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The Night Defence challenges are unlocked for each district once you have completed the associated campaign-based defence sequence. They remain fairly similar to what goes on in the campaign, although they are somewhat shorter and have a few different enemy types. Depending on when you play these challenges, you may also have a good number of new traps and weapons at your disposal, making your defence efforts much easier than the first time around.

The scoring system in these challenges favours players who can save their overcharge – each container of Overcharge remaining at the end of the defence sequence will give you 5,000 points, enough of these can cover potentially half or more of the required score for a gold medal. You can also earn bonus points for trap kills.

Old Factory District Night Defence

As with the main mission, the challenge will have you protecting a single Overcharge vat at the centre of the Brewery from attack for a period of 3 minutes against a massive number of OD. There are two main entrances to the Brewery, both located on the eastern side of the area by the car park.

There are barricades in the same locations as the last time we defended this joint, so place your traps of choice in front of these to help thin the crowd and slow down the advance. If you have Siegfried the Great traps, placing one in front of both barricades should be sufficient to hold out the OD for quite a long time, providing you also help them out. If going with this strategy, a further Flame Geyser trap just in front of the central entrance to the vat itself as a contingency is a good idea.

When you are ready, start the defence and use the wires overhead to maintain a combo as you assist your traps in massacring the OD in the car park. They will likely finally break through with around 15-30 seconds to go, so activate the flame geyser trap and use whatever weapons you have at your disposal to prevent them from touching your Overcharge!

Note that defending all 25 barrels of Overcharge will earn you 125,000 points – more than 80% of the way to a gold medal!

You can begin the challenge at the Valve (left). Grind back and forth on the wires overlooking the carpark whilst defending the barricades (right).

Medal Score Reward/s
Bronze 50,000 $ 250
Silver 100,000 $ 1,000
Gold 150,000 1,000 x Overcharge

Little Tokyo Night Defence

This challenge is almost identical to main game’s defence mission at the diner, and as such we’ll still be protecting two vats at the centre of the area. Again we need to keep them safe from attack for a period of time against a massive number of OD. The Diner’s vats are located to the left and right of Floyd’s platform.

There are four main entry points for OD this time around, two to the south and two to the east. As with the previous defence, you’ll want to place your traps of choice outside of the barricades so that they can have maximum impact when enemies bunch up and can slow the enemy advance at the same time.

For this defence, if you have them, I’d recommend placing a Siegfried the Great trap outside of one barricade on the south and one on the east, with Pyro Geyser Traps on the second barricade in both areas. Place one more Pyro Geyser Trap in the corner with two barricades leading to both vats in the central area as a backup!

When you are ready, start the defence and use the wires overhead to maintain a combo as you assist your traps. It should be noted that the vast majority of the OD action will come from the south, and as such you should focus your attention primarily there. However, to avoid an unpleasant surprise, take a quick detour every so often to go east and check on the defence and keep that flame Geyser Trap active!

The OD will finally break through with around 15-30 seconds to go, so activate the flame geyser trap inside the base and use whatever weapons you have at your disposal to prevent them from touching your Overcharge!

Note that defending all 45 barrels of Overcharge will earn you 225,000 points – which is 90% of the way to a gold medal!

You can begin the challenge at the Valve (left). Plant traps and defend the carpark for as long as possible (right).

Medal Score Reward/s
Bronze 100,000 $ 400
Silver 175,000 $ 1,500
Gold 250,000 2,000 x Overcharge

Harbour Night Defence

The Harbour boat defence challenge is again very similar to the defence mission we completed in the main game. The game will want us to protect two Overcharge vats which are situated below Floyd’s location, with one being on a higher deck than the other in the centre of the ship. Again we need to keep them safe from attack for a period of time against a horde of OD.

This defence scenario has three different enemy entry points: from the water, from the rear of the vessel and from the land on the right side of the ship. I found a sound strategy was to place a Siegfried the Great Trap at the top of the ramp leading to the land on the right and another at the ramp leading to the water. Place two Flame Geyser Traps at the rear of the boat and one further Flame Geyser trap by the upper barricade n the right side of the ship.

When you are ready, start the defence and use the wires overhead to maintain a combo as you assist your traps in massacring the OD as they enter the area. Note that the majority of the OD will come from the land to the right of the ship, so focus your attention there, but also keep your eyes peeled for other groups of enemies at the other entrances. Try to keep the Pyro geyser Traps active as often as possible.

When the OD finally manage to break through your defences, as per usual you need to use whatever weapons you have at your disposal to prevent them from touching your Overcharge!

Note that defending all 45 barrels of Overcharge will earn you 225,000 points – more than 90% of the way to a gold medal!

You can begin the challenge at the Valve (left). Plant traps and use the wire lining the deck to cut laps and help defend where required (right).

Medal Score Reward/s
Bronze 100,000 $ 650
Silver 175,000 $ 2,500
Gold 250,000 3,000 x Overcharge

Downtown Night Defence

In this challenge, the game will have you protecting Overcharge vats (which replace the fuse boxes from the main game) and there are three of them placed across the area. Again we need to keep them safe from against a massive number of OD. There is one fuse box located below Floyd’s location and another two further, one to the right and one to the left in the courtyard below.

This defence sequence has a very large number of areas where enemies can enter the area, almost too many to trap, however the main entrances seem to be just to the left of the left hand Vat in the main courtyard and just to the right of the right hand vat in the main courtyard area. As with the previous defence sequences, you’ll want to place your traps of choice on the outside of barricades in order to kill the enemies as they come to attack it.

For this defence, if you have them, I’d recommend placing a Siegfried the Great trap at the base of the stairs on both sides of the vat beneath Floyd. Place a Flame Geyser trap outside the northern barricades of both vats in the courtyard and then place one more Siegfried the great Trap directly between the two vats in the courtyard.

When you are ready, start the defence and use the wires overhead to maintain a combo as you assist your traps. It should be noted that the vast majority of the OD action will come from the south to begin with to attack the pair of vats in the courtyard. However, once those numbers thin out a bit, the primary focus of the OD will be the vat below Floyd’s position and when this happens it is best to quickly activate the Flame Geyser traps and then head for the main OD presence.

Use whatever weapons you have at your disposal to prevent them from touching your Overcharge!

Note: the above strategy worked for me, but luck was involved as well. The true strategy to beating this mission is trial and error – play around with traps, figure out the best placements and utilise your Amp abilities to maximise your defence. In all honesty I was unable to complete this defence without losing any Overcharge at all, however as long as you do not let them take too much, you should still get a pretty decent score and in all likelihood a gold medal!

Note that defending all 60 barrels of Overcharge will earn you 300,000 points – which would instantly earn you the gold medal!

You can begin the challenge at the Valve (left). Plant traps and cut laps around the area to help traps defend where required (right).

Medal Score Reward/s
Bronze 150,000 $ 1,000
Silver 200,000 $ 4,000
Gold 300,000 4,000 x Overcharge
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Guide Information
  • Publisher
    Microsoft Game Studios
  • Platforms,
    XB One
  • Genre
    Action Adventure, Third-person shooter
  • Guide Release
    24 October 2014
  • Last Updated
    7 December 2020
  • Guide Author
    Paul Williams

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Welcome to your Awesomepocalypse! Create your own character and enter the colourful, vibrant Sunset City, a metropolis in the throes of a faux soft-drink fuelled zombie apocalypse. Utilise your new found super agility to grind, wall run, bounce and swing your way through the city as you encounter dangerous foes, meet some unusual allies and gain some extraordinarily unusual and powerful weapons. With more pop-culture references than you can shake a stick at and ridiculously fun gameplay, Sunset Overdrive is the gift that keeps on giving and we’ve got you covered every step of the way!

Our Sunset Overdrive guide covers all the most important elements of the game including:

  • A complete walkthrough for the main campaign.
  • Walkthroughs to all 32 side-quests.
  • Strategies to earn gold medals on all 54 challenges.
  • Tips and tricks to unlocking all of those pesky achievements.
  • Unlock every Demon Door to reveal their secrets!

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