Annihilated Walkthrough: Route Structure and First Hours
A spoiler-light Annihilated walkthrough: the opening dungeon, the route split, how floors and retries work, and a boss-ready checklist for the first six hours.
Quick answer: Annihilated's walkthrough is short to describe and long to play: descend the opening dungeon, learn the card and Curse systems, beat The Outcast, then choose one of four partners and follow a six-hour route. Death returns you to the floor where you fell, so the game rarely sends you backward.
This is a structure walkthrough, not a step-by-step spoiler script. The routes are authored stories and the dungeon is not procedurally generated, but the exact room order is part of what you are playing for. What follows keeps the route beats vague and the systems concrete.
How does the opening dungeon flow?
The opening is a tutorial in three layers:
- Movement and tone. You descend into a cursed dungeon as the rescue party's last survivor. The first rooms establish that the place is wrong before anything attacks you.
- Combat vocabulary. Goblins and Kobolds teach the telegraph. You learn that the enemy's next move is visible, that guarding is real, and that cards have limited uses.
- The break lesson. The Outcast is the exam. Its health bar is large, its stagger gauge is the actual target, and the fight is designed to make you use a weapon's final charge as an execution.
The demo covers exactly this section. If you played it, the full game's opening will be familiar; the route content after the boss is new.
When does the route split happen?
After The Outcast. You find the four survivors, learn what each has lost, and choose the one you can carry out. That choice locks the route for the run.
The four options are the Hero, Mage, Warrior and Priest. Each route is about six hours, and the full script is 200,000+ words. The split is the single most important decision in the game, and it is not reversible within a run.
Before you choose, read the partners guide→. The short version: Hero for survivability, Priest for healing, Mage for information, Warrior for aggression and the strangest story.
What does a typical floor look like?
A floor is a sequence of encounters, dialogue and decisions that ends in a checkpoint. The loop is:
- Scout: read the room, listen to your partner, and note what the enemies are carrying.
- Fight: build stagger, survive the telegraph, and decide whether this enemy is worth a finisher.
- Loot: steal equipment from broken enemies, or break your own weapons for Curses.
- Spend: forge a needed item or bank Curses for the boss.
The floor is not a puzzle with one solution. It is a resource equation. A floor cleared with two broken weapons and three Curses is a good floor, even if you took damage.
How should you prepare for the first boss?
The Outcast checklist:
- One weapon at one use that can seize equipment.
- One backup weapon with at least two uses.
- One heal, either a Potion or the Priest if you are on that route.
- At least two Curses for emergency Defy fate.
- A stagger plan that can fill the gauge before your heals run out.
If you are missing two or more items on that list, farm a safe encounter before the boss. The Outcast boss guide→ covers the fight itself.
What changes after the route split?
The partner becomes the story's co-lead. Combat keeps the same rules, but the partner's specialty changes your resource math:
- Hero reduces the cost of mistakes.
- Priest reduces the cost of healing.
- Mage reduces the cost of ignorance.
- Warrior reduces the cost of hesitation, and raises the cost of everything else.
The routes also diverge in tone. The Priest route is religious horror, the Warrior route is dark comedy, the Mage route is a mystery of expertise, and the Hero route is a quiet study of guilt.
How should you handle deaths during a walkthrough?
Retry the floor, change one variable, and do not restart the route. The game checkpoints at the floor where you fell and the Curse pool persists, so a wipe is a setback rather than a loss.
If a floor kills you three times, the problem is usually one of three things:
- Your finisher cannot seize, so the fight has no reward and no early end.
- Your stagger output is too low, so the boss outlasts your cards.
- Your healing is too thin, so the first bad telegraph starts a spiral.
Fix the deck before you fix your inputs.
The demo's save is expected to carry over and it ends at the same boss that gates the route choice. Finishing it means your first full-game decision is the partner, not the tutorial.
Official source: Annihilated on Steam ↗
Is there a recommended route order?
There is no official order, and the routes are complete stories rather than chapters. A practical order for two runs:
- First run: Priest or Hero. The sustain and survivability make the systems easier to learn.
- Second run: Mage or Warrior. Pick the story that contrasts most with your first.
If you only play once, pick the premise you find most interesting. The tier list is a comfort ranking, not a canon.
What should you not do in the first six hours?
- Do not hoard every weapon. The Curse economy needs breaks.
- Do not spend Curses on ordinary encounters.
- Do not skip partner dialogue. It is the route's main content.
- Do not restart because a boss killed you twice. The retry is cheap.
- Do not read ending spoilers before the route split.
FAQ
How long is the Annihilated walkthrough?
One route is about six hours. Seeing all four is roughly 24 hours plus retries, depending on difficulty and reading speed.
Is the dungeon randomly generated?
No. The store describes authored routes and a 200,000+ word script, not procedural generation.
Can you miss the route split?
No. The split is the story's central choice and happens after the first boss.
Does the demo cover the whole opening?
Yes. The demo runs to The Outcast, which is the boss that precedes the route choice.