HUSH: They Can Hear Tips and Tricks: Safer Looting and a Clean Escape

Safer looting in HUSH: They can hear. Read the loudness meter, plan your exit on the map, avoid monsters and hostile players, and extract with your haul.

Quick answer

Loot quietly, plan your exit before you fill your backpack, and call extraction instead of pushing your luck. Monsters hunt by sound, and getting caught costs you everything you carry except your safe pocket.

Watch the loudness meter in the bottom-left HUD: in one recorded run, crouching indoors read 33 dB, walking outside 52 dB, and driving 81 dB.
Use the M map to pick loot stops within reach of a green WAY OUT exit.
Call extraction at the roadside post with [E], then type EXTRACT at the vehicle terminal to leave with your haul.

In HUSH: They can hear, the whole loop is built around noise: monsters hunt by sound, so you sneak in, loot, and get out before they hear you. Everything below serves that one rule — and if this is your first run, the beginner guide covers the full loop step by step.

Know what you're risking

The base inventory screen puts the stake in one line: "Guns in slots 1 and 2, throwables in G. Get caught and you lose all you carry but your safe pocket." Your backpack has 20 slots, and everything in them is on the line the moment you're caught — the safe pocket is the only carried exception.

So treat a haul like it isn't yours yet. At base, the STASH holds 150 slots and a STORE ALL button banks items between runs, and if a run starts going badly, getting out with half a backpack beats losing a full one. The what happens when caught page explains the failure state in detail.

Keep the noise down

A persistent loudness meter sits in the bottom-left of the HUD and shows how much sound you're making right now. Readings from one recorded run:

What you're doing	Meter reading
Crouched, indoors	33 dB
Walking outside	52 dB
Driving	81 dB

Exact values vary with the situation; driving was by far the loudest reading that run showed. The status line adds modifiers such as FOG ("drowns out 1 dB") and "indoors -8 dB".

One creator's tips video adds that houses make you slightly quieter — enough to walk instead of crouch inside — which matches the meter's indoors modifier. The meter, its modifiers and that indoors bonus are the full quiet-movement toolkit.

Vehicles are the exception to quiet travel. They cover ground fast but read 81 dB while driving, so use them to reach a far exit, not to crawl past loot spots. Practical notes from the same run: a yellow van showed [F] BREAK IN with keys found inside, a blue pickup needed the HOTWIRE mini-game (press SPACE when the pointer reaches the green sector), and jumping out of a still-moving vehicle costs HP. The hotwire guide breaks down the mini-game.

Plan loot and exit together

Press M to raise the paper map. Its legend marks red BEST LOOT, yellow BETTER LOOT, green WAY OUT exits and a red YOU dot, across named sites like RADIO HILL, PRECINCT 9, MERCY HILL, SUNSHINE FARM, NORTH GATE and THE FARM TRACK. Decide where you're looting and where you're leaving before you commit: loot grabbed near a green WAY OUT costs a short walk when things go wrong, while a long cross-town sprint with a full backpack leaves you exposed the entire way.

The best loot locations guide explains the map in detail and covers the richest sites.

If a monster gets close

In one recorded encounter, a player crouched motionless behind a door they shut with [E] while a large multi-limbed monster walked straight past the doorway without attacking. That fits the sound-based hunting, but it's a single observed pass — treat crouching still behind a shut door as a last resort, not a reliable tactic.

The safer habit is never entering the fight at all. Gunshots are dangerously loud, and one creator's advice is simply to stay out of combat; the combat guide covers what to do when avoidance fails.

Watch the other raiders

People are a second risk to your haul. The official description warns "Some people aren't as friendly," and in one streamer's session armed players attacked repeatedly — including one run where they lost a full bag of food and supplies after being caught without a weapon. A single gunshot can turn a quiet street into a desperate escape, so a fight over loot can cost the loot either way. Avoiding conflict keeps both threats quiet.

Get out through an exit

Extraction is the moment the haul becomes yours:

Find a green WAY OUT marker on the map — THE FARM TRACK and NORTH GATE are two of them — and head to its roadside extraction post.
Press [E] CALL EXTRACTION. The post lamp turns red and a countdown starts (it ran 72 seconds in one recorded call).
When the evac vehicle arrives, enter its terminal and press [E] TYPE EXTRACT — the panel offers "leave now, or wait" — then hold E until "Extracting, the doors are shutting."
The run ends on a YOU MADE IT OUT screen with a +1 skill point, and everything you carried is finally yours.

Back at base, STORE ALL moves the haul into the stash; when you're ready to cash in, the shop location page covers turning loot into credits. The escape guide goes deeper on route planning.

Community tips worth trying

One creator's tips video also suggests these habits for keeping runs productive:

Tips

Hit the rich spots first

The hospital, helipad and old town are named as the best places for supplies.

Bring a light source

Night vision goggles or a flashlight improve visibility — the creator recommends night vision.

Bring friends

The creator advises always bringing friends so you are stronger.

If you're kitting up for a darker run, the flashlight and night vision guide covers the options.