Funnel Runners Secondary Objectives: A Guide to Maximizing Your Payout

The short answer is no—at least, not when you’re starting out. Secondary objectives in Funnel Runners are a high-risk, high-reward gamble that can absolutely cripple your earnings if you only partially complete them. For new players learning to dodge an F5, the advice is simple: ignore them entirely and focus on survival. For seasoned storm chasers, however, these optional tasks are the key to unlocking the biggest payouts, provided you understand the brutal penalty for failure.

The game's dirty secret is that it doesn't just reward you for completing these bonus objectives; it actively punishes you for trying and failing. If you collect some, but not all, of the required items, you will have a hefty sum of money and experience deducted from your total earnings upon a successful escape. It's an all-or-nothing system designed to make you second-guess every detour.

01

What Are Secondary Objectives?tag

Before you even turn the key in the van, you should check the mission board on the wall. This will display your primary objectives—the items you absolutely need to escape—and any secondary objectives for the run. These are optional, bonus tasks that typically involve finding a set number of collectible items scattered across the map.

The most common secondary objectives include:

• Apex Coins: Stacks of shiny, futuristic currency. You’ll usually need to find a specific number of these scattered in houses and commercial buildings.
• Apex Documents: These look like official files or manila folders. They are often found on desks, tables, and shelves inside residences.
• VHS Tapes: Appearing as classic black rectangular 'bricks', these tapes contain lore and are another common collectible objective. If you don't know what a VHS tape is, just look for the black plastic rectangles.

Less common objectives might involve interacting with the environment, such as a task to crowbar open a certain number of sealed doors. These can be particularly risky, as tornadoes can destroy the very houses you need to access, making the objective impossible to complete.

02

The High Cost of Half-Measurestag

The single most important thing to understand about secondary objectives is the penalty. Unlike the primary mission where success is binary, the secondary mission has a failure state that is worse than not trying at all. The transcript from one experienced player puts it plainly: 'if we don't find everything, it actually takes a considerable amount of money away from you if you do succeed.'

This isn't a small slap on the wrist. On easier difficulties like Training, the penalty might seem negligible. But on Hard mode, failing to complete a secondary objective can cost you upwards of 400 experience points and a significant chunk of cash. We've seen a run fail its secondary objective to 'crowbar five different doors' simply because the tornadoes destroyed all the remaining houses, making it impossible. The team escaped but suffered a major penalty to their rewards for the items they did manage before the storm hit.

This system forces a critical decision at the start of every match: either commit fully to the secondary objective and accept the added risk, or ignore it completely from the outset. There is no middle ground.

03

How to Secure Your Bonus Loottag

If you decide to go for the bonus, you need to be efficient. Secondary items are found in the same places as primary ones: houses, garages, gas stations, and junkyards. They take up valuable inventory space until they are properly secured.

This is where many new players make a mistake. Simply picking up a document or tape is not enough. To get credit for the item, you must have it in your active hand and press the 'Q' key (by default) to transfer it to your mission storage. Once you do this, the item is secured, freeing up your inventory slot and counting toward the objective total. You cannot drop it afterward. This is a crucial step; items left in your inventory when you escape do not count.

04

So, When Should You Actually Bother?tag

The decision to pursue secondary objectives should be based entirely on your team's skill, confidence, and the specific objective itself. A blanket rule to always chase them or always ignore them is a poor strategy.

For New Runners: Focus on Survivaltag

If you are still learning the game, do not attempt secondary objectives. Your only goal should be to learn the maps, identify primary objective items like a 'fuel tank' or 'scissor jack', and master the art of surviving tornadoes. Wasting precious minutes looking for a VHS tape while the F5 storm closes in is a recipe for disaster. Get a feel for the game's rhythm, the storm's timing, and the locations of critical escape items first. Once you can reliably escape, then you can start thinking about padding your wallet.

For Veteran Chasers: The Calculated Risktag

For experienced players, secondary objectives are the main driver for profit. If your team can locate and install the primary parts with time to spare, the bonus hunt is absolutely worth it. The strategy becomes about risk assessment. Is the objective to find five coins? That's relatively low-risk and can be done while searching for primary parts. Is the objective to find three documents on a map with frequent, aggressive tornadoes? The risk increases dramatically.

A good veteran team communicates. Before leaving the van, decide together whether you're attempting the secondary objective. If you are, integrate the search into your primary sweep. If not, everyone agrees to ignore the bonus items to avoid accidentally triggering the penalty.

Final Taketag

Secondary objectives are a trap for the unprepared and a treasure for the skilled. They turn a straightforward survival game into a tense exercise in risk management. Master the fundamentals of survival first. Learn to escape the storm with nothing but the clothes on your back and the required parts in the van. Once you've done that, you can return to the chaos to hunt for those lucrative documents and tapes. Just remember the golden rule: it's better to escape with nothing extra than to get penalized for trying and failing.