How Stalk tiers and executions work

Stalk builds in tiers, and Tier 3 is a gate

Stalk accumulates on a specific target rather than globally. Reaching Tier 3 on that target is what unlocks the named executions — the cash register, the shelf, the campfire, the weight bench, the motorcycle. Below Tier 3 the prompt does not appear at all.

This is the single most useful thing to know about the story mode, because it turns a whole class of apparent bugs into a timing problem. If a challenge names both a victim and an object and nothing is happening when you get there, you have almost certainly not finished stalking rather than found the wrong spot.

It also explains the pacing. Chapter 2 has three separate challenges gated this way, which is why it feels slower than Chapter 1 despite having the same six-challenge structure.

Bloodthirst is a separate meter

Bloodthirst has its own levels and its own gate: Level 3 is what unlocks the Bloodthirsty execution, which is its own challenge in Chapter 4. It is not the same resource as Stalk and it does not fill the same way.

The two are easy to conflate because both are meters that gate an execution behind a threshold. They are separate systems and a challenge asking for one will not accept the other.

Context executions and environment

A Context Execution is the environment-aware kill: grab a target, position them near the relevant object or surface, and the prompt changes. Chapter 1 teaches it against a wall; the prologue teaches it against a telephone pole and a railing.

Michael also has five starting weapons — kitchen knife, hatchet, wood axe, pickaxe and pitchfork — and unlocks additional executions through progression. The game does not publish damage or speed figures for any of the five, so no comparison of them appears on this site.