Escapes and exits: every way out, where they spawn, and how Michael finds them

What each exit needs

The chart is the short version. The tools themselves are covered on the items page, with the Fuse the one that only the gate uses.

• Bolt cutters cut a storm cellar's chains open. A key opens one too.
• A key does not work on every cellar. When you find a cellar, the left of the screen tells you whether a key will open it.
• Wooden boards over an exit break to any weapon.
• A gun works on the boards too, at the cost of a few bullets.
• A fuse gate is powered with a fuse.
• Slotting the fuse in takes a little time.
• Fuses only work at the gates on the edge of the map.
• A fuse gate also needs bolt cutters, like the other exits.
• A key can open a fuse gate.
• The car needs a repair kit, fuel and keys.
• The car carries up to three people.
• Fixing the car is not the escape. Someone still has to drive it out of town, and the driver escapes with it.
• Michael breaks fuse boxes, power boxes and cars, including the ones civilians have to repair.
• A car Michael has broken can be repaired again with a repair kit.
• Bolt cutters open containers even when their durability is low.

How many exits, and where

Exits do not have one fixed place. Each map has a set of spots where one can appear, and each match picks a few of them. What makes them findable is that the set is small enough to learn.

• Each map has a fixed set of places an exit can appear, and a different few are picked every match.
• Orange Grove Estates has four places a storm cellar can spawn.
• A match has three exits in total, counting storm cellars and escape gates together.
• One blue car spawns every match, in one of four or five places depending on the map.
• Cellars usually spawn behind houses. The fuse gate is on the edge of the map and secluded, so Michael is less likely to check it.
• If you play Michael, learn every spawn spot on each map. It is the fastest way to find exits.

Every possible spot, by map

How many spots each exit type can spawn in on every map. A match only uses a few of them, so a map with up to eight cellar spots will never have eight cellars open.

When an exit fills up

• Exits fill up. Once one is full, no more players can escape through it.
• The icon on a cellar or gate tells you its state: a lock while it is locked, a white circle while it is open (filling up as people use it), a red cross after Michael closes it, and a red circle when it is full.

Playing Michael: finding them

Michael is told an exit has opened, not where. Finding one comes down to knowing the possible spots and going to look. The abilities page has the powers mentioned here, and Michael’s own page has the rest.

• Michael is told when someone is escaping or an exit has opened, but not which exit.
• Once found, exits appear on Michael's map and HUD, and he can see whether each one is locked or open.
• Getting close to an exit reveals it. You get an Escape Discovered message and a sound, and it stays marked on the map for the rest of the match.
• Bloodthirst tier 3 does not reveal exits. Only getting close does.
• Opening an exit is loud, and Michael can hear it from far away.
• Detection Pulse shows victims and occupied structures, not exits.
• Use Detection Pulse to see where civilians are heading and what they carry, such as bolt cutters or a gas can. Following them beats checking every possible spawn.
• Otherwise you learn the possible spawns and check each one in turn.
• That is slow, and with this many spots you will often not get to every exit in time.
• On East Haddonfield, stick to the outskirts when you search for exits.

Playing Michael: shutting them

Closing an exit is the main tool. The rest are ways to make an exit harder to use or slower to reach.

• Michael can close an exit that civilians have opened.
• Civilians can reopen an exit Michael has closed, so expect them to camp a known exit or come back to it.
• Civilians cannot kill Michael while he is interacting with a storm cellar or exit gate.
• Blackout turns off the escape car's electricity so Michael can break the car. It also switches off every powered thing around him and unlocks every locked door.
• Blackout also instantly cancels blinds from flare guns and flashlights, and stuns from firecrackers.
• Michael can break the fences civilians slip past, which helps near exits. A heavy weapon does it quickly; a knife takes too long.

The police wagon

The one exit that takes no equipment. What brings the police call is covered further down.

• The police wagon is an exit that arrives on a countdown after the police have been called.
• While it is on its way, a countdown with a small van icon sits at the top left of the screen.
• The side doors work as well as the back, which matters when Michael is standing at the back.
• Running into the wagon head-on does not kill you. It stops the van early, so you can get in without waiting for it to reach its destination.
• As Michael, step in front of the wagon and it stops in front of you.
• Hiding the bodies of civilians you kill in the street, for example in a parked car, can keep the police from calling the escape van.
• In Shape Jump, Michael does not collide with the police wagon.

Questions with more than one answer

Can Michael escape?

Not by car. Drive Michael's car to the edge of the map and it hits an invisible wall.

Watch the spawns

He walks each map and shows every spawn spot on screen, which is the quickest way to learn the set if you play Michael.

Civilians now discover escapes from farther away than they do in this video.

Questions people arrive with

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