Passtech Games and Nacon released Ravenswatch on 26 September 2024 after roughly eighteen months in Early Access. Nine heroes taken from folklore, among them Little Red Riding Hood as Scarlet and the fallen monkey king Sun Wukong, fight the Nightmare across three procedurally arranged chapters. Each chapter gives you three days and three nights to grow stronger before its Master Nightmare arrives.
These tips go beyond the basics. They're the strategies experienced players use to play more efficiently, the hidden mechanics most people miss, and the optimizations that compound over a full playthrough. If you're just starting, check our beginner's guide first.
Essential Tips
1. Read the map colours before you move
Read the map colours before you move. Green activities are the accessible ones meant for early in a chapter and red ones are the hardest, so saving red for day three converts your accumulated talents into free progress.
2. Treat the three day clock as your real resource
Treat the three day clock as your real resource. Combat power is easy to find, but a hero who wandered the map inefficiently arrives at the Master Nightmare several levels short no matter how well they fight.
3. Take a teleporter whenever you find one
Take a teleporter whenever you find one. Almost every health shrine and sacrifice shrine can spawn one, and cutting travel time is worth more than the small reward you skipped to reach it.
4. Build talents around one ability rather than spreading them
Build talents around one ability rather than spreading them. With more than 200 talents available, a run that concentrates upgrades on a single ability produces far more damage than one that touches all four evenly.
5. Learn which heroes change at night before committing
Learn which heroes change at night before committing. Scarlet becomes a heavy area damage werewolf after dark and plays nothing like her daytime dagger form, so a fight you would avoid at noon can be the right fight at midnight.
6. In four player runs, coordinate crowd control with slow ultimates
In four player runs, coordinate crowd control with slow ultimates. Wisp Ballet and Plague of Rats both want enemies held in place, and a teammate who groups the pack first roughly doubles what those abilities land.
7. Pick up keys as you pass them rather than backtracking
Pick up keys as you pass them rather than backtracking. Locked chests hold magical items, and the walk back across a chapter costs more clock than the chest is worth once night has fallen.
8. Use sacrifice shrines when your build already works
Use sacrifice shrines when your build already works. They trade something away for power, which is a good deal on a run that is ahead of schedule and a run ending mistake on one that is behind.
9. Unlock the Epilog by clearing Chapter 3 on the higher difficulties
Unlock the Epilog by clearing Chapter 3 on the higher difficulties. It only opens on Twilight, Darkness and Nightmare after the Chapter 3 Master Nightmare falls, and it is where the real difficulty of the game lives.
10. Try Aladdin if runs keep ending early
Try Aladdin if runs keep ending early. He deals melee damage with a scimitar, heals, and flies on the Magic Carpet, which covers survivability, group support and travel speed in one hero.
Advanced Strategies
Build Optimization
The difference between an average build and an optimized one is massive. See our builds guide for full breakdowns.
For Scarlet (A-Tier):
- Focus on Three days and three nights per chapter combinations for maximum output.
- Core gear: Grandmother's Souvenir
- Stat priority: Offensive stats first
For Beowulf (A-Tier):
- Versatile approach that handles any situation.
- Core gear: Raging Chain
- Stat priority: Balanced stats
Mechanic Interactions
Understanding how Ravenswatch's systems interact is where the real optimization lives. Our combat guide covers this in detail.
Three days and three nights per chapter + Talent picks on every level up: A visible clock runs through three full day and night cycles, and everything you do in that window decides how strong you enter the boss fight. Combined with Talent picks on every level up, over 200 talents exist and you choose one each time you level, shaping a hero's four abilities into a specific build.
Day and night hero forms + Magical items from wells and shrines: Several heroes change entirely when night falls. When paired with Magical items from wells and shrines, around 50 magical items are scattered across the maps, held by wells, health shrines, sacrifice shrines and locked chests that need keys.
Four player online co-op scaling: Up to four players share one map and one clock, with matchmaking available. Ability combinations across heroes matter, since one player's crowd control turns another player's slow ultimate into a guaranteed hit.
Equipment Efficiency
| Equipment | Best Use Case | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Grandmother's Souvenir | Night phase clears and packs that stack tightly together | Scarlet's ultimate, and the payoff for building around her night form. |
| Raging Chain | Holding a position in four player co-op and locking down elites | Beowulf's ultimate, matching his sword and shield frontline role. |
| Magic Carpet | Repositioning across a fight and covering distance between activities | Aladdin's ultimate, letting him fly while damaging enemies underneath. |
| Wisp Ballet | Grouped enemies and co-op runs with a crowd control hero | Melusine's ultimate, built around the orbs and water zones she places around the battlefield. |
| Plague of Rats | Slowed or trapped packs and long boss fights | The Pied Piper's ultimate, sending his swarm out to attack and trap enemies rather than hitting them directly. |
Location Efficiency
The Dark Hills (Chapter 1, three days and three nights): Chapter 1, a corrupted countryside of swamps, fields, graveyards, ruins and caves. Mini bosses here include Brigit the White Lady, Mother Ghoul and The Ogre, all of them beatable at low level if you clear activities in the right order.
Hogsden (Chapter 1, day one): The ruined village inside the Dark Hills that the chapter is built around. It concentrates several activities in a small area, which makes it efficient early while the clock still has room in it.
Storm Island (Chapter 2, three days and three nights): Chapter 2, the remains of a huge ancient civilisation with sandy shores and treacherous reefs that have frightened sailors for millennia. Karkinos Scourge of the Reefs, Abu Al Jann, Steropes the Cyclop and Simurgh all appear here.
Avalon (Chapter 3, three days and three nights): Chapter 3, drawing on Arthurian legend. The Coven, Melion the Cursed Knight, Arthur the Fallen King and Mordred the Usurper are the encounters that decide whether a run finishes.
The Epilog (Post campaign, higher difficulties only): A fourth location added for the 1.0 release, opening on the Twilight, Darkness and Nightmare difficulties once you have beaten the Chapter 3 Master Nightmare. It is the content the roster is actually balanced against.
Mistakes Even Veterans Make
- Fighting red activities on day one. They are marked as the hardest content in a chapter and are meant to be saved until your talents have stacked up.
- Spreading talents across all four abilities. Concentrated upgrades win runs, diluted ones produce a hero who cannot kill anything before the clock ends.
- Ignoring the day and night change. Heroes like Scarlet and Melusine swap forms entirely, and playing the night form the way you played the day form throws away their strongest window.
- Skipping teleporters to squeeze in one more fight. Travel time is the scarcest thing in a chapter, and a missed teleporter costs more experience than the fight gave.
- Treating co-op as four solo runs. Ravenswatch is built on ability combinations across heroes, and four players fighting separately lose to encounters that a coordinated group handles easily.
Pro Quick Tips
- Read the map colours before you move. Green activities are the accessible ones meant for early in a chapter and red ones are the hardest, so saving red for day three converts your accumulated talents into free progress.
- Treat the three day clock as your real resource. Combat power is easy to find, but a hero who wandered the map inefficiently arrives at the Master Nightmare several levels short no matter how well they fight.
- Take a teleporter whenever you find one. Almost every health shrine and sacrifice shrine can spawn one, and cutting travel time is worth more than the small reward you skipped to reach it.
- Start with Beowulf, switch to Scarlet when ready
- Invest in Grandmother's Souvenir above everything else
- Clear areas in order: The Dark Hills → Hogsden → Storm Island → Avalon → The Epilog. See our maps guide
- Three days and three nights per chapter + Talent picks on every level up together are stronger than either alone
More Ravenswatch Guides
- Ravenswatch Ravenswatch Overview
- Ravenswatch Best Builds
- Ravenswatch Tier List
- Ravenswatch Walkthrough
- Ravenswatch Beginner's Guide
- Ravenswatch Weapons Guide
- Ravenswatch Combat Guide
- Ravenswatch Boss Guide
- Ravenswatch Maps & Locations
- Ravenswatch Crafting Guide
- Ravenswatch Classes & Characters
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