Pin · Game Mechanic Compendium

Definition

A pin seizes a target and holds it helpless, with no timer: the hold lasts until an ally knocks off, interrupts, or kills the attacker, or the victim dies. The teammate’s rescue makes the archetype, so it runs through cooperative play and team play. A stun ends on its own after a fixed or rolled time. A slow or root leaves the target able to act, and an anchor only bars escape. Grappling hook’s pull forms end on arrival. Charm steers its target; a pinned target is held, not controlled. A trap’s holding form is placed and set off by the victim, while a pin is delivered in person.

Behaviour

Most pins are melee. Left 4 Dead’s Hunter crouches, then pounces, and its victim is “helpless until another Survivor knocks or shoots you off”. Ranged forms tether first: the Smoker’s Tongue Snare drags its prey in, and Back 4 Blood’s Hocker pins with a sticky projectile. The attacker is usually committed to the hold and exposed while it deals damage over time, as with Back 4 Blood’s Crusher. One attacker takes one defender out of the fight and draws the rest towards it, so defenders keep together and shove or shoot quickly. In Vermintide 2 the prey “has no chance of escape, unless he or she has friends close by.”

Variations

Pounce (Left 4 Dead; Warhammer: Vermintide 2; Back 4 Blood): a leap bears the victim down; Back 4 Blood’s Stalker drags it from the group.
Tether and hold (Left 4 Dead; Back 4 Blood): a tongue or sticky projectile catches at range.
Weapon hold (Warhammer: Vermintide 2): the Packmaster’s barbed polearm strangles its foe.
Ambush pin (Back 4 Blood): the Sleeper bursts from a wall pod on whoever passes beneath.
Swallow (Back 4 Blood): the Hag tries to swallow a grabbed Cleaner before teammates act.
Carry and hook (Dead by Daylight): a carried survivor can wiggle free; once hooked, the hold needs no killer, and another survivor’s unhook ends it.

Gating

No resource gates the pounces; the limit is the attacker’s body and position. The Hunter must crouch first, and an attacker shot off must reach a target again. Back 4 Blood’s agile Ridden have little health and fall quickly to a coordinated team. Dead by Daylight gates the carry on a downed survivor, and its perks tune the hold, not access to it. Ranged pins are gated by a recharge: Valve’s January 2009 update gave the Smoker’s tongue a shorter ability delay after a miss than after a catch, and Back 4 Blood’s Hocker has had an 8-second pin cooldown since December 2021, cut to 7 seconds in 2022.

History and provenance

The Left 4 Dead manual of 2008 holds the earliest documented form cited, in the Hunter and the Smoker. Windows Central compares Back 4 Blood’s Crusher family to Left 4 Dead 2’s Charger; Back 4 Blood (2021) comes from Turtle Rock Studios, the original’s co-developer. Warhammer: Vermintide 2 (2018) carries the pounce and the hold into melee co-operative play. Dead by Daylight (2016) moves the hold from the attacker to the world, and the rescue happens at the hook. Natural Selection’s Onos Devour (2003) is earlier, though its rescue rule is cited only from a later build, and Galaga’s (1981) tractor beam, broken by shooting the captor, is sometimes named as an antecedent.

Notable examples

Notable examples, in chronological order. Notes describe how the ability behaves in each game; gating is what limits its use there; the latest reference is a widely played game from 2020 or later.
Game	Year	Medium	Gating	How the ability behaves
Left 4 Dead Valve and Turtle Rock Studios	2008	Video	At will, Cooldown	The Hunter must crouch, then pounces; a pounced Survivor is helpless until another Survivor knocks or shoots the Hunter off, and the pounce makes nearby Survivors stumble away. The Smoker's Tongue Snare catches at range and drags its prey in, leaving it helpless and hanging when caught from a rooftop. Players take these roles in Versus.
Dead by Daylight Behaviour Interactive	2016	Video	At will	The killer carries a downed survivor, who squirms and can wiggle free, to a meathook and impales it there; the hold then needs no killer and ends when another survivor unhooks the victim or it is carried off. The perk Iron Grasp weakens and slows the wiggle, and No One Left Behind speeds unhooking.
Warhammer: Vermintide 2 Fatshark	2018	Video	At will	The Gutter Runner leaps and bears its foe to the ground, slicing at the prone victim, and the Packmaster's barbed polearm strangles a foe into submission and leaves it for later harvesting; once caught, the prey cannot escape unless friends are close by.
Back 4 Blood Latest Turtle Rock Studios	2021	Video	At will, Cooldown	A Sleeper bursts from a wall pod and pins a Cleaner to the ground until a teammate rescues it; the Crusher grabs and squeezes, leaving its victim helpless under damage over time; the Hocker pins with a sticky projectile and the Stalker pounces and drags. A 2022 update fixed Cleaners staying pinned after the Stalker pinning them was killed.

Provenance

Earliest documented use: Left 4 Dead (2008), video. Confidence: medium. The Hunter's pounce and the Smoker's Tongue Snare in the 2008 Xbox 360 manual are the earliest documented form cited: a victim left helpless until another Survivor frees it. Natural Selection's Onos Devour, a swallow announced for the Half-Life modification's version 2.0 of July 2003, is earlier; the rule that freeing the marine requires killing the Onos is cited only from a later build. Galaga's (1981) tractor beam, a captured fighter freed by shooting its captor, is sometimes named as an antecedent. Earlier action and multiplayer games remain unsurveyed.

Established form: Left 4 Dead (2008), video. The earliest documented use also set the form. Confidence: medium. Left 4 Dead is both the earliest documented use and the reference form: its Hunter and Smoker are the cases later games repeat. Back 4 Blood, from Turtle Rock Studios, keeps the pounce, the tether and the squeeze, and Windows Central compares its Crusher family to the Chargers of Left 4 Dead 2. Vermintide 2's Gutter Runner and Packmaster repeat the pounce and the hold; no cited source ties them to Left 4 Dead directly.

Sources

Valve. (2008). Left 4 Dead, Xbox 360 manual. Rulebook Infected Controls; Getting Incapped; The Hunter; The Smoker. Accessed 2026-10-30. The crouch before the pounce, the Survivor left helpless until another Survivor knocks or shoots the Hunter off, the stumble of nearby Survivors, the Smoker's ranged Tongue Snare leaving victims helpless and hanging, and incapacitation as a separate state.
Fatshark. (2018). Dev Blog - Gutter Runner & Packmaster. Website Gutter Runner; Packmaster. Accessed 2026-10-30. The Gutter Runner's leap that bears the foe to the ground, the Packmaster's strangling polearm, and the prey's lack of escape unless friends are close by. The page shows 18 January 2018, and Fatshark's Steam post of Dev Blog 11 linked it on 20 January 2018; the December 2018 address is a later one.
Jed Whitaker (Destructoid). (2017). Review: Dead by Daylight. Article Accessed 2026-10-30. The killer carrying downed survivors' squirming bodies to meathooks, where they struggle before a monstrosity carries them off.
Behaviour Interactive. (2026). Dead by Daylight 10.2.0, Mid-Chapter patch notes (Steam news). Website 10.2.0 | Mid-Chapter, 6 October 2026: Iron Grasp; No One Left Behind. Accessed 2026-10-30. The wiggle of a carried survivor, made weaker and slower by Iron Grasp, and survivors unhooking other survivors, made faster by No One Left Behind.
Miles Dompier (Windows Central). (2021). Back 4 Blood: All zombie classes explained. Article Hocker/Stalker/Stinger; Bruiser/Crusher/Tallboy; Hag; Sleeper. Accessed 2026-10-30. The Hocker's sticky pin, the Stalker's pounce and drag, the Crusher's helpless squeeze, the Hag's swallow, the Sleeper's pin that a teammate must break, the low health of the agile family, and the comparison with Left 4 Dead 2's Chargers.
Turtle Rock Studios. (2022). Back 4 Blood, April 2022 Update (Steam news). Website April 2022 Update, 12 April 2022: Fort Hope Shooting Range; Bots. Accessed 2026-10-30. The fix for Cleaners remaining pinned after the Stalker pinning them was killed, and bots pinging Special Ridden after being grabbed or pinned.
Turtle Rock Studios. (2021). Back 4 Blood, December 2021 and December 2022 Updates (Steam news). Website December 2021 Update, 16 December 2021: Ridden AI Updates; December 2022 Update, 5 December 2022: Ridden Updates. Accessed 2026-10-30. The Hocker's pin cooldown raised to 8 seconds after a miss or a hit in 2021 and cut to 7 seconds in 2022.
Valve. (2009). Left 4 Dead Update Released (Steam news). Website Versus Changes; Smoker. Accessed 2026-10-30. The shorter ability delay timer after a tongue attack that fails to paralyze or hang a Survivor, and the tongue that breaks only when the Smoker is killed or the tongue destroyed.
Rainier (Worthplaying). (2003). 'Natural Selection 2.0' Gets Release Date. Article Accessed 2026-10-30. Version 2.0 of the Half-Life modification announced for 31 July 2003, with new abilities that let the Onos stun enemies with Stomp and devour them whole.
The NS Team. Natural Selection v3.3 beta 9, in-game help text. Website english_titles.txt: Weapon30Help; TechNodeHelp_117. Accessed 2026-10-30. Devour slowly digests the eaten enemy, and if the Onos is killed before digestion completes the enemy is freed; the package's readme is dated February 2006.

Cite this entry

Permalink: http://localhost:4321/abilities/pin
Updated: 2026-10-30
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Licence: CC BY 4.0

West, James, Jr. (2026). "Pin." Game Mechanic Compendium, updated 2026-10-30. http://localhost:4321/abilities/pin

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