Investigators

Investigators are playable characters in White Noise 2. Investigators attempt to find Clues across a map with many unsavory rumors, such as kidnappings or disappearances, surrounding them, while avoiding The Creature in the process. After finding enough clues, they must then break The Artifact by destroying enough Sigils.

## Objective

Each Investigator's goal is to collect eight Clues randomly scattered across the map without getting caught and eventually devoured by The Creature. To avoid getting caught by the creature when it finds them, they need to exploit its one weakness, which is light. If light is shone onto the creature, it will get stunned and eventually banished. Until it is banished, then Investigators must run away, as light will not stop it from moving or using certain powers after being stunned. Once banished, it will get teleported to a random place on the map, and it will have to track down the investigators again. The main tools of retaliation against it are the Flashlight, which will slow down or stun the Creature depending on how close it is to the light source, and glow sticks, which will simply slow them down. Even if an investigator is caught by the creature, fellow Investigators can save them from its grasp if they shine light on it whilst it's devouring the Investigator, unless that Investigator has been caught a third time (in the case of Vincent, two times, and in the case of Phileas, four times) and hasn't used a Medkit. They will be instantly devoured on their last grab.

After all 8 clues have been collected, The Artifact will spawn. The Artifact is what tethers the creature to the Investigator's plane of existence, and it must be destroyed in order to banish it entirely. It will appear to all Investigators and The Creature outlined in white, with each living Investigator being outlined in the same color to The Creature. Investigators must reach The Artifact to break the sigils found around it. The amount of sigils required to be broken is equal to two times the number of Investigators. Once the final sigil has been broken, a short cutscene of The Artifact being destroyed and the creature being completely banished will be shown, with the Investigators winning the match.

## Stats & Traits

Each investigator has their own unique stats and traits that give them different strengths and weaknesses. Traits are different for each investigator. Each Investigator also shares seven different stats.

* Speed: How fast an investigator can walk and run. The tiredness mechanic decreases Speed when an Investigator runs frequently, while it goes back to normal any time the player is not running.
* Endurance: How long an investigator can sprint before running out of breath.
* Bravery: Determines how quickly Sanity drains. Affected by the Creature's Horror stat.
* Flashlight: Affects Battery Life, Range, and Spread stats of each Flashlight. Battery Life affects how long it will take for the battery to drain, Range affects the distance The Creature can be stunned, and Spread affects the area lit up by the light.
* Stealth: How difficult it is for the creature to track an investigator, and affects the duration and intensity of the creature's powers on the investigator. Also affects how precisely an investigator can hear a creature's growl. Tracking is affected by the Creature's Perception stat.
* Exploration: How long investigator's cool downs are for glow stick and compass usage while also affecting the distance at which an investigator can hear a clue.
* Vitality: How long it takes for the creature to fully devour an investigator and modifies the speed penalty given to the investigator when injured. The time it takes to devour Investigators is also affected by the Creature's Strength stat.

Stats are measured on a scale of zero to ten, with zero being the suggested lowest and ten being the suggested highest. However, a couple of Investigators, such as Shaira, can effectively reach stats higher than the suggested limits with certain skins and flashlights. Stats at seven or higher will be highlighted in green and stats at three or lower will be highlighted in red.

With the exception of the Flashlight stat, stats can also be affected by The Creature's Idols. Some Idols, such as Blisters lower stats by a certain percentage with each one summoned, while others, such as Thorns, will lower stats when Investigators are within a certain range of an Idol. Stats may be affected by certain traits as well, such as Yumi's CURIOUS trait boosting her Speed if her flashlight is on and has over half of its battery life remaining.

## Skins

Each investigator has their own set of skins they can wear. Skins serve two purposes, as they allow the player to customize their character and they have a slight impact on the stats. The default skin of an investigator will not affect the character's base stats, but all other skins will increase a stat by one point and decrease another stat by one point. This can be acknowledged by people who are strategically choosing what they want their stats to be or skins can be chosen purely for cosmetic appeal.

Skins made for specific holidays, such as the Masquerade skins available around Halloween, don't modify stats and therefore are only for character customization.

## Skills

Investigators have access to four different skills that can be used throughout the match.

 FLASHLIGHT: The flashlight is the investigator's main tool of retaliation against The Creature. The light shone from a flashlight can be used to stun, slow down, and banish the creature. It also allows them to save their teammates from the creature's grasp. Turning the Flashlight off will slow down Investigators by 15% (with the exception of Sarah) and make it harder to see, but prevents The Creature from putting an outline on them when close enough, prevents certain traps, such as Rusalka's ENERGY TRAPS, from functioning, halves the range that Idols can detect the Investigator, and stops the battery life from draining until it is switched on again.

 COMPASS: A compass appears near the bottom of the screen, pointing in the general direction of the nearest clue or sigil. The color of the pointer varies depending on the distance from the clue. Red means the clue is far away, yellow means the clue is a decent distance away, and blue means the clue is close. If the compass' pointer is a pale blue dot, it means the clue is in the general area. The compass is tricked by Olkoth's decoys and will lead investigators to them if it is closer to the Investigators than a real clue. There is a cool down period between compass usages and the cooldown is affected by the Exploration stat.

 GLOW STICKS: Glow sticks can be thrown to light the way and keep an Investigator's back covered. Once thrown, the glow sticks will travel a short distance, land, and emit light for a period of time. The light will burn The Creature, slowing them down but also increasing their Light Resistance due to Habituation. Glow sticks can also be dropped at an investigator's feet when pressing and holding the glow stick button. The radius of a glowstick's light slowly decreases and eventually completely disappears when the glowstick becomes black. A glow stick's light starts flashing slightly when it is about to despawn and there is a cool down period between glow stick throws, affected by the Exploration stat. The color of an investigator's glow sticks can be changed in the Settings menu.

 YELL: If an investigator yells, a blue outline of them will be revealed to Investigators and The Creature. Shouting should only be used when an Investigator is far away from others or to guide lost Investigators back to the group. In the case of Anne Marie, she should almost never shout as The Creature will get a pink outline on her for twelve seconds due to NOISY.

## The Environment

Investigators can currently find and interact with five different objects found throughout the map.

* Clues: Investigators must use their compass to find all eight before The Artifact will reveal itself. Clues are usually tapes with garbled messages, but can also come in different forms that take more effort to collect.
* Batteries: Investigators start each round with full battery life, which depletes over time at a different pace depending on the Investigator's Flashlight stat. Due to the range and brightness of flashlights decreasing as battery life decreases, Investigators must keep collecting replacement batteries as the game goes on. Batteries are found throughout the map, and thirty of them spawn each round.
* The Artifact: Once all eight clues are collected, The Artifact will appear. It will be displayed to investigators as a white outline and can be seen from anywhere. Sigils will be located nearby it.
* Sigils: After collecting all eight clues, Investigators must break the sigils, green objects that have a green object floating slightly above their base. Investigators must break a certain number of Sigils before The Artifact itself breaks, which banishes The Creature from the Investigator's plane of existence.
* Items: Items are objects investigators can pick up and used for different effects that benefit the Investigators. Typically, only the Investigator that uses the item gets the benefit.

## Ghosts

After an investigator has been devoured, they come back as a blue, translucent ghost. As a ghost, investigators move at a running pace, receive better vision, and a constant outline of living Investigators when they are close enough. However, ghosts are locked to a constant movement speed as well as being unable to use a flashlight, use Items, and see the Creature, which makes stunning the Creature impossible and catching up to Investigators who are faster than Ghosts when running very difficult. Dead Investigators still retain the ability to use the Compass and yell, as well as being able to place a Spirit Flame, a light that acts similarly to a glow stick. The greatest advantage Ghosts have over living Investigators is the ability to banish The Creature's Idols, as Idols drain Sanity when looked at and give The Creature a rough idea of where Investigators are. Idols will be outlined by a pale green line once a ghost investigator is within a certain range of one. The only other object The Creature can spawn that only Ghosts can destroy are Astaroth's SPLINTERS.

Idols alert the creature when an investigator is near one, so ghosts should try to banish them to keep living investigators safe. The compass and yelling work the same as they do when the investigator is living. On the other hand, the Spirit Flame functions slightly differently compared to the glow stick, which is what living Investigators have. Once an investigator uses it, a white flame appears in front of where the Investigator is standing. The flame also slows down The Creature, just like Glow Sticks. Ghosts can also break one Sigil surrounding The Artifact as long as they didn't break one whilst they were living. The sigils will stop glowing when a Ghost breaks a sigil and become unbreakable for that Investigator.

## Roles

"Roles" is an unofficial term used to briefly sum up a type of playstyle. Some Investigators perform better with a certain playstyle compared to others.

* **ALL-AROUND**: Investigators who don't excel in any particular area and are capable of performing most roles, if not all of them.

* **LEADER**: Leaders, as the term implies, lead the group to Clues. They usually have an Exploration stat at six points or above with their skin alone, although any Investigator can be a Leader with the right Flashlight, such as the Smartphone. Investigators who are natural leaders are generally fragile.

* **GUARD**: Guards generally have above average Speed and Bravery stats, which allows them to run over to the Creature to stun it and alert their group to run or rush over to it to slow it down while it's chasing an Investigator. Both options are incredibly risky.

* **SCOUT**: Usually referred to as Splits, Investigators performing this role leave their group to find Clues on their own. This holds the most risk out of all of the roles, as chances are they won't be able to be saved if they get caught. While Investigators that are splitting generally have high Stealth to keep the Creature from locating them often, Investigators with low Stealth, such as Chuck or Nikolai, can split to force the Creature's Compass away from their group and onto them.

* **CABOOSE**: Cabooses stay at the back of the group and frequently check behind them for the Creature. Typically, they either have an above average Bravery or Flashlight stat.

## Trivia

* Yumi is currently the only playable Investigator to have canonically survived The Hunt at least once, as she would've needed to survive to tell Jin about it due to no media coverage and the governments not notifying the public.
* Shaira is the only Investigator who can have a stat go below zero. To do so, she needs to be using her Fortune Teller skin.
* Every Classic Investigator has at least one of their skins reference a character in White Noise Online that uses their model. Reskins could be unlocked by completing certain criteria on Steam or, in the case of seven retextures on the Xbox 360 version, by buying different games by Milkstone Studios. Kurt and Sarah have the most skins that do this, at three, while Chuck has the least, at one.
* The only Investigators to not return from White Noise and White Noise Online in any capacity are The Reporter, the Invisible Man, and the Invisible Woman. The Reporter likely didn't return due to not having a concrete physical appearance and name, while the Invisible Man and Invisible Woman likely didn't return because of their mostly-invisible nature being difficult to spot for player creatures.