Steal Or Die Tier List: Loot Value and Entity Threat Rankings

Tier lists live and die by their sources. This one only ranks what can be traced: the official description (31 items, gold bars on top, phones on the bottom, rarer means slower), the in-game tutorial, and clearly labeled community gameplay. Nothing here is an official stat, because Vantage Gameworks has not published item stats or entity numbers. Where the evidence runs out, the ranking says so instead of inventing a number.

What Sits in S-Tier Loot?

Gold bars and Mythic-rarity finds.

• Gold bars are the official top of the 31-item loot table. They have not been captured on camera in community runs, but the official key art shows exactly what grabbing one looks like — a looter hauling a bar down a dark corridor with a tall entity waiting by the glowing exit. If you see gold, the decision makes itself.
• Mythic finds carry the highest rarity tag confirmed on screen, appearing in multiple creators’ runs. The official rule — rarer pays more, and slows you more — puts Mythic grabs at the top of every practical priority list.
• Encrypted hard drives are the best repeatable top-shelf grab actually seen: $150–156 per unit in community gameplay, with multiple spawns per run inside the Facility.

What Fills the A-Tier?

Mid-run value with manageable weight — all community-observed:

The Rare tag matters more than any single price. It is a confirmed rarity tier, and rarity is the game’s official value signal — when in doubt between two grabs, take the tagged one.

What Is B-Tier (Starter Grabs)?

The bottom of the table is officially anchored by the phone: the game’s designated starter grab and the safest opener on record. Around it sits the light filler seen in every run — mugs at $20–$23, a textbook stack at $50, tablets and small electronics. B-tier is not an insult; it is the “always have something in hand when the exit opens” tier. Walking out with a $20 mug beats dying with a $332 laptop, because loot only counts once you leave with it.

The full item-by-item breakdown, including every price seen on camera, lives in the value list; the grab-order decision flow is in best loot.

How Does Weight Change the Rankings?

Weight is the tax on every tier. The official principle is blunt: the rarer the haul, the slower you run. The observed extremes:

• The mini fridge made its carrier 50 percent slower on camera.
• The microwave displays 11 kg on its pickup card — heavy enough that players debate carrying it at all.
• Overloading triggers a maxed-out-weight warning.

And the one anti-weight fact everyone should know: throwing carried items at an entity does zero damage — a creator bounced a throw off one for literally no effect. Weight is pure liability in a chase. If the exit countdown is running and you are heavy, drop before you run.

How Do the Named Entities Rank as Threats?

There is no official stat sheet for entities — no health, no speed, no damage numbers — so an S/A/B ranking for them would be fiction. What can be ranked honestly is how they hunt, from the tutorial and community observation:

• The Locust — the audio hunter. The official card reads “IT HEARD YOU ON THE STAIRS,” and the tutorial confirms the mechanism: it hears your footsteps and sees your light, while the HUD’s microphone indicator means your voice is audible too. Counterplay is sound discipline — crouch, mute, flashlight off. Full file: The Locust.
• The Hollow — the close-range crawler. The official card reads “IT WON’T LET YOU GO.” Its player-side vision is heavily restricted — two independent creators described seeing only half their screen while playing it — which makes it a stalking threat rather than a scanner. Counterplay is space, doors, and never sharing a hallway. Full file: The Hollow.
• Two more entities, unnamed. The official description says four entities exist; only these two have names. Official promotional art shows additional entity designs, but until Vantage Gameworks names them, this wiki will not pair artwork with identities.

Different senses, different counterplay — that is why a flat “strongest entity” ranking stays out of this page. The shared survival kit for both named threats is in how to hide.

Do Events Flip the Tier List?

FULL BLACKOUT is the one rare event with observed effects, and it inverts the threat side: the map goes fully dark, and the on-screen warning in community gameplay reads, in effect, “It sees in dark. You don’t. And now it’s angry.” In a blackout every light source you control becomes a liability, and light filler you can drop instantly becomes safer than an S-tier haul you cannot run with.

The other listed events — BLOODBATH and MALFUNCTION — have no observed effects yet and stay unrated. The per-entity threat profiles are tracked in the bosses index, and the rest of the guides cover routes, hiding, and the progression systems.