How do you control DEADWORK?

WASD moves, mouse aims, left click fires. Space jumps, Ctrl crouches and C goes prone. Movement is Quake-style: hold a strafe key and steer the mouse in the same direction while airborne to gain speed, and keep jumping the instant you land to hold it. Number keys swap weapons, E uses the company store, and R reloads.

What's the best strategy for DEADWORK?

Keep moving and keep quiet. The Creep hunts by sound, so every shot tells it where you are — the Surveyor's damper exists precisely to break that link. Spend scrip early rather than hoarding it, because scrip does not carry between shifts. Battle Sense and Light Weapons are the two skills every role earns, so staying in the fight and firing your standard-issue gun pay off no matter who you signed on as.

Does anything carry over between runs in DEADWORK?

No. You are paid in scrip, which is company money redeemable at the company store on site and worthless the moment you are off the lease. Field skill works the same way — every shift starts you at nothing, so the players who last are the ones who level fastest with the Creep already in the drift.

Is DEADWORK free to play?

Yes. DEADWORK is free to play directly in your browser on Legitsauce. No download, no signup, no in-app purchases required.

DEADWORK — Free Class-Based Wave Shooter Browser Game

About the game

The company has been sinking shafts for a hundred and forty years, and at No. 4 it went far enough. The seam assayed like nothing on the tables, the crew kept cutting because the crew is paid to cut, and then the seam stopped behaving like rock. What comes back up the shafts is called the Creep — crystalline masses that move, each one a different ore, none of them with a face, because there is nothing to see by that far down and whatever grew down there never bothered with eyes.

DEADWORK is a first-person survival shooter built on Quake-style movement: strafe-jumping, bunny-hopping and trick-jumping are not exploits here, they are the skill floor. You sign on for a sixteen-shift tour in one of five roles, earn field skill as you work, spend scrip at the company store between shifts, and try to still be standing when the thing the ore was actually part of comes up to collect.

Screenshots

The Pit — haul roads became lanes
No. 4 Cut — an asteroid sliced in half

How to play

Controls

Move: WASD. Space jumps, Ctrl crouches, C goes prone.
Fight: mouse aims, left click fires, R reloads, number keys swap weapons.
Work: E uses the company store and your role's gear between shifts.
Strafe-jump: hold one strafe key and steer the mouse the same way while airborne to gain speed, then jump the instant you land to keep it.

The five roles

Rigger — rigs and maintains the gear, which here means cutting sentries.
Powder — the shotfirer. Carries what nobody else can lift.
Sparks — works the radio. Calls the surface, and the surface answers.
Surveyor — the one job on a mine that is about looking at things a long way off.
Doc — nobody else gets you back up off the floor.

Tips & strategy

Keep moving and keep quiet. The Creep hunts by sound, so every shot you take tells it exactly where you are — the Surveyor's damper exists precisely to break that link, and a crew that stays low is a crew it walks past. Spend scrip the shift you earn it rather than hoarding: it does not carry over, and an upgrade you never bought is worth nothing at the end. Battle Sense and Light Weapons are the two skills every role earns, so staying in the fight and firing your standard-issue gun pay off whoever you signed on as.

Fullscreen

Hit the Fullscreen button in the bar above the play area to expand. To exit, press Esc (or swipe down from the top edge on touch) and tap the Exit button that slides in.

Tactics notebook

Core loop

DEADWORK is a movement game wearing a shooter's clothes. Standing still to aim is how runs end: almost every creature in the catalog telegraphs its swing with a wind-up, and that wind-up is a window you can only use if you already have speed. Learning to strafe-jump is worth more than any weapon in the store, because it converts every telegraph into a free reposition.

Early priorities

Take the shifts before the first heavy spawn as skill-farming time rather than survival time. Battle Sense pays for dealing and taking damage, so contesting a spawn point early banks progress you cannot buy later. Resist the instinct to save scrip for something expensive — nothing carries between shifts, so an unspent balance at the end of a tour was simply wasted.

Reading the Creep

Each family behaves differently and the silhouette tells you which one is coming. The lean, fast shapes close the distance and swing; the winged ones hold station off to your side and bite from an angle you are not looking at; the heavy galena shapes soak far more than they should and are usually better ignored until the lighter ones are down. Flyers cannot be out-run in the open, so fight them where the geometry gives you a ceiling.

Challenge curve

The last third of a tour is tuned around the assumption that you have a levelled skill or two and know one map well. If the Cosmic Leviathan is catching you underpowered, the fix is usually not more caution but more aggression earlier — the economy and the skill curve both reward players who were in the fight during the shifts that were still survivable.