HUNTRESS Spider Chase Guide: How to Survive When the Giant Spider Hunts You

When the giant spider is actively hunting you in HUNTRESS, do not run. The game's tutorial is blunt about it: you can't outrun it. The response it teaches is to crouch into a metal duct and wait for the spider to leave — with the explicit warning "just don't push your luck." Everything else about surviving a chase follows from that one move.

What to do the moment a hunt starts

1. Stop searching. The spider hears the noises you make — anything you drop, any drawer you open. Every drawer you yank open mid-hunt tells it where you are.
2. Head for the nearest metal duct. A straight sprint won't save you; the tutorial rules out outrunning it entirely. If you know the building layout before the lights flicker, you'll already know which way to go.
3. Crouch in and wait it out. Stay put until the spider has moved off.
4. Don't push your luck. That is the tutorial's own warning. Leaving before you're confident the spider has moved off is a risk, so err on the side of waiting a little longer.

A recorded first attempt shows the whole loop in motion — the flicker warning, the duck into a duct, and the wait for the spider to move off:

How to know the spider is on your floor

• Normal mode: watch the lamps. When the lights flicker, the spider is on your floor and getting close. Players consistently report that the flicker is subtle and easy to miss or misread mid-panic — so treat a suspicious flicker as your cue to hide, not something to wait around and confirm. It also helps to look up now and then: the spider crawls on the ceilings.
• Nightmare mode: listen for footsteps. The lamps are no help there — the lights are off and only your flashlight works. Instead, hearing the spider's steps means it is on your floor and closing in, so sound is the warning to play around.
• The radar: a shortcut to its position. This optional purchasable item shows you where the spider is for 20 seconds, then needs 120 seconds to recharge. Once bought, it's yours permanently. Players who haven't bought it simply fall back on the lamps and sound.

If it catches you anyway

You get two tries (two lives) per run, so one mistake doesn't end everything. In multiplayer, a teammate who is still alive can revive you — and a revived player comes back alive rather than restarting. One player also noticed the game appears to save their progress after a death, letting them keep collecting for the escape; that's a hopeful impression rather than a confirmed rule, but with two lives and revives, getting caught is a setback, not an automatic run-ender. The multiplayer guide covers co-op survival in more detail.

Getting back to the escape

A hunt doesn't pause your objective. While the spider stalks the building, you're still collecting the key, the detonator code, and four sticks of dynamite to blow the gate and get out — hiding in the vents when it hunts is officially part of that loop, not a detour from it. Each run, your job is to search the building for the key, the code and those four sticks of dynamite, so the rhythm is: hide when it comes, resume searching when it goes.

For the finer points of tucking yourself away, see the HUNTRESS hiding guide and the known vent locations. When you're ready to finish the run, the escape walkthrough, the guide on how to find dynamite, and the steps for how to open the gate take you the rest of the way.