Camera Anomalies: Reading the CCTV Feeds

The cameras are your second line of Anomaly detection, and they exist to catch the patients that look perfectly normal at the desk but fall apart on a screen. After a patient passes the in-person visual check, pull up the lobby and check-in CCTV feeds and study them before the patient reaches your window.

The confirmed camera tells

Any of the following on the camera feed means the patient is an Anomaly. Note the tell, then reject with the Shutter button when they arrive at the check-in window.

Black box over the eyes

A censor-style black bar or box covering the patient’s eyes appears only on the camera. It is one of the most common camera-only Anomalies.

Stretched, distorted limbs

Limbs that are heavily elongated, warped or bent in impossible ways. The classic example is a patient whose legs stretch unnaturally long on the feed while looking ordinary in person.

Hollow eyes

The same empty-socket tell from the in-person list, sometimes only visible on the feed. If you suspected hollow eyes in person but were not sure, the camera will usually confirm.

Staring directly into the camera

A normal patient does not lock eyes with the CCTV. A patient that turns and stares straight into the lens is an Anomaly.

Blacked-out / void body

A body that is completely dark, silhouetted, or voided out on the feed. There is nothing where the animal should be — just a black shape.

Twitching and distorted features

Twitching, a distorted or unhinged jaw, sharp teeth, or ears, nose and mouth that differ from what you saw in person. Any mismatch between the in-person appearance and the camera image is a tell.

The dark-figure zoom (danger)

Sometimes the camera will start zooming toward a dark figure that has spawned near your check-in booth. This is both a tell and a hazard: watching it drains your Sanity, and continuing to stare can be fatal. The correct response is to look away from the camera immediately. Do not keep watching to “confirm” it — the zoom itself is the confirmation.

Where the camera fits in your routine

The camera is step two of the three-layer routine: eyes first, camera second, photo last. You use it specifically on patients who looked clean in person. If the feed reveals any tell above, you reject and never bother with a photo. If the feed is clean, you advance to the photo check as your final filter before admitting.

This ordering matters for Sanity management. The camera’s dark-figure zoom is a Sanity drain, and cursed photos are too, so you want to resolve patients as early as possible. The faster you can reject on eyes or camera, the less you expose yourself to the Sanity costs further down the chain.

Common mistakes on the cameras

Two errors trip up new players. First, they forget to use the cameras at all and rely only on the in-person look, which lets the camera-only Anomalies walk right in. Second, they panic on the dark-figure zoom and keep staring, bleeding Sanity until they are in real danger. Train the habit: check the feed on every clean-looking patient, and break eye contact the moment the camera zooms toward a dark figure.

Pair the camera with the other layers

The cameras are powerful but incomplete on their own. Some Anomalies only reveal themselves in the photo, and the fastest catches still come from in-person signs. Run all three in order on every patient, and use the Tier List to learn which camera misses turn into the most dangerous Skinwalkers once they are inside.