South Hell Walkthrough: Escape from the Basement

The escape from South Hell is one loop repeated four times: get out of the basement, find a key in the school's lockers, carry it back to the glowing EXIT DOOR in the basement, and unlock the padlock with E. Four keys open the four locks on that door; after the last key the game triggers a final chase back to the same door, where pressing E Escape ends the run. You start with 3 lives, the door keeps its progress between trips, and if Cartman catches you while you are carrying a key, you drop it; the key stays where you died and you can pick it up again.

Roadmap

1. 1

   Pry the boards off

   Leave the basement start area

   • Pick up the crowbar near the green electrical cabinet and the toilet
   • Pry five boards off the boarded exit with E
2. 2

   Find a key and deliver it

   Move a key from a school locker to the exit door

   • Search lockers around the school
   • Carry the key back to the glowing EXIT DOOR in the basement
3. 3

   Unlock the four locks

   Raise the unlock counter to 4/4

   • Press E at the glowing door while holding a key
   • Repeat for each of the four keys
4. 4

   Survive the final chase

   Reach the basement exit with the last key

   • Run when the screen flashes RUN
   • Go through the corridors and the gym to the basement
5. 5

   Escape

   Finish the run

   • Unlock the final lock at the exit door
   • Press E Escape

Prefer to watch it on YouTube? Open the full no-commentary walkthrough directly.

Before you press START, four tutorial cards set up the same loop: "GET OUT" tells you to find the keys in lockers and unlock the exit door in the basement, "HE HUNTS YOU" warns that Cartman is coming and that hiding in a locker works while running is loud, "THE DARK" covers the flashlight and batteries with the warning "DON'T SHINE YOUR LIGHT ON IKE", and "SAFE ROOMS" states that the basement and the safe room are safe because Cartman can't come in. Everything below is the route that follows from those cards.

Get out of the basement

You wake in the basement with 3 lives and the objective "Find a way out of the basement". The way up is boarded shut, and you can't pull the nails by hand, so the first job is the crowbar. In the run this route follows, it sat between a green electrical cabinet and the toilet — look there first, and pick it up with E.

With the crowbar in hand, go to the boards and press E to pull them off one at a time. The objective counts your progress as "Pry the boards off 0/5". After the fifth board the game says "The way is open. I'll leave the crowbar here." and the objective switches to "Find the keys 0/4". The crowbar is left at the boards, so you don't carry it around the school during the key hunt. For a closer look at this first area, see the South Hell basement guide.

Find a key and bring it back to the exit door

Keys are found by searching lockers around the school. Every pickup gives the same instruction: "You got a KEY! Take it to the EXIT DOOR in the basement - it GLOWS. If Cartman gets you, you DROP it." Carry the key back to the basement and press E at the glowing door. The "Unlock the exit door" counter steps up with each delivery — in the reference run the blue key took it to 1/4, the yellow to 2/4, the red to 3/4 and the green to 4/4. The counter itself is covered in more detail on South Hell keys.

Where the keys turned up in one MEDIUM run

In the MEDIUM run this route follows, the four keys came from four different rooms:

Data table

Key

Blue key

Where it turned up

Green lockers in the "4TH GRADE" classroom

Key

Yellow key

Where it turned up

A lower locker in the "LOCKER ROOM" (where Ike also jumped out at the player)

Key

Third key

Where it turned up

Outside the "NURSE" room

Key

Green final key

Where it turned up

The "COMPUTER LAB"

Data table

Key	Where it turned up
Blue key	Green lockers in the "4TH GRADE" classroom
Yellow key	A lower locker in the "LOCKER ROOM" (where Ike also jumped out at the player)
Third key	Outside the "NURSE" room
Green final key	The "COMPUTER LAB"

Treat that as one worked example of a search order and of the kinds of rooms worth checking, not as a promise that the same lockers will hold the same keys on every attempt. The rule is constant even when the rooms aren't: keys come from lockers around the school, so if a set of lockers is empty, keep working through the building. The South Hell school locations page is useful for keeping the classrooms, the locker room, the nurse's office and the computer lab straight.

If Cartman catches you mid-route

Being caught while carrying a key doesn't erase your door progress. The screen goes black and shows the lives you have left (for example, "2 LIVES LEFT"), then you respawn in the basement with the message "Oh my God, they killed Kenny!" and the objective "Pick up the dropped key". The key you were carrying stays exactly where you died — the game points back at it with "The key is right where you came from" and "it's where you died". Walk back to that spot, pick the key up again, and carry it to the door; unlocking continues from where it stopped. In the reference run the player was caught on the way back from the third key, recovered the red key from the corridor where they died, and the red lock then took the door to 3/4.

You have 3 lives per run, and each catch is counted on the end screen as a "Times caught" result. Because the dropped key holds its position, the recoverable part is your route back to it, not the key itself.

Staying alive between keys

Cartman is a large, deformed hunter who charges the player, and the tutorial's two main defences both work on the key route.

Lockers double as hiding places. Look for a "HIDING PLACE" prompt and press E Hide, then complete a shrinking-circle minigame; done correctly, Cartman walks past without noticing you. In the reference run this is how the player survived a close approach without being caught.

Safe rooms work differently: the basement and the safe room are safe because Cartman can't come in, and closing a safe-room door with E stops him at the threshold. The red-lit maintenance room is the example from the reference run — Cartman reached the closed door and could not enter, and the player took no damage.

Some lockers also contain traps. Picking one up shows "You found a trap! Take it out (5), aim at the floor and click to place it." — the player switches to slot 5 and places it on the floor. A placed trap caught Cartman once in the reference run, which the results screen records as "Cartman in your traps". Two smaller warnings from the tutorial also apply while you move around the school: running is loud, and you should not shine your flashlight on Ike.

If you want the chase mechanics separated out, the South Hell monster page covers Cartman and South Hell survival tips covers staying alive more generally.

The final run to the exit

As soon as the fourth key is found, the hunt changes. The screen flashes red with "RUN", "CARTMAN: GIVE ME THOSE KEYS!!" and "HE KNOWS YOU HAVE THEM ALL. NOWHERE IS SAFE NOW - RUN TO THE EXIT!". The "nowhere is safe" line is the practical difference from the rest of the run: the final leg is a dash rather than a search, so head through the corridors and the gym straight to the basement exit instead of trying to wait it out in a safe room. At the door, unlock the final lock — the game shows "The exit door is open. Get out!" — and press E Escape. The full lock progression is also collected on South Hell locked doors.

What confirms the escape worked

A completed run ends on a results screen reading "You Escaped - MEDIUM" with your total time, "Keys you found: 4", and counters for "Times caught", "Cartman in your traps", "Ike screamed at you" and "Times you hid". The reference run finished in 15:34 with 1 catch, 1 Cartman caught in a trap, 1 Ike scream and 1 hide, and it awarded the Roblox badge popup "Badge Awarded - Escaped!". Seeing that screen means the route is finished — the keys were delivered and the exit door opened.

If this is your first run, the South Hell beginner guide covers the same loop at a slower pace before you try to speed it up.