4-3: A SHOT IN THE DARK (2024)

For more information about other missions, see Levels

Hitting an enemy with only the edge of an explosion will launch them without dealing much damage, making it a risky but effective tool against Stalkers.

- The Tip of the Day.

A SHOT IN THE DARK is the third mission of the GREED layer, and a level taking place in a low and dark level of the pyramid where the player is tasked with lighting fire pits to open doors and spawn enemies while also being limited to the player's vision of their surroundings.

Major Areas[]

Right path[]

This path is simply one room with a floor that dips down and has a walkway above that floor, which leads to the pit. When you light it, 6 Filth and 5 Strays pop in to greet you.

Left path[]

A series of connected hallways leading to a fire pit where 3 Soldiers and 2 Schisms say hello before you even light the blue torch.

Pillar Arena[]

A large square room with four fire pits, each of which rises to the ceiling on square pillars when lit. Lighting each pit summons a different group of enemies, and all four groups must be killed to progress. Each group can be engaged at the player's own pace; pits that spawn more problematic enemies may be saved for later, and lighting multiple pits at once naturally provokes multiple group spawns at once. On Violent difficulty, enemy explosions and flames are also capable of lighting these fire pits, triggering their spawns without the player's input.

In clockwise order, starting from the pit to the left of the entrance:

• The first summons a Malicious Face and 4 Drones.
• The second summons 2 Cerberi and a Stalker.
• The third summons 4 Streetcleaners and a Virtue.
• Finally, the last summons 4 Soldiers and 4 Schisms.

Hallways[]

There are three hallways in the area, one with a bunch of filth murals, the other one with a picture of Gabriel with "traitor" scribbled on, and the last one is spiraling upwards and has multiple fire pits. When the last one is lit, 3 Drones, 2 Streetcleaners, and 2 Soldiers spawn in. This hall leads to a room with water on the floor and has a Virtue, Malicious Face, and a Cerberus.

Generator Room[]

Place any item on the pedestal, and the room will be illuminated by spinning lights. This is probably the biggest, most complex arena in all of Greed.

• The first wave begins with a Virtue, 4 Drones, 4 Streetcleaners and 4 Soldiers.
  • Killing any 6 of the fodder enemies OR killing the Virtue will begin the next wave.
• In the second wave, 2 Malicious Faces and 2 Stalkers are summoned, as well as another Virtue.
  • Killing all of the Faces and Stalkers OR killing the Virtue will begin the next wave.
• In the third wave, 4 Schisms are summoned. 4 Strays will also be summoned upon killing the Faces and Stalkers specifically.
  • Killing any 4 fodder enemies from Wave 3 OR the remaining members of Wave 2 will begin the final wave.
• In the final wave, 2 more Virtues are summoned.

Ranking Requirements[]

Secrets[]

Trivia[]

• The mission's title is a reference to the song of the same name by free jazz grindcore band Naked City.
• One of 4 items can be placed on the pedestal in the final arena to trigger the encounter.
  • If the torch is placed, the spinning pillar's lights will be green.
  • If the soap is placed, it'll be rainbow. The pillar will also spin slightly faster than normal.
  • If a skull is placed, it'll be that skull's color. This includes red skulls spawned in through cheats. The pillar will also spin much faster than normal.
• The stone tablet from the secret encounter can also be placed on the pedestal in the final arena, though nothing happens.
• If an object is placed on the pedestal in the final arena and then taken off, the final arena can be faced in the dark.
• The final wave of the final arena used to spawn a Mindflayer instead of two Virtues prior to the level's release, but was replaced for being too difficult. This would have been the only Mindflayer encounter in the Greed layer.^[1]
• The final arena was further tweaked in version 12a, replacing 8 Soldier spawns in the third enemy wave with 4 Strays, due to balance changes in version 11a that allowed projectile Husks to fire at the player from outside their desired range and gave Soldiers the ability to block most explosives while grounded, which in tandem made the original version of the encounter much more difficult than it was prior to 11a.
• Early in the level, near the torch room attached to a bridge where Filth and other enemies spawn, the player can walljump up into a small crack in the ceiling. This lands the player out of bounds, and displays the message '"THE FILTH IS GONE, BUT THE MEMORY REMAINS" T. HAKITA' on the screen. This is a reference to a patch which fixed "filth clipping", an old speedrun strat that allowed the player to clip out of bounds and skip large swaths of levels; this clip is one of several that have been manually preserved for the speedrunning community when the bugs that enabled them were eventually patched out during Early Access.
• If the torch is still on its pedestal in the starting room and the blue skull is still on Matt McMuscles' skeleton, upon turning the right-hand corner at the Traitor Hallway the music will stop and Something Wicked's ghostly whisper can be heard, accompanied with the text "Something wicked this way comes." A few seconds later the music resumes along with a text box that says "Just kidding:)". This event will not be triggered if [ 0-S: SOMETHING WICKED ] has not been completed, but it will trigger if both the torch and the blue skull are returned to their original positions after picking either up.
• The Whiplash can neither place nor remove the blue skull from Matt McMuscles' remains, necessitating the use of a melee punch to interact with it.
• Despite having a flashlight for darker regions of [ 7-3: NO SOUND, NO MEMORY ], V1 did not use the flashlight in this level, nor in [ 0-S: SOMETHING WICKED ]. This is likely because V1 had a light source at the start of both levels (a torch here and two Skulls throughout 0-S).
  • Or, it may be that a weapon V1 picks up between this level and Violence, such as the rocket launcher, comes with a flashlight which V1 is able to detach from its initial host. Despite that, returning to this level after completing Violence will still not bring up the flashlight.
  • Or, it's possible that V1 is just stupid.
    • In the end, though, obviously it's because the primary challenge of this level is navigating in the dark.

References[]