Revenant

The Revenant is an advanced entity added by the Anomaly DLC.

Occurrence

Revenants may spawn as an Entity event when a colony has at least five colonists and the Monolith is at at least level 1. Be warned: temporary pawns do count towards the total. It will not spawn until this threshold is reached, even if all other advanced entities are already discovered and Void provocation is performed. A known entity will be summoned instead.

Alternatively, one can acquire a revenant spine from a Mysterious Cargo quest as a piece of cargo. The revenant will reform after some time, or when placed into containment. Note that immediately smashing the spine will not unlock the Revenant's codex entry. This quest does not respect the population requirement, but having fewer colonists seems to make it rarer.

Summary

The Revenant is an advanced entity hunting for humans to hypnotize.

Pawns that have been caught by a Revenant will be plagued by a condition called Revenant Hypnosis, which caps consciousness at 10%, leaving them downed indefinitely. After successfully hypnotizing a victim, the Revenant will flee and hide on a random tile far away from where it was revealed, just to return eventually to find another victim. The revenant is linked to the colonists it hypnotizes, meaning the hypnotization will end when the Revenant is killed. The unnatural healing ability or a healer mech serum also can end the hypnosis. Revenant hypnosis is not limited only to the player's pawns, but is also capable of affecting prisoners, visiting guests and traders.

While a Revenant is invisible, any pawns will be unable to target it, and it won't be visible on the map however its location can be pinpointed as it can be seen opening doors. ^{[Filth Tracking?]}

Can be revealed by:

Any damage, including by missed shots happening to hit the revenant.
EMP damage.
Disruptor flares
Firefoam
The waterskip and vertigo pulse psycasts.

Upon death, the revenant will dissolve and be replaced with a revenant spine, which will unlock the Revenant invisibility dark research project. It will also stain the ground around it with an oily looking black stain filth. The spine can be hauled like an item, carried to a holding platform to reform and resurrect the revenant, or can be crushed to kill the revenant permanently, which will yield a shard. Note that a spine will eventually reform into revenant if not destroyed. You will get a warning letter before the revenant emerge.

If a revenant is damaged during its attack, it'll drop a revenant flesh chunk. Only one sample will drop per victim. The chunk can be studied to make it easier to track the revenant. The first chunk studied will make the trail of claw marks longer. The second will provide an even longer claw mark trail and also provide a warning when a pawn is near the revenant, indicated by an exclamation mark above the pawn's head. The third sample provides the longest trail and reveals the revenant if a pawn gets close to it. Each revenant must be studied individually. The study progress and tracking benefits apply only to the revenant they dropped from. A revenant that reforms when captured maintains its signature and study progress. A revenant that reforms directly from a spine without the use of a containment spot reforms with a new biosignature.

Revenants have a psychic sensitivity of 200% and a toxic resistance of 100%.

They have a Stagger Time Multiplier of ×0%, making them immune to stagger.

Note that despite nominally having a melee attack, revenants never use it unless trying to break a recently placed wall and instead either uses its hypnotize attack or runs away.

If a Revenant has no route through doors when it is escaping or fleeing it will proceed to mine walls to reach its hiding spot. ^[Attacking?]

After a Revenant hypnotizes a pawn there will be a 1.8 to 3.2 day interval until the next attack.

The visibility distance and hypnotize cast time are based on colonist count. The higher the colonist count the shorter the visibility range and faster hypnotize cast time.

Yield

The revenant yields 4 bioferrite and 200W per day.
Min containment strength 80
Base escape interval: MTB 45 days.
Studiable 120000
Advanced
3 knowledge
requires holding platform
Requires monolith level 1 for study.

Analysis

These entities are quite fast and turn invisible after getting some distance to the colonists, so catching and killing it poses a challenge for unprepared settlements. Especially spread-out settlements where Revenants can pick victims without anyone around can be crippled badly by it returning over and over again. The moment you identify the presence of a revenant, use zoning, work assignments and restricted doors to keep colonists together and prevent revenants from singling out and picking off isolated colonists.

Fleeing or rather moving Revenants leave behind black scratches, which gives the player a chance to track their movement and get a sense of its whereabouts.

Additionally, hidden Revenants can be revealed with disruptor flares, explosives, EMP, or firefoam. Sometimes, damaging the specter will make it drop Revenant flesh which can be studied to better understand the creature, making it easier to find and track it down on the next encounter.

A Proximity detector is capable of detecting a hidden Revenant, but it will not reveal it. Still, it can be used to help narrow its hiding area.

Because revenants always come alone, psycasters can trivialize attacks by spamming the Stun and Skip psycasts to interrupt their hypnosis and prevent them from escaping.

EMP damage also stuns it albeit doesn't interrupt the hypnosis, allowing a lot more damage to be dealt between hunts, however it will adapt and cannot be stunlocked.

When hunting down an invisible revenant, the Beckon psycast can be used to great effect in an attack upon the beast, halting a revenant's flight upon being revealed and calling them back to the psycaster, allowing your pawns to continue to damage and injure the revenant. Spamming Beckon can allow a much easier time hunting down a revenant, potentially allowing you to kill it after just one hunt before it can escape and hide once more.

Executing the revenant also resets the "Bioferrite Extracted" cooldown allowing it to be farmed for around 15-20 bioferrite per extraction by repeating the extract bioferrite > execute > capture process.

Hunting the revenant

Revenants only move fast when fleeing. If they are injured enough, they will become slower than humans when invisible. After analyzing 2 flesh chunks, the trail will be long enough to reliably catch a slow revenant.

EMP grenades can be used to reveal and stun invisible revenants. With practice, it's possible to aim the throw ahead of the trail and catch a them. See the grenade aiming section for how far to aim ahead. The speed of the revenant can by approximated by comparing the distance covered by its trail and the distance by a normal pawn in the same duration.

Version history

Anomaly DLC Release - Added.
Version/1.5.4069 - Revenant flammability reduced to 0%, effectively fireproof.

Entities

Basic: Void monolith • Harbinger tree • Fleshbeast (Fingerspike, Trispike, Toughspike, Bulbfreak) • Sightstealer • Shambler • Ghoul • Gorehulk • Death pall

Advanced: Pit gate • Dreadmeld • Fleshmass heart • Fleshmass nucleus • Chimera • Devourer • Noctolith • Noctol • Revenant • Metalhorror • Nociosphere • Blood rain • Twisted obelisk • Corrupted obelisk • Warped obelisk • Golden cube • Unnatural corpse

Ultimate: Void structure • Void node