Video walkthrough · captions checked · spoilers through the demo finale
Graveyard Keeper 2 zombie defence
Graveyard Keeper 2’s zombie defence is the demo’s last fight, and its rule is simple: zombies come for your home flag, and you must hold enough flags before the timer runs out. This walkthrough covers which barricades to build, how to split the squad from the barricades, what prep is worth doing, and what the Defender’s Emblem unlocks — every claim carries its timestamp.
The first defence gives you exactly one squad: the mercenaries you hire. The video calls them extremely expensive and warns against relying on them — your own zombies on the front line come later in the full game.
Three barricade families are buildable: Barricade I, Spiked Barricade I and Fortified Barricade I. The building data in the game’s data lists all three up to tier III.
The opening tutorial is blunt: build defensive structures near your base, pick up and carry the squad banner to command them, and capture flags. During the battle you watch the bars at the top of the screen to know when and where zombies will arrive.
Its key sentence is the win condition — the video stresses that flags win the fight, not kills.
Nothing happens until you start the fight: time does not tick, so you can run the whole area, see where the zombies will come from and where the flags sit, then place your defences and decide the plan.
The video uses that pause to split the work: one approach lane for the barricades, the other for the squad you lead yourself.
The video’s headline warning: without the required flags captured by the end, clearing the field still counts as a loss. Once you hold a flag, zombies turn to attacking the barrier in front of it instead, which lets your archers pick them off while taking almost nothing back.
So the tactical centre of gravity is capturing with the fewest bodies, not chasing kills.
Two lines at the top of the screen (1 and 2) are the zombies’ attack lanes; the red marks along them are arrival times. Lane 1 arrives from one fixed direction; lane 2 has two entry points that merge into the same run-in.
The video’s assignment: park the barricades in front of lane 1, take your squad down lane 2 — both sides need attention, so watching only one lane loses the fight.
Every structure goes down at the build station, and the fight starts from the same place. Once it does, the zombies’ objective is your home flag: if it falls, or you die, the battle is lost and you start over.
Decide before you click whether the squad follows you or holds ground. You can change it mid-fight, but that decision is usually where the fight is won or lost.
Capture takes time and runs faster the more people stand in the ring — the video captures with all four squad members and the bar visibly accelerates. It is the cleanest reason to treat the squad as a tool rather than a weapon.
A captured flag becomes a new obstacle: zombies stop to break it, which converts the fight from being chased into shooting from behind cover.
The video’s most valuable prep is Healing Potion III — far stronger than the small potions the captain hands you, and cheap: it needs 5 red runes at the laboratory, which the video fills with iron ore and stone.
Other prep: hotbar the potions, and check your stock before the fight rather than reaching for a potion that is not there.
The video tests three potions at once: Zombie Motivator (increases attack speed for all allied fighters, about 15 seconds at level 1), Damage Potion II (your damage, combat only) and Berserker Potion II (infinite stamina for a short window).
The finding: they stack, and the keeper alone then shreds most of the wave. Upgraded Motivator levels exist and last longer.
For players who would rather not brew anything: three spiked barricades to delete the north lane, then take the squad south for the flags and mop up whatever is left.
The video also says plainly that this fight can be lost — it has watched people struggle — so capture first, fight second.
The supporting playthrough adds two facts: your hired squad is two archers and two spearmen, so the “let archers do the clearing” advice from the guide video is about a fixed composition you cannot change this early.
And barricades are refunded if they survive the fight — only the ones the zombies destroy are lost. Building an extra layer on the lane you expect to lose is therefore cheap, not wasteful.
The win pays three things: the Defender’s Emblem, which unlocks the first zombie squad slot at the guard tower; Zombie Goo, which yields 2 blue runes — the video notes nothing else in the demo gives two blue; and some Town Gratitude.
The emblem is the long-term prize: with a squad slot open, later battles can field your own zombies instead of hired mercenaries.
The game then points you at the port (the magnifier marker), but the video states flatly that there is nothing to do there — it is the demo’s last quest. Stay away from the port and you can keep playing and grinding.
Its parting advice: if you are done, go back to the hut and sleep to write a bed save. It is not certain the full release imports that save, but in the video’s understanding the manual bed save is the one that carries over.
Port = demo finish line
Avoid the port to keep playing
Sleep for a bed save before quitting
How a battle starts
A battle does not begin because you walked into it. The game’s own tutorial text says it plainly: start a battle by interacting with the guard post. The first defence’s objective names the person — speak with Herbert in front of the Barracks to begin the battle — and the battle planner, the interface where barricades are placed, carries its own Start Battle button.
Whether the objective has reached its “start the battle” step
Whether the guard post or Herbert has been interacted with
Whether the Start Battle button in the battle planner has been pressed
The single source video (published 2026-09-20, within a week of the demo). Its English captions were read in full on 2026-09-20 (437 cues) and checked chapter by chapter.
Names follow the game’s own data: all three barricade families (Barricade, Spiked Barricade, Fortified Barricade, each up to tier III), the Defender’s Emblem, Zombie Goo, Healing Potion III, the Motivator/Damage/Berserker potions and the Archer Tower all appear in the game data. Rune costs (Healing Potion III at 5 red runes) are the video’s on-screen reading: the formula table in the game’s data lists the formulas but its rune columns read as 0.
Neyreyan — demo finale playthrough (supporting check)
A second, independent run (Neyreyan’s demo-finale playthrough, 827 cues) reaches the same fight and confirms two details the guide video does not state: the hired squad fields two archers and two spearmen, and barricades that survive the battle are returned to you — only the destroyed ones are lost.
It is a let’s-play rather than a guide, so it is used only for those two observations; the strategy above still comes from the dedicated testing video.
r/GraveyardKeeper and the Steam boards: the battle that will not start
“The battle won’t start” came up repeatedly in launch-window Reddit threads and on the Steam boards (read 2026-09-23), and the answers all point at one place: press start in the interface where the barricades are placed. The section above is written from the game’s own tutorial and objective text; the community reports only corroborate it.
Limits: the main source is a very fresh test (8 views on publish day); a second playthrough corroborates it and adds two details (squad composition, barricade refunds). The video covers the demo build (1.002.4), and the full release (2026-09-22) may change fight rules and numbers; rune costs and potion durations are read off the screen.