Scoring & Jolts

You need Jolts to progress through the story and acquire upgrades. You can acquire a few here and there as a bonus from accomplishing various goals, but the primary source comes from beating them out of the undead. Each zombie is animated by the same peculiar energy, which you can harness and collect.

Scoring Table

By itself, a standard zombie coughs up 50 Jolts. You receive a bonus of 10 Jolts for any attack that successfully hits a zombie, such as a shovel hit, a gunshot, or a thrown grenade. So if you kill a zombie with one hit, it’s worth 60 Jolts.

For weapons that fire multiple rounds at once (such as shotguns or burst-fire rifles), each bullet or pellet that hits a target is worth 10 points. There’s no “cooldown” on Jolts; if you hit a zombie with multiple attacks at once, or hit multiple zombies with the same attacks, you receive all the earned Jolts at once.

To maximize your Jolts, be careful about the methods you choose to kill zombies. Ideally, soften up a target with a few shots to its center mass before finishing it off with a headshot or a blow from the shovel. By taking this approach, a 50 Jolt zombie can be worth 160 to 200 Jolts.

A zombie that dies due to an area-of-effect attack (such as a grenade or mine) only nets the base 50 Jolts. You may want to reach for your explosives when you see several zombies approaching in a tight group, but this tactic can hit you right in the Jolt pocketbook.

A similar warning applies to the various traps scattered throughout Mittelburg, particularly once you enter the Laboratory and Morgue. Traps are powerful tools for zombie disposal and can take down dozens of zombies, particularly if you pair the traps with distraction or control techniques like Frontline or a Jack-in-the-Box lure. However, any zombie that dies due to a trap results in 0 (zero) Jolts. It’s important to note that it also costs Jolts to use traps!

Finally, all of these concerns fly straight out the window once you reach the later waves. Starting at around wave 12, zombies start coming thick and fast, so the act of simply surviving should result in enough Jolts to get any remaining upgrades. By the time you hit wave 18 or higher, don’t hesitate to spend Jolts on traps, ammunition, or other incidental cash sinks. You will need every advantage possible.

In short: Be thrifty early on, so you can afford to be a spendthrift in the later waves.