Lockdown: Undead strategy: how to survive more rounds

Updated 25 October 2026

Lockdown: Undead is a round-based zombie survival shooter: one building, seven ways in, and a wave that grows every round. The difference between dying in round six and reaching round fifteen is mostly economics: where your points go, and when. This guide covers how rounds scale, what each zombie and weapon really does, what every station costs, and how barricades work.

Play Lockdown: Undead

A first-person view down a dark corridor toward a hazard-striped doorway, rifle raised, with the round counter and ammunition on screen. — Lockdown: Undead on SyphonGames.

How a round works

Each round sends a set number of zombies, and the round ends when every one of them is dead. Round one sends 6, round two 8, and from then on the count climbs by four a round: 12, 16, 20, and 40 by round ten. Up to 22 can be inside at once in the later rounds, and they arrive faster as the game goes on, from one about every two seconds at the start to one a second by round ten.

Not every entrance is used every round. Round one uses two of the seven, round two three, and so on until all seven are in play from round six; which ones are chosen changes each round. Zombies prefer entrances away from you, weighted towards the farthest, so they tend to arrive from behind. A red lamp flashes over an entrance as something comes through it, and the growl is heard from that side.

Clear a round and you get a bonus of 100 points plus 30 for each round number, then six seconds before the next one starts. The zombies get tougher every round: 13 per cent more health, a little more speed, and harder hits.

The three zombies

Walker: 32 health in round one, slow, hits for 9. Worth 60 points.
Runner, from round three: only 20 health but more than twice as fast as a walker, hits for 7. Worth 75.
Brute, from round five: 150 health, slow, hits for 20. Worth 130. Too big for the floor vent, so it never comes that way.

Runners make up about a quarter of round three, and by round eight the mix settles at roughly 38 per cent walkers, 35 per cent runners and 27 per cent brutes. By round ten a walker has about 69 health and a brute over 320.

One thing works in your favour all game: nothing in the building is as fast as you. Even a late-round runner moves a little slower than you walk, and you sprint much faster than that. Keep moving and nothing can catch you; stand still and they arrive from every side.

Points

You start with no points at all. You earn:

10 points for every bullet that hits (5 for each shotgun pellet),
the zombie's value when it dies: 60, 75 or 130,
40 more if the killing shot was to the head, and
the round bonus.

Headshots are worth chasing twice over. A round-one walker dies to one pistol headshot for 110 points; two body shots kill it for 80, and use twice the ammunition. A clean round one, all headshots, is worth about 790 points with its bonus.

Weapons

Every gun fires for as long as you hold the button. Headshots multiply the damage.

M9 Sentinel, the starting pistol: 22 damage, about six shots a second, 12-round magazine, headshots two and a half times. Upgraded at the Armory Bench:
- M9 Sentinel Mk-II: 30 damage, eight shots a second, 16-round magazine.
- Spectre Carbine: 44 damage, about eleven shots a second, 30-round magazine, headshots 2.2 times.
Hellbreak 12G shotgun: eight pellets of 13, up to 104 damage at point-blank range, about one shot a second, six shells and a slow reload, a wide spread and smaller headshot bonus. A doorway weapon.
Kestrel SMG: 15 damage, about thirteen shots a second, 40-round magazine, headshots double.

Worked out per second of firing, the Spectre Carbine is the strongest weapon in the game by a distance: more than twice the SMG's damage and nearly four times the starting pistol's. The two pistol upgrades cost 7,500 points together, against 6,000 for the shotgun and the SMG, and each upgrade also refills the pistol's magazine and reserve. Buying a new gun gives you a full magazine and a starting supply of reserve ammunition.

Switch with 1, 2 and 3, or cycle with Q. Reload with R, ideally while nothing is close.

Stations

Walk up to a station and press E. Each one shows what it will do and what it costs.

Ammo Cache (on the north wall, by the blast door): 500 points refills the reserve ammunition of every gun you own.
Med Station (north wall, east end): 750 points restores your health to full.
Armory Bench (west wall): upgrades the pistol, 2,500 points for the Mk-II and 5,000 for the Spectre Carbine.
Weapon Cache (south-east): the Hellbreak 12G for 2,000 points, then the Kestrel SMG for 4,000.
Stim Station (south-west corner): adds 25 to your maximum health and fills it, for 1,500 points, then 2,500, 3,500 and 4,500, up to 200 health.

Integrity, on the HUD, is your health, and it never comes back on its own. The only ways to heal are the Med Station and a stim. Since the first stim costs only twice a heal and heals you just as fully, buy it the first time you would otherwise pay for the Med Station.

Barricades

During a round you can board up an entrance that is in use: stand at it and press E. A sealed entrance spawns nothing for the rest of the round. The rules:

The first costs 750 points, and each one after that costs 500 more than the last, for the whole run: 750, 1,250, 1,750 and so on.
At most three can stand at once, and you can never seal the last open entrance in use.
You cannot board an entrance while a zombie is coming through it, or during the break between rounds.
Every barricade is torn down when the next round starts.

Because the price only ever rises, barricades are best saved for the big rounds. Sealing the entrances on your flanks makes the rest of the wave arrive from directions you can watch, which matters most once brutes and runners are mixed together.

The building

The seven ways in are the blast door in the middle of the north wall, a boarded door and a floor vent on the east wall, a collapsed wall on the south side, a service door and a breach tunnel on the west wall, and a sewer grate in the floor in the south-east part of the room, where zombies rise out of the ground. The grate is the one to watch: it is inside the building, so whatever comes up is already close.

A plan that lasts

Rounds one to three: pistol only, and aim for the head. A single headshot from the starting pistol kills a walker right up to round six, and every headshot is worth 40 extra points. Keep moving in wide loops rather than backing into a corner.
First purchase: the M9 Mk-II at 2,500 points. If you keep getting swamped at close range, the shotgun at 2,000 is the alternative.
Next: the Spectre Carbine at 5,000 points. It is the best damage for the money in the game, and it carries you through the brute rounds.
Ammunition: refill at the Ammo Cache (500) whenever your reserve runs low. Use the break between rounds: it is only six seconds, so learn the route.
Health: buy stims in place of heals while they are on offer.
Brutes: from round five, go for the head. A Spectre Carbine headshot does nearly 100 damage, so even a round-ten brute falls to four.
Barricades: keep one or two in hand for the rounds where all seven entrances are active and the wave tops twenty.

When you die the game shows the round you reached, your kills, your final score and your accuracy.

Controls

W A S D to move, the mouse to aim and click to fire. Shift sprints while moving forward, Space jumps, R reloads, 1 2 3 or Q change weapon, and E uses stations and boards up entrances. Esc pauses. Settings has mouse sensitivity, sound volume and graphics quality. A mouse and keyboard are required.

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