Manhunt: Hide & Seek: How to Use Decoys to Evade Trackers

To evade trackers using decoys in Manhunt: Hide & Seek, runners must equip teammates in matching visual profiles and stage deliberate diversions to draw the hunter away from the primary runner's escape route. Decoys take advantage of the tracker's need to visually confirm identities, buying critical time for the real target to reposition across cleared sectors.

Outfitting Body Doubles with Matching Gear

Decoys succeed by removing visual differences that a tracker can spot from a distance, elevated perches, or optics. Hunters rely heavily on silhouette recognition during broad sector sweeps. Standardizing gear across active teammates forces the hunter to halt searches to verify physical tags or facial features.

Every duplicate must replicate the primary target's exact colorway. Variations such as distinct shoe trim or visible hair beneath headwear allow an observant tracker to discard the false trail without committing to a chase.

Staging Distractions to Force Hunter Commitments

Once disguises are set, decoys must actively control the tracker's attention and pathing rather than passively hiding.

False Vehicle Departures

Vehicles draw immediate visual and audio attention. Instead of using a vehicle for the primary escape, load one or two matching decoys into the transport while the actual runner departs on foot toward dense cover. Drive the vehicle away with enough speed and engine noise to trigger an interception response. When the hunter mobilizes toward the departing vehicle, the original sector is left temporarily unmonitored, giving the runner time to establish a new position.

Countering Aerial Drone Surveillance

When trackers deploy aerial quadcopter drones for grid sweeps, runners must remain under hard structural overhead cover, such as warehouse overhangs, bridge underpasses, or architectural roofing. To break an aerial sweep:

1. Hold the primary runner beneath solid cover.
2. Send a matching decoy sprinting across an open corridor directly in the drone's sweep path.
3. Allow the drone pilot to lower altitude and focus tracking on the decoy.
4. Reposition the primary target through shadowed structural paths while the drone circles the decoy or depletes its battery.

Repositioning Through Vacated Patrol Paths

To open blocked transit lanes, position a decoy near an expected hunter approach vector. The decoy should allow themselves to be partially spotted before breaking into a sprint toward a map boundary or dead-end area. When the hunter breaks patrol discipline to give chase, the runner should immediately push through the sector the hunter just abandoned. Trackers rarely double back to clear ground they just covered.

Coordination Rules and Failure Points

Poor coordination can compromise the entire team by exposing the presence of duplicates. To maintain the illusion:

• Maintain spatial separation: Keep 50 to 100 meters of distance between all runners and decoys. If a tracker spots two identical silhouettes near each other, the deception fails immediately.
• Avoid grouping: Decoys must never travel together unless deliberately staging a group extraction.
• Limit communications: Establish brief, non-verbal or strictly limited radio callouts. Lengthy voice chatter creates acoustic tracking risks.
• Disengage after baiting: Once a decoy successfully draws a pursuit, their only goal is leading the tracker as far from the runner's sector as possible before breaking contact.