HUSH They Can Hear Crouch Keybinds, Decibels, and Sneaking
Crouching in HUSH: They can hear requires pressing C on foot to lower your movement volume and avoid sound-hunting creatures. Sneaking drops noise down to 33 decibels indoors, keeping your position concealed while looting buildings and navigating toward extraction points.
Crouching in HUSH: They can hear requires pressing C on foot to lower your movement volume and avoid sound-hunting creatures. Sneaking drops noise down to 33 decibels indoors, keeping your position concealed while looting buildings and navigating toward extraction points.
Crouch Controls and Movement Modifiers
Stealth on foot relies on default keyboard bindings provided in the official controls list. Pressing C while standing drops your character into a crouch. Combining this input with movement lets you sneak across floors without triggering the auditory perception of nearby threats.
Pressing C while holding Shift executes a slide, which lets you quickly clear doorways or duck behind low obstacles during sudden encounters. When evasive action is needed, pressing Alt causes your character to dive. Moving across open areas requires balancing these inputs with regular WASD locomotion, jumping with Space, and using Shift when you must sprint away from immediate danger.
Noise Meter and Decibel Reductions
The bottom-left corner of the HUD displays a persistent loudness meter that tracks the decibel (dB) output of your character in real time. Sound alerts hostiles, making the decibel count the primary measurement of your stealth rating during an active raid.
Recorded runs demonstrate how stance and environment directly modify your output. Crouching indoors registers at roughly 33 dB, whereas standard walking outside rises to 52 dB. Operating a vehicle produces 81 dB, making driving the loudest recorded action in the game. Environmental conditions provide situational modifiers that appear on the status line next to the meter. Enclosed indoor rooms apply an automatic -8 dB reduction to your noise profile, and foggy weather conditions drown out 1 dB. Understanding these sound mechanics allows you to pace your movement through high-risk urban sectors.
Stance Comparison for Raids
Choosing how to move through town determines whether hostile entities converge on your position or allow you to loot undisturbed.
| Movement Option | Recommended Scenario | Sound and Risk Trade-off |
|---|---|---|
| Crouching (C) | Searching interiors and bypassing nearby threats | Lowest sound output at 33 dB indoors; slower movement speed |
| Walking (WASD) | Crossing clear exterior roads between structures | Moderate sound at 52 dB outside; balanced speed without stamina drain |
| Running (Shift) | Fleeing active pursuit toward an escape zone | High auditory footprint; triggers creature investigations across large radiuses |
Evading Hostile Entities While Looting
Predatory monsters roam the streets of town and react aggressively to auditory disturbances. In recorded gameplay, maintaining a stationary crouch behind a closed interior door allowed a player to avoid detection entirely while a multi-limbed entity walked past the room entrance. Shutting doors using the E key dampens the sound transfer between rooms, letting you search containers safely.
Carrying high-value equipment creates risk because dying during a raid strips away all backpack contents, weapons in slots 1 and 2, and throwables bound to G. Only the single item stack placed in your safe pocket survives a wipe. Reaching marked extraction points requires approaching the roadside posts in a crouched stance to ensure surrounding hostiles do not swarm the zone before the boarding doors shut.