What Sonarush is

Sonarush is a real-time action game played entirely by ear. You don't need to look at the screen: enemies, allies, shots and objectives all reach you through three-dimensional audio and speech.

Choose from 23 characters, each with a basic attack, a super, a gadget and a Star Power. Win matches to earn trophies, climb the Decibel Ladder, open Sonar Rewards and Echo Chests, unlock new characters and climb the Frequency, the season's path. You can play offline against bots or online with other people, together with your friends.

Getting started

The first time you open the game you choose your language and the game offers the Training: a guided tutorial that teaches you to move, check your health and the score, use the radar, attack, fire your super and use your gadget. If you press a key the step doesn't expect, you hear a short error sound and the step repeats, so you learn one control at a time.

When the training is over you hear how progress works, then you choose your name, the one other players will see, and you reach the main menu.

If you skip the training, the game asks whether you're a new player or already have an account:

• I'm new: choose your name and start.
• I have an account: pick it up right away with your recovery code, with the 6-character code from your other computer, or with your email if you linked one. Your name and progress come back.

You can replay the training at any time from Help and information.

The main menu

The main items are: Play, Rewards (Sonar Rewards, Echo Chests and Decibel Ladder rewards to open), Frequency, Missions, Characters, Sonarium (the shop, with the daily gift), Friends, Online room, Club, Profile, Your next step, Help and information, Settings and Quit. When there's something to claim, the item tells you ("Missions, 2 to claim").

You can also open this guide from the game, under Help and information → Game guide, in the language you're using. If you just need a reminder about a screen, press F1.

Controls

Almost every key can be changed in Settings → Controls. These are the defaults.

In menus

The back key goes up one level at a time: from a character's details you return to the list, not to the main menu. From the main menu, Backspace asks for confirmation before closing the game.

In a match

Finding your way by sound

The position of everything reaches you through sound, in three ways that work together:

• Left and right: a sound on the right is to the east, on the left to the west.
• Near and far: the louder a sound, the closer it is.
• Front and back: things to the north sound in front and more present; things to the south sound behind, quieter and muffled, as if through a veil; with headphones and 3D audio you hear them coming from behind for real. The radar uses the same directions as the arrows.
• Danger comes first: when a shot is coming at you, has hit you or your health is low, the background (presences, landmarks, objectives) dips for a moment and then comes back: what matters right then doesn't blend into the room.

The game's sounds always follow the same rules: pitch tells you whose sound it is (high for allies, low for enemies), rhythm tells you if it's hostile (a pulsing sound is an enemy), a rising note means you gain something and a falling one that you lose something.

Who's there and who's moving

• A presence tone tells you someone is there, standing still or moving. An ally's is continuous, an enemy's pulses: you recognise it even in the middle of a fight.
• Footsteps tell you that someone is moving: an enemy standing still makes no footsteps. Enemy footsteps are lower, ally footsteps higher.

You hear the nearest characters, not all of them at once. If you'd rather hear footsteps only, turn off Separate Presence and Steps in Settings → Space and Directions.

Incoming shots

An enemy shot heading towards you makes a whoosh that follows its path and grows as it gets closer: that's your cue to dodge. Only nearby enemy shots aimed at you make this sound, three at most at a time. Stars, zones and safes also have a continuous sound you can follow.

The arena's landmarks

Team arenas have four fixed points that sound on their own, one in each corner: a fountain (running water), a generator (a low electric hum), some chimes (sparse metallic tolls) and a campfire (crackling). They never move and never go quiet, on every map of the same mode.

They tell you where you are: hear which way two landmarks come from and you know your spot. Press W and the game tells you the two nearest landmarks, with direction and distance, and how far you are from the edge. You can listen to each of them in the Audio glossary.

Duel and Survival have no landmarks, because there the playing space shrinks. In Duel the edge guides you, as it moves in and you hear it; in Survival the acid does, together with the objective key, which tells you where the safe zone is.

When you get close to the edge you hear a warning coming from its direction. Walking along the edge is the easiest way to learn the shape of an arena.

Walls

Team arenas have inner walls. Walls:

• stop shots: a shot hitting a wall makes a thud, different from a miss;
• stop you: walking into one diagonally, you slide along it;
• muffle the sound of whatever is behind them, which comes through lower and duller. If you move and the sound becomes clear again, you've found the end of the wall;
• tell you when you're in cover from the nearest enemy: a rustle that closes when you take cover and opens when you're exposed again.

Aim assist never locks on through a wall: if you hear the lock-on beep, your shot can get there. Muffling and the cover cue can be turned off in Settings → Space and Directions; the walls stay solid anyway.

Walls come in three materials, and a shot hitting one tells you which: stone makes a dull thud, wood sounds hollow, metal rings on. A bush only rustles, because it doesn't stop shots.

Bushes

• A bush makes its own sound, a light continuous rustle: you know it's there before you reach it.
• Whoever stands still inside disappears: no presence, no footsteps, and the radar can't find them either.
• Whoever moves inside makes it rustle: you don't hear who it is, but you hear that something is there.

The same goes for you: run through a bush and you'll be heard. To flush someone out, wait for them to move or shoot into the bush. Bots can't find you while you stand still in a bush, unless they come within 3 metres, you shoot or get hit, or you move.

Your half and theirs

In Heist, Star Hunt, King of the Hill and SonarBall, crossing the middle of the field plays two notes: they fall when you enter the enemy half and rise when you come back to yours.

Corridors

In a narrow passage, with a wall or the edge on both sides, your footsteps echo: you hear when you enter a corridor and when you leave it.

The sonar: S key

S sweeps the direction you're facing, up to twenty metres. The echo comes back later the farther the obstacle is, and right after a voice tells you what's there: "Ahead: stone wall, 6 metres", "Ahead: bush, close", "Ahead: the edge of the arena" or "Ahead: all clear".

Nearby obstacles: O key

O lists up to four obstacles within twelve metres, nearest first: type, direction and distance, and for walls whether they're low and whether they can be broken. For example: "Wooden wall ahead, close, low, can be broken. Bush behind, close."

As you move, the edge and obstacles sound different: the edge is a single low thump (you can't go past it, turn back), a nearby wall or bush is a pair of short high ticks (you can go around it). In both cases, the closer you are the faster the sound repeats.

The map: F2 key

F2 opens the map explorer: the arena becomes a grid of two-metre cells that you walk through with the arrows. Each cell announces itself: "Row 4, column 7: metal wall, low", "bush", "clear", "Fountain". Rows grow towards the north and columns towards the east. C goes back to the centre, R jumps to the next landmark.

It opens from the mode selector, to study a map before playing it, and from the pause menu during an offline match.

Maps

Every mode has several maps, each with a name that tells you its idea ("The Corridor", "The Three Islands", "The Thicket"). Three are in rotation (four for Survival and Siege), and the map changes every time the mode comes back: Survival every day, Siege every weekend, the others on each of their turns. It's the same for everyone, online and offline, and the mode selector tells you the map's name before you choose.

Both teams always get the same map, mirrored or turned around, and start from equivalent points. Asymmetric maps have two different halves, balanced so that each wins half the time.

In the Rehearsal Room, online too, you can pick any map, including those out of rotation.

How each character shoots

• Straight: the shot flies in a straight line and a wall stops it. This is the most common case.
• Lobbed: the shot arcs over low walls. Nova, Grom and Morgana do this.
• Close range: a short, wide cone. Renzo, Bruno, Kael, Nyx, Volkan, Draco.
• Bouncing: Echo's cards bounce off walls.

Nobody hits through a wall, except lobbed shots over low walls. Behind a tall wall, you're in cover.

Breaking walls

Some walls can be broken (the map explorer and the O key tell you which). There's one rule: a super that deals damage breaks breakable walls; a basic attack never does. Supers that heal, shield, create clones or boost don't break them.

A falling wall hurts nobody, but it makes a long sound, different for each material, and a voice announces it: from then on that cover is gone. The wall absorbs the blast that breaks it, so whoever was behind it isn't hit by that shot.

Pace

Every character has one of four speeds, close to each other: slow (control and artillery), normal (marksmen, supports and fighters), fast (tanks) or very fast (assault). You hear it in your own footsteps: slow characters take low, sparse steps, fast ones high, quick steps. This applies only to your own footsteps; in other people's, the pitch tells you whether they're friends or enemies.

Fighting

Health and regeneration

When your health drops below the critical threshold you hear a warning. If you go a few seconds without attacking or being hit, you start to regenerate: a healing sound repeats every second until you're back to full health. Taking a hit interrupts regeneration, so sometimes it pays to fall back and recover. Bots regenerate the same way.

Ammo

Every character has a 3-shot magazine. How fast each shot comes back varies from character to character.

Ammo reloads one shot at a time, and each one that comes back sounds a little higher than the last: low when you're almost empty, high when the magazine is full. The last one always has the same high pitch, so "full" sounds the same with every character. If you try to fire with no ammo you hear an empty sound.

The super

The super charges by hitting enemies. Quick supers charge in 4 or 5 hits, middle ones in 6 or 7, the most devastating in 8; Mira, who fires bursts, counts individual bullets and needs 24. Each character's number is on their card. Pressing the super key tells you the charge percentage.

• Every enemy hit by your super charges a little of the next one.
• Tanks (Renzo, Draco, Bruno, Bram) also charge their super by taking hits, up to half the bar per life.
• Supports (Lyra, Zara, Faro, Mariarita) also charge it by helping: every 600 points of healing given, or of damage absorbed by their shields, counts as a hit. Again up to half the bar per life.
• Hitting a safe in Heist doesn't charge the super.

Gadget and Star Power

The gadget has a cooldown, not a number of uses: press its key to hear whether it's ready. You don't have it from the start: you get it from the character's level 7. From level 9 comes the Star Power too. See Progression.

Time running out

The game warns you at 60 and 30 seconds from the end. In the last 15 seconds a note plays every second, each one a little higher than the last: you hear how much time is left without counting. The numbers 15, 10 and 5 to 1 are also spoken. Halfway through the match you hear the score.

Range: can you hit them?

Every character has their own range, and knowing whether the enemy is within reach is half the fight:

• Automatic cues: when the nearest enemy enters your range you hear two rising notes; when they leave it, two falling ones. You can turn them off in Settings → Space and Directions.
• X key: tells you out loud whether the target is in range, how far off it is, and whether you're inside someone else's range.

After the match

At the end of a match you hear your recap in one sentence: damage, accuracy, eliminations and healing. In the results menu, Details of your match adds damage taken, deaths, supers used and hits landed out of shots fired.

Then the game names the Star Player: whoever counted most for their team in that mode, and why. If it's you, you get 25 coins.

Aim assist and radar

How hitting works

You don't need to aim precisely. You need two things:

1. Face the enemy. You turn simply by moving in that direction, diagonals included. The enemy has to be within the arc in front of you, which depends on the character: wide for those who hit in a spread up close (Renzo), narrow for those with a precise shot (Thora). Every enemy can be reached from one of the eight directions: with a narrow shot you have to pick it carefully.
2. Be within your range. Renzo has to get close; Nova can hit from far away.

When both are true, Space hits: aim assist picks the target and sends the shot where the enemy is right now: whoever runs sideways can dodge it, and slow shots are easier to dodge than fast ones. Your super also goes towards the locked target. Aim assist is the same for everyone, online included.

The lock-on beep tells you when aim has caught someone: it gets faster as you line up, until it becomes continuous. If it's lower and softer, the target is out of range: get closer. When it's full again, you're in range.

The lock stays. Once locked, the enemy stays locked even when you turn to move away: the beep keeps coming from where they are, and Space shoots at them even behind you. You lose the lock when they leave your range, when you can no longer hear them (behind a wall, in a bush) or when you lock onto someone else by turning towards them. Dashes (gadgets that move you) still go where you're walking.

Knowing you hit

Every hit you land plays a confirmation, and its pitch rises as the target gets closer to defeat: you hear not just that you hit them, but whether you're winning the fight.

The radar

The radar has three keys: everything (R), enemies only (F), allies only (G). Each item is announced with the character's name (online too, where every player has their own name: in the arena the character is what matters), direction and distance. There are eight directions: ahead, behind, left, right and the four diagonals ("ahead left", "behind right"…). You can also hear them as compass points ("north-west"): see Accessibility. With detailed verbosity, distances are given in metres.

Game modes

Modes unlock as you climb the Decibel Ladder: Duel right away, Star Hunt at 50 trophies, King of the Hill at 150, Heist and SonarBall at 300, Survival at 500, Siege at 700. During events special modes may arrive, open from 300 trophies. In Season 2 the bottom of the modes holds the mode of the day in the fog, also from 300 trophies.

Which modes are on today

Not every mode is open at once: they rotate through three turns. The first alternates Duel and Survival and changes at 8:00 UTC; the second alternates King of the Hill and Heist and changes at 20:00 UTC; the third alternates SonarBall and Star Hunt and changes at 8:00 UTC. If you haven't unlocked one of the two modes of a turn yet, you always find the other: new players always find Duel. In the Play menu each mode tells you when it changes and what comes next. The Sonarush day starts at 8:00 UTC for everyone.

Heist in detail

The most tactical mode, and the objectives don't move. Each team starts in front of its own safe: yours is behind you, to the south; the enemy's is ahead, to the north. Going forward means going towards the enemy.

How you win

• Whoever cracks the enemy safe wins: the match ends instantly, and cracking it is worth 60 bonus coins.
• If both are still standing after 3 minutes, the team whose safe has more health as a percentage wins. That's a full win, with the same trophies, but without the coin bonus, and the game says so ("won on points").
• If the percentages are equal, or both safes break at the same instant, it's a draw.

The shield at every quarter

Every time a safe loses a quarter of its health (at 75%, 50% and 25%) it locks down for 3 seconds: it becomes immune and pushes back attackers right next to it. Defenders aren't pushed. These three pauses tell you by ear where you stand.

Telling the two safes apart

Both safes make themselves heard with a pulse every two and a half seconds, with silence in between, where you can hear the footsteps of anyone approaching. The two pulses have different tones:

• yours has a low, calm pulse: it's there, it's fine;
• the enemy's is higher and more insistent: that's the sound to head for.

They're different in themselves, so you won't mix them up even while moving. If in doubt, the objective key (R) announces both with direction, distance and health percentage.

The help you get

• Aim assist locks onto the enemy safe just as it would onto an opponent. It never locks onto yours.
• When your safe is hit an alarm sounds, followed by the direction and the health percentage. It comes back at most every few seconds.
• A shot bounced off the shield sounds different from a hit: if you hear it, you're wasting ammo on an immune safe.
• Both safes' health is announced at thresholds (90%, 75%, 50%, 25%, 10%).
• Hitting the safe doesn't charge the super, for any character.

Survival and the acid

Ten players, everyone against everyone, no respawning. After ten seconds an acid starts bubbling in from the edge of the arena and closes towards the centre, down to 12 metres in two minutes. Anyone inside loses health every second, more and more the longer they stay.

• When you enter the acid you hear it bubbling around you, in pulses, until you leave it; the voice says "You're in the acid! Head back towards the centre" and, when you get out, "Out of the acid".
• Every thirty seconds you hear how big the safe zone is.
• The objective key (R), while you're in the acid, tells you where the nearest safe ground is; outside it, the nearest healing orb.
• Healing orbs always appear inside the safe zone.

Star Hunt in detail

The centre of the map is the heart of the match: a star appears there every 10 seconds, and you hear it chime. Your team needs 10.

• Once you have 10, a 15-second countdown starts, marked by a beep every second. Hold them to the end and you win.
• Stars are held only while alive: anyone eliminated drops them on the spot, and anybody can pick them up.
• If your team falls below 10 during the countdown, it resets: getting back to 10 restarts the full 15 seconds.
• You hear the countdown even when the other team is leading: that's your warning that you have only seconds left to break it by eliminating whoever carries the stars.
• If nobody has won after 3 minutes, a final 15 seconds begin: at zero, the team with more stars wins (a tie is a draw).

SonarBall in detail

The Stadium is a long field with a goal in the middle of each short side: yours to the south, the enemy's to the north. The ball starts in the centre.

• The ball always sounds, with its bells. The tone says whose it is: higher if your team has it, deeper if the enemy does, no tone when it's loose.
• To pick it up you walk over it: you hear the pick-up and the voice says “You have the ball”, “Your team has the ball” or “The enemy has the ball”.
• Whoever has the ball can't shoot and runs as usual: the attack key shoots it straight ahead, and it rolls about thirteen metres, bouncing off walls and edges. The super key lobs it: the ball flies over the walls for about twelve metres, with a rising sound of its own, and nobody can catch it while it's in the air. The gadget still works.
• If you're eliminated or pushed with the ball, you drop it where you are.
• The two goals send a pulse every two and a half seconds: yours in its usual tone, the enemy's deeper. The radar key tells you where the ball and the goal to attack are.
• A goal by your team, Blue, plays the Sonarush theme rising, with trumpet and timpani; a goal by the opponents, Red, plays the same theme falling in a minor key, with trombone and cello.
• After a goal everyone goes back to the starting points and the ball stays still in the centre for three seconds, marked by the countdown.
• The first team to score two goals wins; when the three minutes are up, whoever has more wins. If it's a tie, there's one minute of overtime: the first goal wins, and if nobody scores it's a draw.

King of the Hill in detail

The zone is a fixed circle at the centre of the map, recognisable by the pulse it sends every two and a half seconds (silence in between, for the footsteps). You score while at least one teammate is inside and no enemy is: a single opponent in the circle makes it contested and nobody scores.

• When you step in you hear two rising notes; when you step out, the same two falling.
• These two sounds are only about your own position. Who controls the zone is announced by voice ("Zone is ours", "Zone contested", "Enemy holds the zone").
• The score is read aloud every 15 points.
• The first team to reach 100 points wins right away, without waiting for the three minutes to end. If neither gets there, the team with more points wins when time runs out.

The Rehearsal Room and the Range

At the bottom of the mode selector is the Rehearsal Room (the one with friends is the online Rehearsal Room). Use the arrows to choose mode, map, character and bot difficulty, then Start. Bot difficulty is chosen only offline: online, bots are always medium. It's a match without progression: no trophies, coins, missions or streaks, and nothing to lose. You can even use characters you don't own yet, and pick a specific map to learn it instead of waiting for its turn.

Among the Rehearsal Room modes is the Range: any character against a dummy standing just out of reach, which comes back when you take it down. At the end you hear how much damage you dealt and how many times you took it down. It's how to learn how a character hits before unlocking them. To leave, open the pause menu.

Playing online

Sonarush can also be played with other people, in real time: friends, squads, rooms, a queue that finds you a match, clubs. An online match sounds exactly like an offline one: you only learn once.

Your online account

Your account is created automatically the first time the game connects to the internet, with no email or password. In Settings → Online account you'll find:

• the connection status, with your name and your tag (the code that identifies you, like #ABCD1234);
• your recovery code, 16 characters long: it brings your account to another computer even if the old one is gone. You can read it, copy it, save it to a file or regenerate it. Keep it safe and never give it to anyone;
• the recovery email, optional: you link it with a 6-digit code sent to you by email, and it lets you back in if you lose your recovery code. Nobody else can see it;
• Link another device: a 6-character code, valid for a few minutes, to type on the other computer under Enter a code;
• Recover account with your recovery code, or Recover with email;
• your linked devices, to unlink one by one, and Sign out on this device;
• Delete the account: you confirm with your recovery code. For 14 days you can change your mind by recovering it; after that the account disappears with everything in it.

Your progress is also stored on the server: what you earn offline is added the next time you connect, and a computer that signs into your account gets everything back.

Friends

From the main menu, Friends. At the top is Do not disturb: when it's on, nobody can invite you or listen to your matches, and friends coming online, requests and club news go quiet. Then your friends list (those online first, with what they're doing), requests, adding someone by tag or name, recent players and blocked players. On a player's card: profile, add or remove, block, report; on a friend also Invite to squad, Invite to club and, if they're playing, Listen to their match.

Playing together: rooms and squads

• Inviting a friend: from their card, Invite to squad, then choose the mode. They're asked straight away to Accept or Decline (with a guitar sound); if they decline, you hear it. If they're typing or already in a room, the invite waits for them in the Online room menu.
• Online room, from the main menu: create a room (a match among friends, the online Rehearsal Room) or a squad, or join with the 6-character code you were given.
• A squad queues together and always ends up on the same side. The leader chooses the mode; when everyone's ready, Find a match. At the end you're back together in the squad.

Finding a match: the queue

With your account connected, choosing a mode in Play puts you in a queue with people whose trophies are close to yours; without internet you play offline against bots, as always. If players are still missing after ten seconds, bots of medium difficulty take the empty spots. The match starts for everyone at the same moment, as soon as each player has loaded it: you hear the starting jingle and then the start sound.

Online trophies and leaving

• In queue matches, trophies are calculated by the server, with the same rules as offline matches (bands, thresholds, win streaks).
• If your connection drops, a bot takes over your character and you can rejoin within a minute.
• If you leave and the match ends without you: if your team wins or draws you get nothing, neither trophies nor rewards; if it loses, you lose the trophies for the defeat and your streak.

The online Rehearsal Room

Whoever creates the room is its leader: they put each person in the first or second team or among the spectators (up to 10), add bots (easy, medium or hard) and choose the map, including those out of rotation. No trophies or rewards. Spectators listen to the match from one player's point of view and switch player with the left and right arrows. In Season 2 the leader can turn on the fog, in any mode.

Quick chat

In an online match the keys 1 to 8 send your teammates a ready-made phrase: Attack!, Fall back!, Need help!, Defending!, Going for the objective!, Well done!, Thanks!, Good game!. Everyone hears it in their own language. When a phrase arrives you hear two rising marimba notes, the phrase and the character who sent it: "Attack! From Lyra". The key to the left of 1 (` on an English keyboard) mutes or unmutes your teammates' phrases; you can still send yours. In rooms and squads there's a Quick chat item too.

Listening to a friend's match

From the card of a friend who's playing, Listen to their match: you hear it from their point of view, the left and right arrows switch player, Esc stops. You can't listen to someone who has Do not disturb on.

Clubs

From the main menu, Club. Without a club: Create a club (name, type and minimum trophies), Search for a club by name or tag, the club leaderboard. A club has up to 30 members and four roles: member, elder, vice president, president.

• The type: open (anyone with the minimum trophies can join), on request (an elder or higher accepts), closed.
• Elders and up accept requests, invite friends (an invite lets you into an on-request club too) and remove members below them; vice presidents and up change the type and minimum trophies; you can promote up to one rank below your own. The president can hand over the presidency; if they leave, it passes to the highest rank.
• Club chat is made of the same ready-made phrases plus events (who joins, leaves, changes role): you listen to it in the Club menu, newest first. Outside the menu you hear only the events.
• Club trophies are the sum of the members': there's a club leaderboard, also in Profile → Leaderboards.
• Enter on a club in the leaderboard or in the search results opens its page: trophies, members (Enter on one opens their profile), type and minimum trophies, and Join or Ask to join. If you can't, the line says why: you're already in a club, it's yours, it's closed, it's full or you're short of trophies.

Leaderboards

In Profile → Leaderboards: global, your country, per character and clubs. From a player on a leaderboard you can open their profile and send a friend request. Bots never appear on leaderboards or among recent players.

Notifications

A friend coming online, a friend request, an accepted request, an invite or club news each have a sound and a sentence. During a match the game keeps them aside and tells you at the end. Announcements of friends coming online can be turned off in the Friends menu.

Server maintenance

When the server is being updated it may go into maintenance for a few minutes: the game tells you, and meanwhile you can play offline as usual. Matches already in progress finish normally.

Events

At certain times of year the game dresses up: a special mode arrives (open from 300 trophies, in the Rehearsal Room too), along with themed missions, rewards and exclusive skins. When the event ends everything goes back to normal by itself, and whatever you earned stays yours.

Season 2: Autumn Fog (from 2 November)

Radio Sonora announces it the first time you open the game in the new season.

• At the bottom of the modes is the mode of the day in the fog: each day a different one among Duel, Star Hunt, King of the Hill, Heist and Survival, open from 300 trophies. Trophies count as usual.
• In the fog distant sounds come through muffled, quieter and without highs; nearby ones, within range, stay as clear as ever. The game tells you at the start of the match.
• Online the fog mode has its own queue: whoever picks it plays with others who picked it. In the Rehearsal Room the leader can turn the fog on in any mode; a squad can search in the fog if its mode is the one of the day.

In the Missions menu there's the row of Fog Missions, which only count matches in the fog:

Five Fog skins: the character's own sounds, veiled by the fog, with a costume on top. Zoe the Lamplighter, Kael the Fog Wolf and Elodie the Veiled Lady are at the Sonarium for 119 gems and in rewards; Morgana the Mist Witch is the last Frequency Plus tier of Season 2; Faro the Lighthouse Keeper is the missions' reward. A skin you win for a character you don't have stays yours, and you'll hear it once you have them.

The 7 classes

The characters

The 23 characters, grouped by class.

Progression

Trophies and ranks

Winning earns trophies, losing takes some away. How many depends on that character's trophies: the higher you go, the fewer you get for a win and the more you lose for a defeat, until the two balance out at your real level. Two safety nets: below 250 trophies you lose nothing, and the thresholds 250, 500, 750, 1000, 1250, 1750 and 2500 act as floors, so a defeat never takes you below a milestone you've already reached.

Your trophy total sets your rank: Wood (from 0), Bronze (250), Silver (750), Gold (1500), Diamond (2500), Legend (3750). The first time you reach a rank you get gems and a guaranteed Sonar Reward: Bronze 10 gems and a rare reward, Silver 15 and rare, Gold 20 and epic, Diamond 30 and legendary, Legend 50 and legendary.

Win streak

Streaks are per character: from the second win in a row you get one extra trophy per win, up to ten extra. A defeat resets the streak, a draw doesn't.

Character level

With Power Points and coins you upgrade a character up to level 10, raising health and attack (and so supers, healing and shields): at level 10 they are worth twice level 1. Each level costs coins, from 20 (level 1 to 2) to 1875 (9 to 10). Upgrades are in Characters → Upgrade Characters.

The Decibel Ladder

As your trophies add up you climb the Decibel Ladder: 75 steps, up to 20000 trophies. Along the way you find coins, gems, Fragments, Power Points and Sonar Rewards of guaranteed rarity; the last step is a legendary Sonar Reward. You open the rewards from the Rewards menu; your Profile lists every step.

All modes arrive by 700 trophies. Common characters unlock only here: they don't come out of rewards and can't be bought.

Gadgets

A character's gadget becomes available when the character reaches level 7, in two ways: buy it at the Sonarium for 1,000 coins, or find it in a Sonar Reward or an Echo Chest. Before level 7 it doesn't appear in the Sonarium and doesn't come out of rewards. The character's card (Characters → a character → Gadget) always tells you where you stand. In a match, if you press the gadget key without having one, the game tells you.

Star Powers

The Star Power is a passive ability, always active, different for every character: you don't press it and it doesn't recharge. It's available from level 9: buy it at the Sonarium for 2,000 coins, or find it in a reward or chest (rarer than gadgets). Every time it triggers you hear a dedicated sound. Bots have their Star Power only if you have yours too. Each character's power is on their card, in The characters.

Sound skins

Every character can have an alternative sound set: attack, footsteps and super change, but no numbers do. In a game you listen to, this is how you dress up your character.

You buy them with gems at the Sonarium, in the Sound skins department, or from the character's card, or directly with real money (see Buying with real money); Arcade skins also come from rewards, chests and Frequency Plus. You can try them before buying: the first item on the skin's card plays attack, footsteps and super, the second plays the character's usual sounds for comparison. Skins change your own sounds; online, other players hear your skin, while bots always use the usual sounds.

Resonance

Once you've unlocked every character, the Fragments you find become Resonance: ten levels (Whisper, Murmur, Voice, Call, Echo, Choir, Roar, Thunder, Ovation, Sonic Legend) and then grades beyond the last, each with gems and a Sonar Reward. Your progress is in your Profile.

Profile, statistics and records

In your Profile, one line at a time: name, tag, level, trophies, resources, statistics (overall and per character), personal records (most eliminations in a match, highest damage, longest streak, highest trophies, best Survival placement, also per character and per mode), the Decibel Ladder and the Leaderboards. When you beat a record, the game tells you at the end of the match.

The day streak

Every day on which you finish at least one match, won or lost, your day streak goes up by one, and with it a bonus on coins and experience: five percent more per day, up to fifty percent. Missing a day doesn't reset it: you have two rest days a month, used automatically. When the streak goes up you hear three rising notes, higher each day up to the tenth.

Your next step

Your next step in the main menu (and a sentence at the end of each match) tells you just one thing: the nearest goal and how far off it is. If you have something ready to claim, it tells you that first.

Missions and the Frequency

The Frequency

The Frequency is the season's path, free for everyone. A season lasts about a month: it starts on the first Monday of the month and ends on the Sunday before the first Monday of the next.

• Seventy steps, each with a reward: coins, Power Points, Fragments, gems, Sonar Rewards, sound skins and, every ten steps, an Echo Chest. The last one is a legendary Echo Chest.
• You climb with experience from missions. You can also buy a tier for 45 gems: it takes you straight to the next one, up to the last.
• After the last step, every 1600 experience points give a Sonar Reward.
• Frequency Plus, for 299 gems or real money, adds a second reward to every step, including those already reached. The last Plus step can give the season's exclusive skin.
• Whatever you reached and didn't take is claimed for you at the end of the season.

In the Frequency menu, Enter on a ready step takes it; Claim all, at the top, takes them all. When a new season begins, the game tells you.

Today's modes and the event of the day

Modes rotate through three turns: see Game modes. Each day one of the turns is the event of the day: that mode gives double coins and experience (trophies stay the same). It's the same for everyone, and the Play menu says so in the item's name. The Sonarush day starts at 8:00 UTC.

Missions

Missions give Frequency experience, which is how you climb its steps.

• Daily: three at a time, renewed at 8:00 UTC, on the modes being played that day.
• Weekly: eight a week, in two batches of four, on Monday and Thursday. On Monday at 8:00 UTC they all start over.

Each mission type has three fixed levels; you get one of the three, and the game tells you along with the reward ("Level 2 of 3"). Some examples:

Using the menu

1. Missions → choose Daily or Weekly: you immediately hear how many are active and how many to claim.
2. Choose the state: Not started, In progress or Completed.
3. Among the Completed ones you'll find Claim all, which collects everything at once.

Time remaining tells you how long until the next renewals. During an event, the event missions are at the top of the menu.

Rewards, chests and resources

The game has four resources: coins (upgrades, gadgets and Star Powers), Power Points (upgrades), Fragments (unlock characters) and gems (skins, Frequency Plus and conversions). There are four rarities across the whole game: common, rare, epic, legendary.

Everything is earned by playing. Real money only buys gems, skins and Frequency Plus, never advantages in matches: see Buying with real money.

The Rewards menu

Sonar Rewards, Echo Chests and Decibel Ladder rewards waiting to be opened are all in the Rewards menu, sorted by type.

Sonar Rewards

The first three wins of each day give a Sonar Reward. You open it in four taps with Enter, and each tap can raise its rarity: you hear it go up, with a note that's higher the higher the rarity. A tap that doesn't raise it is a short knock. After the fourth tap you hear the rarity reached; one more Enter and the voice tells you what you won. If it reaches legendary before the fourth tap it can't go any higher, so the remaining taps are skipped; a reward that starts out legendary opens with no taps at all.

Each reward contains one prize, worth its rarity:

Instead of a resource, an epic reward can give a gadget (2%), a rare character (1%) or an epic one (0.5%); a legendary one a Star Power (4%), a gadget (5%), an epic character (3%) or a legendary one (1.5%). Starting from common, the final odds are 50% common, 30% rare, 15% epic, 5% legendary. Some rewards already start at a higher rarity ("rare Sonar Reward") and can only go up from there. If you leave halfway you lose nothing: the reward is revealed at once.

Echo Chests

Echo Chests always hold four items, and the chest's rarity decides how much each one is worth: resources, gems (from 3 to 50), characters, gadgets, Star Powers, skins. You find them on the Frequency. When it opens you hear the rarity's sound, then Enter reveals one item at a time. The Jackpot doubles a resource.

Fragments and unlocking characters

Rarities unlock in order: epics become available once you have all the rares, and so on. Choose the character to unlock from their card (or from Characters → To unlock): from then on your Fragments go to them automatically, the ones you have and the ones you'll find, and that character doesn't come out of rewards. When they unlock, the game asks you for the next one straight away. If you later find that character in a reward, the Fragments you'd put in come back to you. You can also finish an unlock with gems: 1 gem is worth 2 Fragments.

The Sonarium

The Sonarium is the game's shop. It doesn't sell chests or rewards: you grow by playing. At the top is the daily gift: a small free item (coins, Power Points, Fragments or a few gems), to collect once a day while the game is connected. Then the departments, always in the same place:

• Sound skins: with gems, to try before you buy.
• Abilities: with coins, gadgets (1,000) and Star Powers (2,000) for characters who have reached the right level.
• Frequency: Plus and tiers, with gems or, for Plus, real money. The department says where you are in the season, and from there you open the Frequency.
• Buy gems: gem packs for real money. Each pack says how good a deal it is and how many skins it covers; at the end you find My purchases, with payments and refunds.

Gems don't convert into other resources: they go on skins, Frequency Plus, Frequency tiers and finishing a character unlock. You earn gems from Echo Chests, the Frequency, the Decibel Ladder, ranks, Resonance, the daily gift and event missions.

Buying with real money

You can buy gem packs, in the Sonarium's Buy gems department, and directly a skin, from its card, or Frequency Plus, from the Frequency menu or the Sonarium's Frequency department. You can never buy advantages in matches, nor Sonar Prizes or Echo Chests.

You pay in euros if the country set on your computer is in the European Union, and in US dollars elsewhere: the game always tells you the right price.

• You need the online account and an email linked to it, because the receipt goes there. Link it in Settings, Online account.
• Once you choose, the game opens your browser on a secure Stripe page. The game never sees your card details.
• When you've paid, go back to the game: it tells you when your purchase arrives. If you're in a match, it waits until the end.
• If the skin or Frequency Plus you paid for reached you some other way in the meantime, you get the gems it costs instead.
• What you buy arrives right away, so before paying you waive your right of withdrawal. We don't give refunds, except where the law requires: if a purchase doesn't arrive or doesn't work, write to sonarush@vabax.it.
• If a payment is refunded or disputed, it is paid back in gems, even going below zero, and the game shows the negative balance. Until the balance is back to zero, the gems you earn cover it and you can't spend any; everything else in the game works as usual.

The full rules are in the terms of use.

Settings and accessibility

Every menu and event is announced by voice, and every important piece of information also has a sound. On Windows the game speaks through your screen reader (NVDA or JAWS, braille included); without a screen reader it uses the system voice. In Settings you'll find:

• Audio: six volumes (master, music, objectives and landmarks, character presence, combat, interface and notifications), 3D audio for headphones and the panning limit. Moving a volume plays a test sound from that category. If objective hums seem too quiet, raise "Objectives and landmarks" without touching the shots.
• Space and Directions: Cardinal Directions, Separate Presence and Steps, Audible Shots in Flight, Range cues, Arena landmarks, Walls muffle sound, Cover cue.
• Voice and Announcements: verbosity, announcement pace, the Announcement Categories you can turn off as a group (Combat, Your Status, Objective and Score, Progression) and individual announcements: damage, the "Reload" voice, super and gadget not ready, regeneration, super charge, position in menus ("2 of 7").
• Game: bot difficulty in offline matches.
• Controls: change the keys.
• Language and Online account.

Every item with a value works the same way: Enter switches it on and off, the left and right arrows change it. Turning off an announcement always leaves its sound: you get less speech, not less information.

Verbosity

Essential says only what's indispensable: the round's outcome, your elimination, the objective, the menus. Normal is in between. Detailed adds exact numbers, the direction a hit came from and distances in metres. Whatever you ask for with a key (health, score, radar, range, repeat) is always spoken.

Directions: relative or cardinal

By default the game says "ahead left", "behind right". With Cardinal Directions you hear "north-west", "south" instead: fixed points on the map. If you build a mental map of the arena, compass points are more useful: two contacts "north-west" are in the same place.

The Audio glossary

In Help and information → Audio glossary you can listen to every sound in the game with its explanation, including each character's footsteps, attack and super. It's the best place to train your ear before playing. Sounds that belong to "someone else" are the lower version of the same event: an opponent's defeat sounds darker than yours, and so does someone else coming back into the match.

Keys

F1 reads the help for the screen, Tab reads it again. Every key can be changed in Settings → Controls, except F1 and F2; in offline matches Esc always pauses. If you choose a key that's already in use, the action that had it moves to another key and the game tells you which.

Help and information

From the main menu: the game guide, what's new in this version, the Audio glossary, the training to replay, the official website, the Discord server, the credits, and the privacy notice with the terms of use.

Sonarush on Mac: voice, VoiceOver and braille

On a Mac the game picks the best voice channel by itself:

• VoiceOver, if it's on: announcements are read by VoiceOver, with its voice and speed, and also appear on your braille display. This is the recommended way.
• The Mac's system voice, when VoiceOver is off: it follows the game's language and has its own speed, adjustable in the game.

Enabling VoiceOver for the game

Only once:

1. In VoiceOver Utility (VO plus F8), General section, turn on "Allow VoiceOver to be controlled with AppleScript".
2. When macOS asks for the "Apple Events" permission, answer OK. If you denied it by mistake, you'll find it in System Settings → Privacy & Security → Automation. After an update it may be asked again: that's normal.

To know which voice the game is using, go to Settings → Voice and Announcements → Voice channel and press Enter: it tells you the channel in use and, if VoiceOver can't be used, the reason and how to fix it.

Voice speed

In Settings → Voice and Announcements → Announcement pace you set how quickly announcements follow each other (50 is standard). With the system voice this also changes the speaking rate; VoiceOver, NVDA and JAWS keep the speed you chose in your screen reader.

Keys and VoiceOver

• If the arrows don't reach the game, VoiceOver's Quick Nav is probably on: press Left Arrow and Right Arrow together to toggle it.
• The F1–F12 keys need Fn. For help, H works too, and M for the map.
• When you change a key in Controls, press it on its own, without Control, Option, Command or Shift: that way VoiceOver commands aren't captured by mistake.

First launch

Sonarush isn't verified by Apple yet, so the first time macOS blocks it with a "cannot be verified" warning. You unblock it once, in one of two ways:

• From Terminal (the easiest with VoiceOver): move Sonarush.app to your Applications folder, open Terminal (Command+Space, type "Terminal", Return), type this command and press Return:
  xattr -dr com.apple.quarantine /Applications/Sonarush.app
• From System Settings: try to open the app and close the warning; then open System Settings → Privacy & Security, Security section: there's a line "Sonarush was blocked" with an Open Anyway button (it appears for about an hour after the attempt). Confirm with your Mac password.

The menu bar at the top stays minimal and in English: the game is played entirely from the keyboard, inside its own window.

Tips for new players

• Do the training, then practise in the Audio glossary.
• Move towards what you hear: up, down, left and right are north, south, west and east, and aim locks onto whoever is in front of you.
• Use the radar often, especially enemies only (F) and allies only (G) in three-against-three matches.
• Press X to know if you're in range: firing out of range is the most common early mistake.
• A for health, D for the score, Tab to hear things again.
• Landing hits charges your super faster: keep an ear on it.
• When your health is low, fall back and let it regenerate.
• When you don't know what's ahead of you, press S.
• Check your Missions every day: they're how you climb the Frequency.
• Try a character in the Range, from the Rehearsal Room, before unlocking them: there you can use the ones you don't have too.

Updates and saves

It updates itself

Every time it starts, the game checks for a new version. If there is one, you hear "Found the update to version…: installing it"; from then on any key tells you how it's going, and the percentage and the bar show on screen. Then the game closes and reopens by itself, updated. A match in progress isn't interrupted: the update starts when it ends. Without internet the game works as usual.

If the automatic update fails, Download the update appears at the bottom of the main menu and opens the game's itch.io page: download the new zip and put it in place of the old one (on a Mac, replace Sonarush.app and unblock it as on first launch). To play online, the server may ask for the latest version.

The first time you open the game after an update you hear What's new in this version, one item at a time; you'll find it again in Help and information.

Your progress is safe

Your profile, trophies, characters and settings are stored outside the game folder, so updating or reinstalling doesn't touch them. The game also keeps a backup of the last valid save. With an online account, your progress is saved on the server too.

• Windows: type %APPDATA%\Sonarush in the File Explorer address bar.
• Mac: in Finder, Go menu while holding Option → Library → Application Support → Sonarush.

For a copy of your own, copy that folder wherever you like; to restore it, put it back in the same place. In the same folder you'll also find sonarush.log, the game's log (and crash.log if the game closed because of an error): if something goes wrong, attach them when you write to us.

On Windows, the first time it starts the game puts a Sonarush shortcut on your desktop and tells you. If you delete it, it doesn't come back; you can create it again from Settings.

Helping Sonarush

Translations

Sonarush is available in eighteen languages: Italian, English, Spanish (Spain and Latin America), Portuguese (Brazil and Portugal), French, German, Polish, Russian, Ukrainian, Turkish, Arabic, Simplified Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Indonesian and Vietnamese. If you hear a sentence that's wrong or unnatural, report it with the right wording: it's the most valuable way to help. If you'd like to translate the game into a new language, write to us: each language is a single text file and no coding is needed.

Supporting development

If you enjoy Sonarush, you can support its development with a donation at vabax.it/supporta-vabax. Supporters' names go into the game's Credits. Thank you!

Contact

For questions, bugs and suggestions: sonarush@vabax.it. On sonarush.vabax.it you'll find answers to the most common questions.