Special wave

Beginning at Wave 7 and reoccurring every 6 waves afterwards, special waves are waves that have unique events or qualities that are not related to the caliber of monsters spawned in. The events chosen in a special wave are chosen at random.

Before the wave begins, a visual color-coded hint is provided for what event is about to occur.

Warm color saturation
When warm colors are saturated, causing the game world to appear a yellow-orange tint, one of two events are about to occur:

"Man, it's a hot one..."
All monsters without modifiers granting them an elemental Affinity, Ambush, or Radiance spawn with Fire Affinity. Fire Affinity causes them to light players on fire for 5 seconds on hit and deal fire-type damage instead of regular or explosive. Fire Affinity monsters are also immune to being lit on fire.

"You feel the weight of your canteen evaporate..."
Your canteen charge will be deducted by 75 at the beginning of the wave.

Cool color saturation
When cool colors are saturated, causing the game world to appear a blue tint, all monsters without modifiers granting them an elemental Affinity, Ambush, or Radiance spawn with Ice Affinity. Ice Affinity causes monsters to freeze players on hit, which does +30% damage when unarmored and causes the player to move and reload weaponry slower. Ice Affinity monsters are also immune to being frozen by the Cryoablator.

Green saturation
When the game world has a green tint, all monsters without modifiers granting them an elemental Affinity, Ambush, or Radiance spawn with Venom Affinity. When a monster with Venom Affinity hits a player, the player takes triple damage, but shortly after regenerates two-thirds of it. Monsters with Venom Affinity are also immune to bleed, sleep, and Neurotoxin effects.

Purple saturation
When the game world has a purple tint, all monsters without modifiers granting them an elemental Affinity, Ambush, or Radiance spawn with Shock Affinity. Shock Affinity causes monsters' attacks to deal double damage to armor and temporarily prevent a player from firing or reloading their weapon, as well as draining 20% of their current energy and briefly stopping energy from regenerating. Monsters with Shock Affinity also are not stunned by shock damage and do not take bonus damage to their armor from shock.

Red lighting
When the game world has a constant red lighting, all monsters will spawn with the berserk status effect, causing them to rapidly lose health but also move and attack twice as fast. In addition, the barrier around the windmill will close 25% faster than normal.