones. Dense zombie groups in enclosed spaces are exactly where the flamethrower pays, and exactly what the map's 23 safe zones contain.