5 Helpful Tips and Tricks for The Walking Dead: Saints and Sinners - Chapter 2: Retribution

The Walking Dead Saints and Sinners - Chapter 2: Retribution is a fantastic follow-up to one of the greatest Virtual Reality games out there, but if you’re having a tough time maybe you’re not enjoying it as much as you could. Well if you’re struggling or just want to dominate the flooded streets of The Walking Dead’s New Orleans even harder, here are some premium Tips and Tricks for The Walking Dead Saints & Sinners - Chapter 2: Retribution.

A video version of this review can be found here on our Youtube Channel.

For our previous article with tips from the first game (which are still very useful here in Chapter 2) go here.

Some Materials Are Easier to Find at Night

With this new Chapter of The Walking Dead: Saints & Sinners comes new crafting materials like Casings and Biomass, along with new crafting tables to use them on, and the ability to explore New Orleans at night. To explore at night you can either sleep through the day by using the flask in the Resting Place, or travel somewhere like you usually would, but go to another location instead of heading back to the Resting Place. That means you can go to two places in one day!

The Tactical Flashlight you got in the Aftershocks DLC for the first game is very useful here. Switching it to UV not only reveals useful graffiti on the walls that will lead you towards the local exile trader (more on that later), but it will also illuminate items to loot that you can only find at night. Items like Bird Skulls, Oyster Mushrooms, and Moss. While you can still find these new materials in other places, to get them in big quantities you’ll want to go out at night and pick up these glowing items. You definitely won’t regret it. The new crafting tables make some great stuff.

Oh, and you’ll find a lot of dead Exiles at night with their discarded backpacks right beside them. You can find a lot of great things in these like boxes of materials, the best healing item in the game, other useful loot, and guns. Going out at night is very profitable.

Stealth is More Useful at Night… But Not Required

The downside of scavenging at night is that it’s dark and hard to see. Oh, and there’s a LOT more walkers than there usually are. Not only will you run across them more frequently, but they come in larger groups than during the day. This makes travelling at night significantly more dangerous than during the day, but the upside is that all that darkness also makes it harder for walkers to see you.

The streets and open areas are lined with trashcan fires, though who keeps those lit is anybody’s guess. Walking or crouch walking and avoiding their light means that walkers will not notice you and try to eat you unless you get very close. This also naturally means that you should keep your flashlight off if you don’t want to be seen, though you’ll still be able to see things that are right in front of you. So you aren’t completely blind, just mostly.

Listening to the soft moaning of nearby walkers helps to avoid stumbling into them in the darkness. Attracting even a single walker can easily create enough noise from their hungry screeching for a large group to take notice and start chasing after you as well. Though if you find an area that is chocked full of walkers you can always use useful items like the Frankenflare or Noisemaker arrows to draw them away so that you can pass through.

Of course you can always just fight all of the walkers instead. If you’re good at combat in The Walking Dead: Saints and Sinners - Chapter 2: Retribution and you play it smart you can chop or shoot your way through, though you’ll definitely expend more resources in the process, so bring lots of melee weapons and bullets if you plan to do this.

Always Wear Bolted Up Gloves

Speaking of melee weapons, some of the new weapons added in Chapter 2 of The Walking Dead: Saints & Sinners are especially useful. These would be the Sap Gloves and Bolted Up Gloves. These weapons won’t take up a slot on your body or your backpack, because you wear them on your hands, and they make punching walkers a viable tactic in combat.

With some of these on you can punch walkers in the head until they keel over, or grab them and drive a fist straight through their skull. These gloves are lifesavers in situations where you panic and drop your weapons, and serve as a reliable backup if you run out of more traditional melee weapons.

The Bolted Gloves are a better version of the Sap Gloves, and you can get them very early on your first trip to Bourboun Street in the building marked Brown on the map. Check out our article on the locations of new recipes for more specific directions.

Pool Balls are Great Loot - Always Pick Them Up

In terms of new loot, the things you find at night aren’t the only great new opportunities to be had. There are a number of new items that you can find lying around. Loot boxes from the first game are still around, but now they come in varying sizes, with Mediums and Larges containing a lot of great stuff.

An equally good find that you might not suspect is so chocked full of resources are Pool Balls. Somehow this tiny and unassuming item has an absolute ton of resources inside of it, making it far better than most junk that you would find and is certainly worth a spot in your backpack. So don’t assume Pool Balls are junk, they’re actually great. There are some other good items around too, like Guitars and Saxophones, that have a lot of materials inside them for a single inventory slot.

Fulfil Exile Trade Network Orders

You’ll be hearing a lot about the new Exile Trade network through the story missions of The Walking Dead: Saints and Sinners - Chapter 2: Retribution, and you should take part in it. There is an exile trader that comes out at night in a specific location on each map. To find where they are use your UV Tactical Flashlight to follow the cats painted on the walls.

At the end of the trail of cats is a trader who has an order for you to fulfil, usually for items that you would normally scrap or replace with something crafted yourself. You can view the orders in the green tab with the box on it in your journal. If you bring the items back to the trader they give you the reward listed in the order. This also means you should be careful when scrapping a haul of loot, you might need some more obscure items later.

It can also be tempting to ignore the trades because the rewards, at first, aren’t very good. Each trader has three different orders, and the first usually gives mediocre rewards at best, but the third trade usually grants you fantastic items, so stick with it and you won’t regret it.

Bonus Tip: Recipes From the First Game Are Still There

For our final tip you should know that the recipes from the first game are still in their original locations. So if you want to go back and get any of the recipes from the first game, go ahead. Some, like Jambalaya or the 4th and Pain, come especially recommended to get your hands on. Note that some recipes for firearms, explosives, and bullets will sometimes drop off of dead Reclaimed and Tower soldiers.

You might have trouble with the recipes in Old Town though.

If you want to find the new recipes that are specific to Chapter 2: Retribution then check out our guide on them here.