Pacify: Complete Guide

Everything you need to clear all four Pacify missions (The Dolls house, the Farm, the Woods and the Headquarters) solo, in co-op or in PvP, plus the secret endings and achievement tips.

Researched September 2026 — current as of the "Voices in Darkness (Part 1)" update (May 2, 2026) and the May 11, 2026 Headquarters difficulty patch. Live games change; check the linked sources if something differs.

Quick Start

• Every mission is a fetch-and-ritual loop. You gather specific items, perform a ritual that weakens the entity, then either escape or haul the weakened entity to the PAH Inc. van. Learn the loop for each map and the horror becomes manageable.
• The monsters can hear you now. Since the May 2026 update, Pacify has built-in proximity voice chat, and the developer's own note is blunt: "Be careful, the monsters can hear you now!" Talk quietly and away from the entity, or use push-to-talk sparingly.
• Play with four. Solo is doable (there are achievements for it), but the game is balanced around a group splitting jobs: one runner, one burner, one scout, one guard.
• Keys come in a fixed order in the house. Living room, then bedroom, then attic, then basement. The main-door key is optional but opens a huge exterior shortcut.
• Pacify dolls are your shield, not your objective. In the house, the good dolls calm the girl; the marked darkness dolls are what you burn. Burning the wrong doll wastes it and unlocks the "Wrong Doll" achievement for your trouble.
• Listen more than you look. Hidden dolls giggle, the girl glows when nearby, and the farm monster and witch all have audio tells. Headphones are close to mandatory.
• Getting caught is not the end in co-op. In the house you can revive yourself by burning yourself in the boiler; on the farm the windmill revives downed players.
• Host on the best PC and connection. The developer explicitly recommends that the strongest machine with the fastest internet hosts, especially in six-player Headquarters games.
• Stuck settings or black screen? Delete the Saved folder in %localappdata%\Pacify (Windows) and relaunch. This fixes most options-menu and video-settings problems.

Game Modes

Mode | Players | Goal | Notes

Single player | 1 | Complete the mission alone | Separate "solo" achievements per map; speedrun achievements for sub-20/30 minute clears

Cooperative | Up to 4 (Headquarters up to 6) | Team completes the mission, reviving each other | Best way to learn every map

Player versus player | Up to 4 | Interns compete to finish first and get hired | You can push other players down ("Bully" achievement) and hoard keys

Since the March 2024 networking overhaul, the host can change missions from the lobby, the server list shows which map a host picked, and started games disappear from the browser until the group returns to the lobby.

Core Mechanics

Resources you manage

• Keys unlock rooms and gate progress. In PvP, holding every key at once is an achievement ("Key Hoarder").
• Wood and matches fuel the house boiler. Community guides put a wood fire at roughly 30 seconds and a doll's burn at about 15, so chaining two dolls into one fire saves wood. Treat the exact timings as approximate.
• Notes tell each map's lore. Reading all of them is a separate achievement per map ("I love lore!", "Interesting Story", "Notes From a Lost Child").
• Healing/revive items vary per map: the boiler (house), angel statuette and windmill (farm).

The entity escalates

On every map the entity gets faster and smarter as you progress. Early mistakes are forgiving; late mistakes are fatal. Plan so the final, most dangerous stretch is short: stage items near the ritual site before you trigger the last step.

Voice chat and sound (2026 update)

The in-game proximity voice chat runs at high quality with environmental effects: your voice changes when you are shrunk, slowed or otherwise affected, and different rooms change your reverb. Player mouths animate as you speak. Outside voice apps like Discord will not carry these effects, and the developer is designing the next map's monsters around hearing players. Mac players can hear and mute others but, as of the May 2026 notes, cannot transmit voice.

Mission Walkthroughs

The Dolls (the House)

Story: PAH Inc. sends you to a century-old house that once ran a funeral parlor offering seances. The little girl, Emily, flips between harmless and hostile.

Objective: Burn nine marked (darkness) dolls in the basement boiler, then deal with the girl.

Key order:

Order | Key location | Unlocks

1 | Living room | Bedroom area

2 | Bedroom | Attic

3 | Attic | Basement

4 | Basement | Remaining progress

Optional | Main doors | Exterior loop around the house

Marked dolls: One sits on a white table in the basement. The other eight are locked in the attic; when released they scatter and hide throughout the house. Follow the giggling.

Pacify dolls: Nine good dolls are scattered around the house. Hand one to the girl while she is a monster and she calms down ("Pacify Her"). Give one while she is attacking a teammate for "Save a friend."

Burning: Matches and wood are near the basement boiler. Start the fire ("Start a fire!"), then drop dolls in. Wood lasts about twice as long as a doll takes to burn, so carry two dolls down at once when possible.

Endgame: After the ninth marked doll burns, Emily turns into a red, near-unstoppable form and good dolls only pause her briefly. The winning setup:

• Save the basement doll for last so your final run is a few steps, not a full house crossing.
• Move good dolls to chokepoints (stairs, basement door, long hallways) before triggering the finale.
• Open the main doors early so you have an outside escape loop.
• Burn the eighth and ninth dolls back to back in the same fire.

Secret ending: Instead of taking the girl to the van, burn her body in the boiler ("Burn the girl").

The Farm

Objective: Weaken the farm monster with poisoned chickens, load it into a wheelbarrow, and deliver it to the van.

Important items:

Item | Where | Use

Shears | Central house, middle floor | Cut locks and more

Poison bags | Small house (two doors to open) | Poison the water trough

Frying pan | Kitchen | Knock out chickens

Angel statuette | Upper floor of the central house | Healing/revive support

Wheelbarrow | Around the farm | Carry the weakened monster

The loop:

• Knock out a chicken with the frying pan ("Chicken Hunter").
• Fill the water trough ("Fill it up") and add a poison bag ("Poison the Water").
• Dunk the stunned chicken in the poisoned water ("Seasoned Chicken").
• Feed the poisoned chicken to the monster ("Weaken The Monster").
• Repeat until the poison counter reaches zero, then pick the monster up with the wheelbarrow ("Heavy Load") and roll it to the van.

Rules that trip people up: Poisoned water only lasts about two minutes, so poison right before you dunk. Feeding the monster an unpoisoned chicken ("Yummy Chicken") undoes progress, and it recovers if it gets into the chicken areas. Keep chickens away from it between feedings.

Co-op revive: Downed non-host players need the angel statuette and a teammate to get them to the windmill ("Magical Windmill").

Secret ending: Put the poisoned monster in the cemetery box instead of the van, then leave a poisoned chicken there.

Extras: "Rusty Old Locks" wants every lock on the farm broken; "Bull's Eye" is a dartboard bullseye.

The Woods (the Witch)

Objective: Weaken the witch with nine enchanted twig dolls, then carry her to the van in the woods.

Ingredients per ritual:

Ingredient | Where

Rose | Forest trees or the cemetery (limited supply)

Witch hair | Tables, beds and bathrooms in the house

Dog tail | Snipped from a freed dog with garden shears ("Poor Puppy")

Twig doll | Cemetery; a shadow chases you as soon as you grab it

Garden shears are in wooden carts around the forest. The dog-cage key is on the main floor (kitchen, dining room, toy room or library) and the basement/house key is upstairs (beside a bed, small rooms or bathrooms); locations are randomized between those spots.

The ritual: Combine the ingredients in the basement cauldron ("Witch's Brew"), which produces an enchanted twig doll; impale it on the wall needle ("Release The Power"). Do this nine times, then carry the weakened witch to the van ("Capture The Witch!").

Basement potions: speed (short boost), invisibility (does not fool shadows) and appearance change (cosmetic). Save speed and invisibility for the last few rituals, when the witch is most aggressive.

Tips: Grab the farthest roses and ingredients first while the witch is slow, and save the cemetery roses for the end. You cannot outrun a twig-doll shadow, so plan the route back before you pick one up.

Secret ending: Take the witch to the purification lake instead of the van. The game will complain; do it anyway.

Headquarters

Story: A power outage at PAH HQ threatens the containment cells holding every captured entity.

Objective: Keep the cells powered and the monsters contained, handle the breakout of a larger entity, burn a wave of marked dolls in the incinerator, and survive until power returns.

How containment works: Each cell door needs a charged battery. Charged batteries glow green; dead ones show nothing. Charge batteries to full at the chargers ("Charge it"), then slot them into cell sockets ("Power it up"). A battery cannot be pulled until it drains, so rotate them on a schedule rather than panicking.

Countermeasures: Each escaped entity has an item that deals with it, borrowed from its home mission (for example a pacify doll for the girl and a rose for the witch). Carry a full set and drop spares at choke points and near the incinerator.

Phases (broadly): routine cell maintenance, a Lesser Containment Unit discharge that frees shadows (repower it immediately; "Get back in there!"), a big breakout you must weaken with the disruptor switches, then a marked-doll burning phase. The doll count scales with player count.

Patch notes that matter: HQ supports up to six players when chosen as the hosted map (September 2023), and the May 11, 2026 patch lowered the difficulty of several HQ aspects, so it is noticeably easier than older guides suggest.

Achievements here: "Welcome to PAH HQ" (co-op clear), "You Can Do It!" (solo clear), "Invincible" (never get hurt), "Don't Do That" (open a cell with a monster inside yourself), "Self Destruct" (run out of time during self destruct) and the secret "Bye!".

Common Mistakes to Avoid

• Burning pacify dolls. They are your only defense in the house. Check for the spiral marking before dropping anything in the boiler.
• Letting the fire die mid-run. Relighting costs wood and matches. Time doll deliveries so they land in an active fire.
• Poisoning the trough too early. Two minutes goes fast. Stun the chicken first, then poison.
• Feeding a clean chicken. It heals the farm monster. Kill or corral stray chickens.
• Grabbing a twig doll with no escape route. Shadows are faster than you.
• Talking next to the monster. With proximity chat live, loud callouts can draw attention. Ping, then talk.
• Everyone doing the same job. Split roles: in the house, one player guards the boiler and stays on fire duty while others hunt dolls.
• Hosting on the weakest PC. Desync and doors out of sync are usually host-side problems.

Advanced Tips

• Speedrun achievements. "Beat the game developer" (house solo under 20 minutes), "Beat the Game Developer II" (farm solo under 30) and "III" (woods solo under 20). Learn key order and item spots in co-op first, then route solo.
• Stage before the finale. On every map the last step makes the entity most dangerous. Pre-place pacify dolls, pre-fill the fire, pre-collect the ninth ingredient set before you commit.
• Use the girl's light. Emily emits white light near her position; you can often read her location from the glow on walls before you see her.
• "Key Master" and "Key Hoarder". Collect all keys in solo/co-op, and hold every key simultaneously in PvP.
• Lore achievements are the rarest. Read every note as you go; backtracking late in a mission is dangerous.
• "Invincible" at HQ. Carry every countermeasure item at once, leave spare sets at respawn areas and near the incinerator, and assign one player purely to keeping the girl pacified during the doll phase.
• Performance. After the March 2024 optimization pass the game runs at very high frame rates on most hardware; if your settings will not save, toggle Fullscreen off and on or delete videosettings.sav in %USERPROFILE%\AppData\Local\Pacify\Saved\SaveGames.

FAQ

How many players can play Pacify? Up to 4 in the house, farm and woods. Headquarters supports up to 6 when it is the hosted map.

Is Pacify still being updated? Yes. The developer, Shawn Hitchcock, shipped proximity voice chat in May 2026 as Part 1 of "Voices in Darkness" and says Part 2 is a new map with monsters built around voice chat. No release date was given as of September 2026.

Can I play Pacify solo? Yes. Every mission has a single-player mode and dedicated solo achievements. It is harder because nobody can revive you or distract the entity.

How do you beat the girl in Pacify? Collect the house keys in order, release the attic dolls, burn all nine marked dolls in the basement boiler while using pacify dolls to calm her, then survive her enraged form and finish the mission (or burn her for the secret ending).

How do you win on the Farm? Stun chickens with the frying pan, dunk them in poisoned trough water, feed them to the monster until it is fully weakened, then wheelbarrow it to the van.

Does voice chat work on Mac? Partly. As of May 2026, Mac players can hear, adjust and mute others but cannot be heard.

Why can't I change my settings? Toggle Fullscreen off and on, or delete the Saved folder under %localappdata%\Pacify and relaunch.

Sources

• Pacify on Steam
• Pacify Steam news: Voices in Darkness (Part 1), May 2, 2026
• Pacify Steam news: Headquarters Difficulty and Voice Chat Special Effects, May 11, 2026
• Pacify Steam news: A better, faster Pacify!, March 2024
• Pacify Steam news: Headquarters supports more players, September 2023
• Pacify Steam achievements
• Pacify: Complete Guide by Azucarilla (Steam Community)
• Headquarters Guide by Raptvre (Steam Community)