Once Hard Mode is active in 99 Nights in the Forest, everything changes. The forest is contaminated, and you can’t rely on your regular gear. Enter the Corrupted Tools. These tangled vines that weapons and armor are made out of is the best hope you have for fighting back and to survive the spreading corruption.
I’ve been grinding on Hard Mode runs since the January 31 update released and let me tell you that (and I don’t say this often) — these tools completely change how you explore survival. But here’s the thing: you can’t just pick them up and dominate. There’s a whole strategy around when to deploy them, how to hunt for them, and more importantly, how to handle the corruption that comes with them.
What Makes Corrupted Tools Different?
Corrupted Tools aren’t just your normal gear in purple. They’re all significantly stronger than most of the gear you’ll be able to equip immediately, but with each and every swing or shot or moment wearing corrupted armor takes your corruption meter one step higher. It’s similar to borrowing power from the forest itself, you get great strength but it’s dangerous to play with fire.
The trade-off is real. A Corrupted Axe will fell trees and corrupted enemies faster than any other game object. The Corrupted Shotgun? Berserker personality will clear cultist waves like no other. But without a proactive battle note-cleaning rule, you’re sitting there watching debuffs multiple until poison spores kill you.
How to Unlock Hard Mode and Obtain Your First Corrupted Tool
You cannot access Corrupted Tools in Normal Mode. Period. Hard Mode is a requirement, and you have to do the setup right or risk missing your window altogether.
Here’s precisely what you have to do:
Start your run and quickly upgrade your camp to Level 2. This lets you access the Research Outpost. You can find it on your map if you made one, or you can explore until you discover it.
Go inside, and head straight for the basement. You will spot a lever with your Roblox username on it. Pull that lever before Day 3 is over. This is important—once Day 3 kicks off and you haven’t voted for Hard Mode, there’s no getting the chance to play it again on that run.
When Day 3 comes around, you’ll notice that Hard Mode has indeed become activated after the cutscene. Purple rifts begin dotting the map, corruption spreads and suddenly your difficulty just took a few steps up. But you also gained entry to the Corrupted Chests.
But before you go running around in search of chests, pick up the loot inside the Research Outpost. In it are bandages, MRE kits, medkits and the most importantly, the Research Monitor Blueprint. That blueprint lets you put monitors at your base. You can check corruption levels, active rifts, and current debuffs. This way, you don’t have to rush back every time.
How to Find Corrupted Chests: Locations for Where They Spawn, and How to Farm Them
Corrupted Chests don’t just spawn out of thin air. They spawn in the locations that are already corrupted—around rifts, near mutated trees with those awesome purple roots and even by corrupted animals wandering amongst the foliage.
It took me a couple of tries to figure this one out: You need to clear the threats first. No, those corrupted wolves and bears aren’t just going to let you waltz up and loot a chest. Bring them down, cut the blighted trees, and you have a safer place to search.
Each chest has one spawn per run. Well, you can’t farm the same spot over and over again, so mobile doors is needed. Level up base camp to Level 2 or further and increase the available area! The more of your map covered, the more areas you can get to for potential chests.
My personal strategy for farming routes: Skill craft a map early and leave it on your base. While exploring, mark a chest even if you’ve already opened it. This assists you in keeping track of which places you already cleared and what section needs to be search. Like rift zones before them, you’ll want to prioritize the focus on floating street settlements: they contain the most chests!
A Full List of Corrupted Tools and What They Do
Here’s what I’ve been able to find and test: the main Corrupted Tools that you can get.
| Corrupted Tool | Description | Best Use |
|---|---|---|
| Corrupted Axe | Just a normal axe covered in purple roots. Axes down trees much faster even than the Strong Axe, and causes heavy damage to the corrupted. | Super for clearing out nasty trees that stand around rifts. |
| Corrupted Thrown Axe | One-handed throwing axes, unlimited uses. | Excellent for ranged combat when you need to stay away from alpha wolves or bears. |
| Corrupted Revolver | Revolver with a purple cast which needs ammo but hits hard against cultists and corrupted wildlife. | High damage against cultists and corrupted animals. |
| Corrupted Shotgun | Retro shotgun with shock vine overgrowth. | Mid-range destruction, most effective when used to hit groups of bad guys. |
| Corrupted Armor | Dull brownish armor. Offers more protection than normal armor, but continues to corrupt you slowly while equipped. | Use only in combat zones, not for everyday wear. |
All of these probably cannot be seen in one trip unless you’re extremely ambitious. As for prioritization, a Case may be built depending on your playstyle: If you’re prioritizing resources first, make sure to obtain the Corrupted Axe as soon as possible. Combat-obsessed gamers will want to be on the lookout for the Corrupted Shotgun or Revolver.
Controlling Corruption: The Key to Hard Mode Survival
This is where almost all players F#()@ UP. You can’t just stack Corrupted Tools and not care about managing your corruption. The systems are aggressive, and if you let it run wild on your behalf, you’re dead.
If you’re timing jumps to avoid the ground trap, then letting those corrupted trees and creatures run rampant on your map won’t help matters much. The debuffs start stacking as corruption increases.
The Debuff Progression
| Debuff Type | Corruption Level | Effect |
|---|---|---|
| Food Rot Spores | Early Stage | After you cook something, it starts to spoil in the fridge perhaps slightly significantly faster than its shelf life. Your food security is gone if you’re not prepared. |
| Hunger Debuff | Mid Stage | Your hunger bar depletes more noticeably and you will have to eat more often. This combines with Food Rot Spores for an effective and major resource drain. |
| Poison Spores | 100% Corruption | You’re now also taking damage over time no matter what, even if you were standing next to your own campfire. This is game over if you are unable to return corruption to the ground in a hurry. |
My Corruption Control Framework
Here’s my corruption control framework:
If you want to monitor your corruption do that all the time via the Research Monitor you assembled from that blueprint. Put one monitor at your base, and remember to frequently check it when going on resource runs.
As soon as a new rift appears on your screen, it should be top priority. Rifts are your #1 source of corruption, so if you’re leaving them alone you are spreading the problem. Go to the rift’s location, kill all of the corrupted animals in its immediate area and chop down all of the corrupted trees with purple roots.
As you fend off these threats, make sure to keep an eye on the purple glow of the rift. It will disappear as you take out the sources of corruption. Close the rift completely and your total corruption decreases.
A chainsaw, if you can have one available REFERENCES: 1. Some rifts occur near the big corrupted trees that are 30+ hits with a normal axe. Chainsaw reduces that to a more manageable time, allowing you to close rifts quicker.
Don’t use Corrupted Tools constantly. Swap back to your normal equipment when you’re performing mundane activities at base, like chopping wood or fishing. Keep the corrupt stuff for rift cleaning and tight fights.
Best Classes to Use Corrupted Tools on Hard Mode
Some classes do not excel in Hard Mode. I’ve spent some time experimenting and here are the classes that play together nicely with Corrupted Tools:
| Class | Why It Works | Synergy with Corrupted Tools |
|---|---|---|
| Cyborg | Infinite ammo on the laser cannon and alien armor means you’re not wasting resources in attempting to fight your way out. | Provides further combat strength as you fight through dangerous rift zones when the need arises. |
| Witch | Her concoction offers AOE damage and healing, easing how much you need to rely on bandages and medkits. | Solves the healing problem when Food Rot Spores are making it more difficult to stock supplies. |
| Fire Bandit or Pyromaniac | Meat cooking on kill for delicious corrupted meals! | Combine with Corrupted Tools to clean out corrupted animals for a renewable food cycle. |
| Medic | The ability to revive teammates with more health and hunger. | Keeps your team alive through starvation, corrupted animals, and poison spores. Hard Mode group runs become way more successful. |
Common Mistakes That’ll Get You Killed
I have watched enough players make these mistakes, and they almost always end predictably.
Mistake 1: Simultaneously wielding all Corrupted Tools and never switching them out. Your corruption rises, debuffs mount, and all of a sudden you’re fighting poison spores while racing to close rifts. Use broken gear for situational benefits, not full-time.
Mistake 2: Pretending as if rifts don’t matter until they’ve taken over half the map. At that point, you’re so corrupted you’ve dealing with multiple severe debuffs on top of trying to fight your way through corrupted areas. Close rifts as they appear.
Mistake 3: Not making the Research Monitor Blueprint as early as possible. You can’t manage what you can’t measure. That monitor is your early warning system — rely on it.
Mistake 4: You’re trying to find Corrupted Chests before you upgrade your camp. With poor map accessibility you miss out on the majority of chest spawns. Upgrade first, then explore.
Mistake 5: Finessing it on your own when you can coauthor. Hard Mode punishes lone players. Tainted animals pack more punch, waves of cultists come in larger numbers and rifts spread faster. Team up, pool resources and close rifts together.
Your Hard Mode Survival Checklist
If you’d like to survive 99 nights with Corrupted Tools, then prepare in the following manner:
| Day Range | Priority Tasks |
|---|---|
| Day 1-2 | Upgrade campsite to Level 2, research outpost, craft basic tools and weapons |
| Day 3 | Turn your username handle up, grab supplies at Research Outpost, craft a Research Monitor Blueprint |
| Day 4-10 | Prioritize getting your food (crockpot, farming) going, get upgraded weapons, and find first Corrupted Chest near rift zones |
| Day 11-30 | Aggressively clearing rifts, managing corruption, farming Corrupted Chest in recently opened territories upon upgrading campsite more |
| Day 31-99 | Keep corruption up to 75% if possible, build resource for poison spore phases, team co-operation backing companies efforts in clearing stronghold |
Balance Progression against how much Corruption you are playing. You can’t just go full max power with all Corrupted Tools—you’ll die from debuffs. Construct methodically, fight corruption aggressively and you’ll get there slowly but surely to Day 99.
Instant Solutions Of Your Corrupted Tools Queries
From normal mode, can I receive Corrupted Tools?
What if I'm late getting my Day 3 completed on time?
Can Corrupted Tools be destroyed or worn out?
How much Corrupted Chests drops in a single map?
Am I able to trade Corrupted Tools with other players?
Is it worth running Corrupted Armor all the time?
How do we stop corruption the fastest?
Final Thoughts: Is It Worth Using Corrupted Tools?
Having run Hard Mode now both with, and without them extensively I can definitely say they are worth it if you’re willing to manage the tools correctly. The power boost is substantial. Rifts are cleared faster, you win more combat encounters and your resource gathering will be trained up at light speed.
But they are not a panacea. You still must have solid fundamentals: food production, base improvement, team coordination and corruption awareness. Corrupted Tools enhance what you are, they don’t replace the ability to think.
The people that are successful in Hard Mode are the ones who view Corrupted Tools as situational gear, not something you use day-to-day. Get the corruption cycle down, learn how to deal with rifts first and foremost, and equip your corrupted gear at just the right time.
Try to last those 99 nights. The forest is furious, but you have the tools to fight back — and they’re perfect for this kind of wrestling match.
#Roblox #99nightsintheforest
