Bad Neighborhood - Left 4 Dead 2

First concept was named After School Special, but eventually the school was redesigned as a military base to help with the zombie outbreak and so the name Bad Neighborhood was used.

Top down view of the Streets level. Players can follow the red or blue paths and still end up at the safe house. There are markers directing players as they make their way through the level to reinforce player decisions, examples shown below.

The first safe house has low tier weapons for the player and limited resources.

This first map kicks off with a horde event, in contrast to most first levels where they start off slow. Since this level is the shortest of the four this helps players from realizing how short it is and make the level feel like the correct length.

Spray paint helping players navigate the play space, but if they miss this they will still be able to find their way through, allowing players to think quickly and make their own decisions without regretting them after.

A charger spawner for players, this charger will smash through the fence and surprise players who go to the right of the safe house direction marker on the house. This then allows players to move through to the next backyard from the opening.

Another example of the map telling players this area is closed off. These barricades are large and easy to see from a distance, players should know when they see a barricade like this from a distance that street is closed off.

Players must move quickly before they're overrun. This is a custom scripted event that doesn't allow for an impossible level of horde if the players go slow, but it's enough to make the players feel like they need to move quickly.

Since players can run into several backyards and then be funneled through to the correct street, they can encounter various stories being told through the environment.

Before finding the safe house, players can engage with a large mounted machine gun to help fight off the swarm of horde, but this will also attract even more onto their positions. Players must make a choice and use with caution.

The last house players find is the safe house which will trigger the next level. Large glowing door helps player spot this easily in the dark as they're moving towards it.

Top down view of the School level. Players must follow the red path to reach the safe house, but there are several areas around where players can explore to find additional supplies and story elements.

The next safe house is supplied with more weaponry and supplies for players to use.

More fences, reinforcing the idea from the first map that these areas are off limits to players.

The first event, shown by an onscreen nav point and lighting. Players must shoot these explosive barrels to break into the school building.

Shooting the barrels causes a fire and a horde of zombies to rush the player's position.

Once the players can enter, they must fight their way through the dark to turn off the alarm that is continuing to attract zombies. Watch a clip of this event below.

Inside the school building after the event. Players can explore the open rooms to find supplies. The lighting used here is make players feel safe, like they are now out of the dark and are free to explore.

First introduction to verticality. Players might fight zombies as they make their way up to the roof as the doors leading out are all locked tight.

Once on the roof, players are directed by lighting.

More lighting use to guide the player.

Tents can be explored for supplies

The second horde event. Players must find a way to destroy the truck to get through the barricade.

Players can use this mounted machine gun to cause the truck to explode, allowing players to move past the barricade.

Doing so will cause the horde to swarm the players position.

The next area after the barricade enforces the narrative of the school being used as a military outpost and being overrun by having corpses of soldiers piled up in the gym.

Before players can escape they must fight off one final encounter. This tank is scripted and will always spawn, in L4D2 a director AI entity controls when special zombies can spawn, but here it's set to always be the final encounter.

A horde event will only trigger here if players manage to shoot the cars on the other side of the fence.

Players are finally directed down with lighting, arrow signs and spray paint to move underground to escape.

Top down view of the Sewer level. Players must follow the red path, this level is designed to be strictly linear with a few areas that move the player around to help break this up.

The third safe house has upgraded weaponry and supplies found from the previous level.

Very tight close quarter combat. Players must move forward and push through the invading zombies.

Players will make their way through until they reach this central area. This is where they must fight a tank in this center area

Opening the door will engage in the fight with the Tank. This Tank is scripted to always spawn here.

The water is knee high and can slow players down, increasing the difficulty of the fight with the Tank if players fall in.

After the fight with the Tank, players must turn on the power in order to activate the lift to move forward out of the sewers. Doing so will alert all zombies to swarm the players position.

Players must then activate the elevator so the players can ride it upwards.

Once all players are on the elevator they can move up to the next floor. Game play of this event is shown below.

Once players are out of the sewers they will be guided to the safe house with light.

A large highlighted door helps direct players to the safe house after following the light.

Top down view of the park level. Players will see the only light source as they leave the safe house and can travel how ever they want around the park to get to the event starting point at the basketball court.

The final safe house filled with supplies for the final zombie encounter.

Light in the distance, directing players to the basketball court where they will find a military truck with a radio to call for help.

Crashed truck scattered supplies and weapons all around the combat area.

Activating the radio will start the finale.

Due to the amount of open space in this level, this fight has a custom scripted finale that spawns two tanks together along with the horde of zombies.

When rescue arrives via helicopter, players must enter to end the level and the campaign.

The images shown here are beauty shots of the map without HUD elements or gameplay