Shift At Midnight Endless Mode: Unlock & How It Works

Updated 2026-09-03 · Steam Shift At Midnight

Shift At Midnight endless mode is the game's second gamemode, and it stays locked until you have worked through Story Mode's 13 nights. Once it opens, the shift counter never stops. The community wiki describes Endless Mode as a secondary mode with an unlimited number of nights that only finishes when every player is dead. Bun Muen billed it as an explicit beta in the days before the 22 July 2026 launch, and has been adding to it in free patches ever since.

The mode you load today is not the one people played in July: Rakes, security cameras, a purchasable pet, a stripped-down end-of-day report and a much quieter inbox have all landed since launch.

How to unlock Endless Mode

The two source types disagree slightly here, so it is worth being precise.

Source	What it says the requirement is
Official announcement, 10 July 2026	Finishing Story Mode is what unlocks Endless Mode. This post does not use the word beta at all
Official announcements, 19 and 21 July 2026	Same unlock requirement, plus the label BETA and the developer's note that the mode was unfinished
Community wiki, Endless Mode page	Unlocks after the player completes Story Mode
Community wiki, Story Mode page	Unlocks after 13 nights and unlocking the True Ending

The developer's wording never names a specific ending, so finishing the 13th shift should be enough. The community wiki's Story Mode page is the only place that adds the True Ending condition, and no patch note backs it. To cover both readings, aim for the True Ending anyway: it is earned by keeping both your pet and Clyde Dawson alive. Full requirements are on the endings page, and the night-by-night breakdown is on shifts. The 20 August 2026 patch equalised product prices specifically to make that ending less dependent on luck.

Endless Mode vs Story Mode

Everything below comes from official patch notes except the row marked as community-wiki sourced.

Feature	Story Mode	Endless Mode
Length	13 shifts	Unlimited; ends only when all players die (community wiki)
Quota in the End Of Day Report	Shown	Removed on 1 September 2026
Personal funds and pet info in the report	Shown	Removed on 1 September 2026
N.E.T. emails	Active	Disabled on 1 September 2026
Rakes	Not present	Added 29 July 2026
Security cameras	Not mentioned in patch notes	Added 1 September 2026, viewable on the computer
Pet	Adopted before your first shift	Can also be bought for the store since 1 September 2026
Customer patience	Active	Removed 29 July 2026, re-enabled 1 September 2026
Starter supplies	Standard	2 bear traps and 2 planks placed in the storage room for shift 1
Customer pool	Shared	Shared; 15 customers added 20 August, 30 more added 1 September

Customer additions went into both modes at once, so the doppelganger roster you learn in the story carries straight over. The community wiki flags Julietta Granger's doppelganger as one shift-1 story appearance that can also turn up in Endless Mode. Your ID and database routine does not change; see how to spot doppelgangers.

Rakes: the Endless-only monster

Rakes are the clearest reason Endless Mode is not just Story Mode on loop. They arrived in the 29 July 2026 patch, where the developer described monsters creeping out of the forest in Endless and post-story play, then gave a blunt instruction: gun each one down while it is still short of the playable area, or expect trouble.

The community wiki fills in the detail. According to that wiki, Rakes live in the forest nearest the street, advance on the store slowly, and give themselves away with a red glow. Shooting one does not kill it: it backs off, repositions along the treeline, and creeps in again. Leave one too long and it roars, drops onto all fours, and kills every human in the area.

So a Rake is a repeating chore, not a one-time kill: budget ammunition for several pushes a night. Because they glow and move slowly, inattention punishes you, not slow reactions. The same patch added a second purchasable gun usable during regular store hours. Prices and the rest of the arsenal are on shop and items.

Security cameras and the shift-1 starter kit

The 1 September 2026 update gave Endless Mode an answer to the Rake problem: security cameras, viewable on the store computer, specifically so you can watch what is coming out of the forest. The treeline stops being something you must walk out and check, and becomes something one player monitors between customers.

The same patch seeded the storage room with two bear traps and two planks for the first Endless shift, and raised the extra bear traps you can buy from two to three. Traps matter beyond the doorway: the community wiki lists them as the only reliable way to kill a Demented, which freezes while looked at and has to be lured. The rest of the roster is on monsters.

Patience, quota and the quieter shift

Endless Mode's economy layer has been deliberately thinned out. Quota, personal funds and pet information all left the End Of Day Report on 1 September 2026, and N.E.T. emails were switched off in the mode entirely. The story framing goes; the night loop stays.

Customer patience has been on a round trip: removed from Endless and post-story play on 29 July 2026, then re-enabled on 1 September 2026. If you remember taking as long as you liked at the counter in August, the current build no longer allows it.

Midnight News notices still appear. According to the community wiki, that notice type shows up in both story and endless shifts, and each randomised article is tied to a particular customer, so it is worth reading before you open.

Co-op and lobby size

Endless Mode uses the same co-op setup as the rest of the game. The Steam store lists co-op play for as many as three players, and the day-one patch on 23 July 2026 added the option to cap a lobby at 6, with a developer warning that the game was designed and marketed around 3 and bigger lobbies sit outside that design. Lobby details are on multiplayer. Roles split naturally: one player on the counter doing ID checks, one on the computer watching the cameras, and whoever is free restocking and taking deliveries.

Still a beta

Bun Muen called Endless Mode unfinished in the 19 and 21 July 2026 posts, and the 10 July 2026 release-date announcement promised updates through the rest of the year adding exclusive customers, traps and new ways of detecting doppelgangers. The 1 September note teased more spooky content for it.

Several things are not documented yet. Nothing in the patch notes or on the wiki describes how difficulty scales as the nights pile up, whether the Hunt behaves differently here than in the story, or whether any of the 10 Steam achievements can be earned in Endless Mode. In the community wiki's achievement table, only three name story-specific characters: True Ending, Grave Decision and Empty Home all hinge on your pet and Clyde Dawson. The other seven are generic combat and shopping actions, from your first customer kill to buying every melee weapon. Whether those seven unlock in Endless Mode is not confirmed yet. Treat scaling numbers you see elsewhere as unconfirmed until a patch note says otherwise; the full list is on achievements.

Sources and last check

Checked on 3 September 2026. Official facts come from Bun Muen's Steam announcements: the 1 September 2026 "30 NEW CUSTOMERS + MORE" post (security cameras, purchasable pet, patience re-enabled, starter traps and planks, quota and emails removed), the 20 August 2026 "15 CUSTOMERS + BUG FIXES" post (customers, cloud saves, equalised prices), the 29 July 2026 balancing post (Rakes, patience removed, second gun), the 23 July 2026 day-one patch (the 6-player lobby option and its warning), the 10 July 2026 release-date post (Endless Mode unlocking after Story Mode, and the roadmap for it), and the 19 and 21 July 2026 pre-launch posts, which are the only official ones that attach the BETA label. Player count, release date and the achievement total of 10 come from the Steam store page.

Community-written, and marked as such throughout: the Shift At Midnight Fandom pages for Endless Mode, Story Mode, Rakes, Demented and Midnight News supply the unlimited-nights description, Rake behaviour, the True Ending unlock condition, and the bear trap counter to the Demented. Those are fan edits, not developer statements, and where the Story Mode page conflicts with the developer's own unlock wording this page follows the patch notes. No Steam Community guides covering Endless Mode were available at this check, so nothing here is player-tested advice.