Dead Party Showtime Mode Guide and Objectives

Showtime is an objective-driven game mode in Dead Party where players locate four pieces of stage equipment hidden inside scavenged furniture to power up guitars and defeat the zombie invasion. Survivors must break items, craft barricades, and clear remaining hostiles to finish the mission.

What Is Showtime Mode in Dead Party?

Stage equipment is the required set of mission items scattered throughout the building during every Showtime run. Developed by German studio Radiation Blue and published by Snail Games USA, the game pits survivors against alien-zombie swarms in the town of Shady Hill on Halloween. Unlike endurance survival in horde mode or generator maintenance in Fuel Run, Showtime tasks players with finding musical gear such as amplifiers, microphones, and batteries to activate their rock performance.

When things get desperate, grab a guitar and blast the undead with the power of music. — the developer's Steam announcement

The mode is available as part of the campaign in story mode and as a selectable mission type in arcade mode. As detailed on the Techmash launch overview, players assemble in teams of up to four to balance resource scavenging and defense building while searching room by room.

Dead Party is more than a zombie shooter — it’s a chance to laugh, plan, improvise, and save the world together.

— ROCK THE UNDEAD — DEAD PARTY BLASTS ONTO STEAM ...

How Do You Complete Showtime Objectives?

Completing Showtime requires finding all four required stage items before the horde overruns the building. Survivors must balance search time with defense maintenance:

1. Smash room objects: Use melee kicks or character-specific demolition tools to break chairs, desks, and storage crates. Breaking debris yields wood planks and exposes concealed items.
2. Inspect containers and collect keys: Examine glowing points of interest to locate brass keys, stage pieces, or weapons. Keys open locked side rooms and padlocked doors that house the remaining equipment.
3. Transport gear to the stage area: Pick up revealed instruments or electronics and carry them to the setup zone. Carrying heavy stage equipment slows player movement speed until dropped.
4. Fortify breach points: Stand near open window frames and hold the barricade input to nail up wood boards. Each survivor can carry a maximum of 99 planks to reinforce defense lines.
5. Eliminate remaining hostiles: Once all pieces are installed, activate the guitar performance with the left trigger and finish off the remaining zombie wave to trigger the victory screen.

Character Strengths and Trap Tactics

Each survivor brings different base attributes, scavenging capabilities, and musical abilities to a Showtime run. Selecting the right team composition ensures players can quickly smash furniture while maintaining crowd control against incoming waves.

Defensive emplacements prevent zombies from swarming scavengers while searching. Bear traps cost eight resources to drop at exterior doorways, while ice traps require twelve resources to slow high-threat intruders. Players can also deploy decoy antennas that draw zombie attention away from barricaded rooms.

Survivors should monitor their personal carry limits during defense phases:

• Wood inventory caps at 99 planks per character.
• Coin capacity caps at 10, which can restore character health.
• Players hold only one weapon at a time, switching between tools and firearms with the weapon swap button.
• Melee kicks carry a brief cooldown, visually indicated by a glowing boot icon.

Which Settings Work Best for Showtime Runs?

Custom arcade settings are match modifiers that let hosts adjust drop rates and rules for specific map layouts. According to game data on the official Steam store page, players can tune match parameters across Easy, Normal, Hard, and Nightmare difficulty levels.

When configuring a match for four-player online co op, hosts can toggle friendly explosion damage on or off to prevent accidental casualties from dynamite traps. Item pools can be switched between standard story presets, expanded arcade selections, or custom lists that restrict drops to specific tools such as turrets.

Resource drop sliders permit up to a 40 percent increase in collected materials, musical note frequency, and stage collectibles. Raising these sliders assists smaller groups playing without AI bots, ensuring enough wood remains available to keep barricades intact while hunting down hidden stage microphones and amplifiers.

Where does this guide's official Dead Party information come from?

Official details in this guide follow Dead Party on Steam, which describes the game in its own words.

On Halloween, UFO‘s appeared over the peaceful town of Shady Hill. Soon after, the undead neighborhood rises from their graves. Four heroes take on the impossible task: to fight back the evil invaders!

Dead Party on Steam