Pressure has fifteen entities. Each announces itself with a unique audio cue before attacking. You die because you do not recognize the sounds yet. This guide maps sound to entity to seconds to respond to action.
A clean high-pitched screech getting louder: Rush. 3.5 seconds. Enter the nearest closet immediately — not in 2 seconds, not after looting. The instant you hear the screech, move. Exit after it passes. The common death is freezing for 2 seconds, then spending 1.5 seconds looking for a closet, entering at 3.2 seconds with 0.3 seconds to spare. Rush has killed more beginners than all other entities combined. Learn its sound first.
A distorted glitchy lower-pitched screech that wavers: Ambush. 3.5 seconds before first pass, then 2-5 seconds between passes. Enter the nearest closet. Count to 3 after every pass. If 3 seconds pass with silence, exit. If another screech comes within 3 seconds, stay and count again. Passes 2-6 times. The common death: exiting between passes. Never assume the sequence is over. Count.
A whisper of “psst” in a dark room: Screech. 3 seconds. Spin a full 360 degrees smoothly. Screech’s glowing white eyes are visible in peripheral vision. The moment your crosshair crosses its eyes, it disappears and you take zero damage. The common death: spinning too slowly in panicked jerky movements.
Heavy breathing and heavy footsteps: Figure. Detection is instant if you move during its listen phase. Walk only. Crouch-walk is better. When footsteps stop and breathing becomes audible, freeze completely. Figure is blind and tracks only by sound. Unbind sprint if you keep accidentally pressing it.
Low humming with a purple screen tint: Eyes. Detection is instant on room entry. Immediately look at the floor. Navigate by peripheral vision and wall-following. Looking at Eyes drains roughly 8% HP per second. A 3-second glance costs a quarter of your health.
A loud roar with heavy charging footsteps: Grumble (The Mines). 2 seconds from roar to charge. Freeze. Grumble tracks movement. Wait 8-15 seconds for it to reposition. Walk to the exit when it moves. Look up at the ceiling when entering every Mines room. The Hotel never taught you to look up.
Wet gurgling and splashing: Giggle swarms (The Mines). Continuous chip damage. Sprint through. Do not fight. Giggles are slow and cannot catch a sprinting player. The death: standing your ground, fighting, dying to accumulated chip damage over 15 seconds.
The learning order: Rush first (kills more beginners than all others combined), Ambush second (multi-pass mechanic), Screech third (easy counter, need headphones), Figure fourth (only at Doors 50 and 100), Eyes fifth (simple fix, look at floor). Master these five and survive 95 percent of encounters. The remaining ten entities are situational and learned through exposure. Ten minutes of audio study — listening to Rush and Ambush side by side — replaces 3 hours of dying. Do the 3-minute drill: sprint through rooms, let entities kill you, restart. Thirty minutes gives you 15-20 Rush encounters versus 5 in 2 hours of careful play.