Signal → what to do
- The clock shows 5 or 9—it’s crowd time. It’s a reference to the 9-to-5 workday.
- The crowd can come from the front or behind, depending on the time on the clock. Look both ways.
- Groups of lone Drones stand in rooms—dodge them at any time of day.
- Get too close and a Drone will shove you. Bump into it again, and it’ll knock you down.
- Stationary Drones always look at you, but Drones in a crowd don’t. If they aren’t turning to face you, they’re stampeding.
How to Survive a Crowd Without Falling
There’s one rule for dealing with a crowd: don’t stand in its way. It always takes the shortest route to the next room. So stick to the walls and corners, away from the path between the doors. You’ll get the badge if you stay out of the crowd’s path, hide in a hiding spot, or simply survive the damage with your health.
Here’s what I do when the clock is getting close to 5 or 9: 1. Look at the clock. Looking at it slows down time, giving you extra seconds to reach a hiding spot. 2. Figure out the shortest path between the doors and get out of the way. 3. If there’s a hiding spot nearby, get inside. 4. Don’t count furniture as a hiding spot. The crowd can hit you through it, even if it keeps you safe from Bash or Scribbles.
The clock is your best friend in The Archives. The slower time passes, the fewer crowds you’ll have to deal with during a run. I check the clock whenever I get the chance. It doesn’t cost you anything.
Where to Find Them
Only in The Archives. They’re secondary subfloor antagonists: workers who stand in groups throughout the sectors and work for Honcho. Drones are the most common entity in The Archives.
In sectors with a pizza party, Drones always appear in rooms decorated for the party, and you’ll see them more often than usual. There’s also a rare Dining Room, packed with tables and Drones. Honcho has Drones in the Mail Room, too. They stand still among stacks of paper and show up less often than the usual groups.
How You Lose Items and Health
- Follow the markings on the floor. Some rooms have a painted path, but the crowd doesn’t follow it.
- Hide behind a table from the stampede. It’ll protect you from Bash, but not from the crowd.
- Run through a door without looking. There might be Drones standing behind it. Some doors have glass, so look through it.
- Squeeze through a group. Every collision knocks you down and makes you drop an item.
- Run into a crowd while Ransom is on you. Items knocked out of you by the stampede will stay encrypted even after you pay.
Who Are the Drones?
The Journal calls Honcho their boss, and the Drones show him a lot of respect. According to The Journal, Honcho keeps most of them downstairs in the Mail Room, where they sort things endlessly. It also says they aren’t hostile on their own unless you bump into them, and they don’t show signs of intelligence.
The Journal describes dying to a crowd as getting kicked and trampled by a laughing crowd. The author of The Journal says they’re reminded of Scribbles: they’re both made of ink and have papers, but it’s not clear if they’re connected.
A dark detail: in the room where Alma first appears, she cries next to Drones that look dead. The Journal suggests Alma killed them for drawing attention to her unconfirmed.
Lone Drone vs. Crowd: What’s the Difference?
These are two different modes of the same entity. A lone Drone knocks you down on contact, while a crowd tramples everyone in its path. They also deal different amounts of damage: 5 from a lone Drone and 30 from a crowd.
A lone Drone can’t kill you. Its hit isn’t fatal, and if your health gets very low, Drones stop dealing damage altogether. The annoying part is that you fall and drop the item you’re holding.
A crowd is more serious. If it hits you, you drop items from your inventory, not just the one in your hand, and take damage that can kill you. The trampling knocks items out of your inventory. So I don’t wait around to find a hiding spot when the clock gets close to the right time. Losing a Lockpick under a crowd’s feet is worse than losing a couple of seconds.
Paper Plane vs. Drones
Paper Plane is your way to push through the crowd. Throw one at a Drone to nudge it aside. A hit knocks some Drones back and can help you escape if you’re surrounded. Paper Planes learned to push Drones back in one of the patches.
There’s one catch: it might not work in tight spaces. You can also walk slowly right into the Drones without using an item, and they’ll move aside. But you could easily fall by accident. I only walk slowly when I’m out of Paper Planes and can’t get around the group.
Crowd Watching Badge
- Crowd Watching — successfully dodge a crowd of Drones. Any of these three ways works: stay out of the crowd’s path, hide in a hiding spot, or take the hit using your health. Most players have it. The in-game text is "Good thing I wasn't standing over there.".
You’ll usually get it without even trying after surviving your first crowd. If you don’t, you must have been standing right in the shortest path between the doors.
Drones and Their Neighbors in The Archives
Drones are rarely the only problem in a room in The Archives. Bash, Scribbles, and Ransom are there too. A room full of Drones is one of the places where it’s better to wait out Alma than run into her while you’re on the move. It makes sense: dodging two entities at once in a tight space is a bad idea.
The general rule for the subfloor is the same as for a crowd: keep getting out of the way of Drones and other entities. Starlight says the same thing—dodging at the right time keeps you safe from hits.
And about the chatter: sectors have Drone chats that describe variations of the sector, but they don’t seem to give you any hints unconfirmed. Rumor has it that in "Pizza party" sectors, a Drone thanks Honcho for the pizza in chat—probably as a reward for its work unconfirmed. I read those chats for fun, not for strategy.
Rare Drones and What They Look Like
A regular Drone is a black silhouette with a chalky texture. Its face is made of colorful stickers with drawn-on eyes, a nose, or a mouth; some stickers are blank. You can find at least two identical Drones in one room.
The rare ones look like characters from other games and anime, and appear less often than the rest:
- A Drone with long hair and blue eyes looks almost exactly like Hatsune Miku.
- A Drone with one triangular eye and one square eye looks almost exactly like ENA.
- A one-eyed Drone with flower stickers might appear with Flowery’s face from Deltarune.
- A hunchbacked Drone with one purple eye looks like SOMETHING from OMORI.
- A giant, rectangular Drone looks like Kingpin from Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse.
- People say the long-armed Drone is called "Slenderman" in the game, and its pose looks like Pale Visitor. It’s not clear which one was the inspiration unconfirmed.
Fun Facts
- Starlight calls the crowds "rush hour," like traffic jams on the way to work.
- For DOORS’ fourth anniversary, Drones wore party hats, and one held a fork. But their appearance doesn’t change during the pizza party in The Archives.
- The official UGC Drone faces are numbered from one to eleven. Two faces were added at the community’s request shortly before release.
- Treaters on The Street are Glitch’s version of Drones.
- Drones and Scribbles don’t really interact, even in the same run.
- Drones were added to the game on August 28, 2026.
Where it appears
all locationsRelated badges
all badges
Frequently asked questions
When do Drones stampede through The Archives?
How much damage do Drones deal?
How do you survive a crowd of Drones?
What’s the rarest Drone in The Archives?
What does a Drone in DOORS look like?
How do you push Drones out of the way if they block the path?
See also
What’s Still Unconfirmed (5)
This information comes from announcements and rumors, or is outdated. The label will disappear once it’s confirmed.
- 1According to The Journal, Alma killed Drone because they were attracting attention to it.
rumor, unconfirmed · source - 2Drones chat logs describe sector variations, but they don't seem to give players hints.
rumor, unconfirmed · source - 3In the sector chats for the "Pizza party" variant, Drone thanks Honcho for bringing pizza, probably as a reward for his work.
rumor, unconfirmed · source - 4The long-armed Drone's internal name is "Slenderman," and its pose and expression are similar to Pale Visitor.
rumor, unconfirmed · source - 5It's unknown whether the long-armed Drone is based on Pale Visitor, Slenderman, or both.
rumor, unconfirmed · source
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