To unlock the playable Necromancer, go to the Employee Evaluation Center’s Night Shift upgrade path and buy its prerequisite nodes, then spend 50 blood on the Necromancer node. A Steam player answer gives the location, price and same-branch prerequisite; a gameplay recording shows the 50-blood unlock text. This is an in-game purchase, not a paid DLC.
Find the unlock node
Look in the Employee Evaluation Center, not the Finance Tower. The player report places Necromancer on the same path as Cowboy and says the upgrades leading to it must be bought first. It does not list every preceding node or the total cost of that path, so budget for more than the final 50 blood.
Free Lives’ “Tanks and Necromancers” patch record identifies Necromancer as a Night Shift archetype added September 29, 2025. The name also appears in older material for an enemy boss; that older boss is not the playable unlock this guide addresses.
Get blood for the purchase
The community currency reference and a Steam discussion point to the Blood Donation upgrade in the Fulfillment Center. After buying it, a clinic and donation machine can appear during a run; using the machine trades health for blood. The community wiki gives a detailed damage-to-blood ratio but flags its own numbers as needing more testing, so this guide does not treat that ratio as a confirmed 1.0 value.
If you have 50 blood but cannot select Necromancer
Several 2025 players reported that selection jumped from Vampire to Cowboy instead of landing on Necromancer. The Steam and itch.io discussions do not confirm a developer fix or prove the behavior remains in 1.0. Check that the branch prerequisites are purchased first; if the node still cannot be selected, recognize this as a reported interface issue rather than assuming your blood total is wrong. One player suggested unlocking other characters as a workaround, but that suggestion was not confirmed.
Version note: The price, branch and issue reports are from the Early Access period. The cited reports do not verify whether the interface bug or exact prerequisite order changed in 1.0.