Hey all, it's been a while. I've been kicking around the idea of making a ranking list of the top 25 custom campaigns of 2025. Throughout last year I've maintained a list of new campaigns as they've come out and made it a point to play as many of them as I could. Before I start the list proper, let me just say that I'm ranking these in terms of my perception of quality, replayability, and overall fun and enjoyment that I had playing them. I'm only ranking campaigns that are newly released in this year, so maps like Blue Heaven Short Version and State - 28 Days Later don't count, since they've been released in previous iterations before 2025. I didn't outright exclude orange maps or demo maps. Also, suffice it to say that this is just my subjective opinion, so don't be upset if your campaign didn't make it onto this list. Last year saw the release of about 200 new campaigns so there was a lot of competition. Now without further ado, this is my list of my favorite campaigns of 2025, ranked in order.
No. 25: Mandrill Madness!
This campaign, as far as I can tell, is based on a 3D map created by Allen Hastings on an Amiga computer in 1988 to test compression algorithms, the video of which has since become a meme. There is also a previously released survival map called Mandrill Maze (2013), also based on the meme, but it's not clear to me if Mandrill Madness is based on that map in any way. Mandrill Madness is very similar to Bazinga Chaos, another campaign by this author, so if you've played that you know what you're in for. This is a really creative map and definitely not the typical type of campaign as it features unique mechanics and events. It's pretty lengthy, too. The reason why it's lowest on the list is because of the third map. You're under pursuit by attack vehicles almost the entire time and they absolutely shred your health. You're supposed to take them out with the grenade launcher but the second you peek out from behind cover you've already lost about a third of your health. This was also a problem in Bazinga Chaos. Also the scavenge event in one of the early maps is quite difficult for no real reason. If these two changes were made, it would score a lot higher on this list.
No. 24: NEW YORK CAMPAIGN
This campaign is a remake of the first two maps of the first campaign in World War Z. I've played that campaign and I can tell how much effort was put into this remake, as it looks spot on. However, despite the crazy effort put into remaking the maps, the gameplay is fairly lacking. This is consistent throughout the entire campaign. It's really not clear what to do in map 2, as the elevator that you jump down isn't highlighted and afterward, there's a lot of waiting. The last map recreates the event where you find cases of supplies and bring them to the train but it's basically like any other scavenge. I really didn't have fun with it the first time, and don't even bother trying to solo it as the bots are brain-dead. If you're going to play this, I suggest only playing it with friends who have played World War Z. Otherwise, I honestly think it's skippable, however a lot of people apparently disagree with me. I don't see what they see in this campaign, as it's short and the events don't feel fun to me, but that's how it goes.
No. 23: Tower Raid
This might seem like an odd choice to put in this list here, as this giant sprawling campaign has a number of obvious and easily corrected errors. It doesn't look great, the environments are nowhere near realistic, and it's repetitive. However, there is still something fun about going through rather large, somewhat abstract areas. The gameplay is pretty fun overall and there are humorous touches here and there. It's not trying to be this great campaign, it's more like a big playground to just have fun in. If you look at it from that perspective, maybe it might make sense as to why it's on my list. I've found that campaigns like this work great for mutations, while campaigns that are more focused and are a lot closer to vanilla L4D2 maps don't.
No. 22: Air Conditioner 01
This campaign is a port of a Source mod of the air exchange, a cut locale from the Half-Life 2 beta (it eventually became Nova Prospekt). I haven't played the original mod but these maps probably work better as a HL2 mod than as a L4D2 campaign. The maps are well-made but they're a bit too big and open. It looks there are places where scripted events or puzzles just don't happen. That said, it's not like the maps are bad, it's just that the gameplay leaves a lot to be desired. The maps look good despite it not being a L4D2 location. Sometimes it's a little aimless, and maybe it's a little too easy, but it's all right.
No. 21: 地心引力/The Gravitation
This is the largest campaign on the list here, as this fits a rather new category of campaigns, sharing the same space as Buried Deep and E.Y.E. Divine Cybermancy. Basically campaigns that will take you probably over 2 hours in a casual playthrough. If any campaign would benefit from cuts, it would be this one. The events can also be brutal, and given how long the maps are, if you all go down, you're going through a long map again just to get back to the hard part. However, for me it was an enjoyable up until the finale. The finale area, which is a very long holdout, is large and pretty easy to defend from. There's also a bug where you can fall through the elevator just leading up to the finale spot, which hopefully gets rectified. If you're a fan of the Buried Deep type of map, especially if you're an Expert Realism player looking for a challenge, this one is definitely worth your time. The intensity might be too much for the average player's patience but I think that aside from some horde events being a little long and intense, it's enjoyable.
No. 20: An Alternative Perspective (Alpha 3.1)
Before my short review, let me say that this is still in beta (alpha?) so a lot of the issues could get fixed in the future. I think this is a really creative, fun, and original map. My friends pretty much hated it. I've played the campaign four times and I consistently have fun with it aside from the last map, where the scavenge event requires too many gas cans and you're under fire from NPC turrets. There's also very few, or perhaps no health items in the area, which makes it all the more difficult. The second map also isn't quite balanced yet, since the hordes are non-stop and it's not clear how you're supposed to reach the saw. However, the concepts are really cool, it just needs to be more balanced for accessibility.
No. 19: ProDEUS Requiem
This is a high-quality campaign with great effort put into visuals, but I'm not sure about the gameplay. The best word to describe this campaign is uneven. Overall most of it looks good, but there's no real sense of unity. Disparate parts don't fit together. It's clear just by playing it that the different maps were made by different people. The styles don't really gel together, and neither do the environments. In one map, a TF2 map (Odyssey) is worked into the geometry and it just feels out of place. It doesn't feel like there's really any point to it all except to say hey, we got a bunch of people together to contribute to a map. That's cool and all but I don't see what the payoff is if the gameplay is lacking. Directionality can be spotty sometimes and I feel like more effort when in to making the maps appear good than for replayability. Maybe someone can tell me why I'm wrong, though.
No. 18: 太原市/TaiyuanCity
This is a very lengthy two-map campaign that takes place in China. Someone can correct me if I'm wrong, but I think this may have originated as a No More Room in Hell map first. I really enjoy this campaign but the first map really is too long, it's probably twice the length of Crash Course's second map. I'm impressed that L4D2 doesn't crash with it, but the hordes and holdouts (yes, plural) feel relentless. The last map is a gauntlet and I really enjoy gauntlets, but the hordes are again too aggressive and the fact that you have to deal with a partial holdout at the end after the huge ordeal that came before is exhausting. It is a very pretty campaign though, and maybe others would find it more enjoyable with a mutation like crouch-sprinters. The pacing would definitely benefit by breaking up the first map into two, and relaxing the intensity of the hordes during the gauntlet.
No. 17: The Last Heaven
This campaign is like a standard vanilla L4D1 campaign, and it maintains a good balance without being too hard, up until the finale. The finale is pretty lengthy and the hordes can feel somewhat constant, I don't really know why the author chose to go that route. The environments are pretty nice looking and the only real issue I had was that sometimes the layouts and the geometry didn't feel like they made sense, almost like you're in a fever dream. But other than that it's perfectly serviceable and good for a vanilla-feeling campaign on the somewhat longer side.
No. 16: Marine Gray Color Remake( Campaign 2.0 )
This campaign is super uneven. The first couple of maps aren't anything to write home about and feel unfinished to me. Even if it is finished, it probably feels that way because of all the gray dev textures everywhere, but the geometry too looks more like a blockout rather than a final art pass. All of that changes in the third map, the aquarium, which just looks great. That map is really where the campaign turns around and becomes really fun. I just think it's just great to fight specials in an environment with fish swimming around and lots of cool blue hues. The finale is just all right, the location isn't bad but it feels pretty standard and straightforward.
No. 15: 广西灵山 V1.0 Lingshan-Guangxi V1.0
This is an odd one to review because it might feature the most original mechanics in any campaign I've played this year (aside from boss battle maps like Photoshop Flowey). Each map has something quirky about it, whether it's physically picking up objects and bringing them somewhere, disarming landmines, solving plug puzzles, piloting a drone, calling in airstrikes through a tablet, and more. I have extremely mixed feelings on this campaign, though. I really enjoyed all the new scripted stuff and it must've taken an insane amount of work and testing to get it right, which, aside from the very disobedient drone, almost always seemed to work. That being said, the maps are very long and it's hard to think of a campaign that came out this year that's more exhausting (aside from boss battle maps like Photoshop Flowey). Now, the other reason why I have mixed feelings on this is because I'm specifically ranking V1.0 as the fifteenth spot. I have played newer versions and it seems like it removes a lot of the original scripting that made the campaign interesting in the first place. The worst thing that could be done to this campaign is remove all the unique stuff that I mentioned before, because then the campaign just becomes an absolute slog. I'll be honest, it's not really all that fun to do the same run-and-gun thing in this campaign because it doesn't feel like it's meant for that. So I'm disappointed that some things are removed. Thankfully I saved a copy of the first release, so if the author does strip the campaign of its original scripting, which I feel is probably kowtowing to bad players' complaints, I can come back to it. It's definitely a campaign that's not for everyone, but if you want to play something different while still in a realistic and well-made environment, give this one a try.
No. 14: Moscow
This campaign is fairly straightforward and vanilla style. The locations are relatively standard and while the visuals might overall not be the most impressive ever, it does has some memorable areas and events, and the gameplay always seems to be at the forefront. It's fun to run through and doesn't really dip in any spots. I wouldn't say it will solidify itself as one of the greats (it would need a lot more overhauling in the visuals department for that), but I wouldn't say it's an uneven campaign by any means.
No. 13: 穗织(beta) (SuiZhi (beta))
This campaign is really fun. It's bright, it's extremely detailed, it has a lot of unique models, and it's very focused and seems to put gameplay and visuals on equal footing. Very fun to play. Only thing is that while it does everything pretty much great, it's a little forgettable because it doesn't have like that one event or location that sticks in your mind. Maybe that's a good thing though, as it's something you can come back to and it can feel fresh.
No. 12: DIZTRITO (Perú)
This campaign takes place in Peru and paints quite the South American scene. It's very similar to Moscow in that the visuals and gameplay are pretty squarely balanced, but I think DIZTRITO (a play on the word "distrito" which means "district") wins out by having more memorable set pieces and locales. It's fairly vanilla-style and fits in with other campaigns like Escape from Malabar or Escape from Valencia. It's fun and has some good work put in, albeit nowhere near what you're going to see in Lima Infection.
No. 11: Lockdown: Chapter Two DLC
The Lockdown series perplexes me. On the one hand, there's obviously a ton of work and attention to detail in them all and they all kind of feel like great campaigns. On the other hand, the directionality and geometry feels like it needed two or three more drafts before being turned into the maps. That is to say, conceptually the way things go together just honestly doesn't fit well at all. There is detail galore in these maps and the mapper seems to be going nuts with models. But when you look at it at the end of the day, none of it really feels like it can match some of the standards in most people's map rotations, like I Hate Mountains or Back to School for instance. I'm ranking it pretty highly here because the maps consistently look good but when you run through the campaign, the locations are just so tenuously strung together, a lot like The Last Heaven. It's a decently long vanilla-style campaign, and if you enjoy the other Lockdown maps, I don't see why you wouldn't enjoy this one, too. It's more of the same, and this finale is better than those of the other ones.
No. 10: Left 4 Dead 2 X The Walking Dead
This is a decently short campaign that recreates areas from Episode 1 of the TellTale game The Walking Dead. I think the author really was able to get these locations to fit in the L4D2 style very well. The whole campaign overall was quite nice, and it was enjoyable to revisit some familiar places. Maybe one bit of criticism is that it simultaneously feels a little long (holdouts, finding the key in one of the later maps) while also feeling short. I guess it's because the maps themselves aren't that big but they're kind of padded. The finale too could maybe use some work, as holding out on a narrow bridge is quite difficult. The only other thing was that it would be nice to add a new NPC instead of replacing Francis, like how JAiZ did it in Cold Front. Other than that, it's a bright and pretty map that I enjoyed playing.
No. 9: Neo Tokyo Kshatriya
Normally I don't really enjoy playing campaign ports from other games, however this one is really fun. I felt that the environments just gelled really well with L4D2 and I thought that the directionality was intuitive and nothing really lost in the port. The areas look great and the style is memorable. It doesn't really score high marks on originality but it's fun to go through and look around at some things you don't see often in campaigns.
No. 8: Infected Town Fixed (Infected Town 3/3)
Look at this underdog showing up some other campaigns like ProDEUS Requiem! At first glance you might think this is completely out of place, or that this is some mistake. But no, my friends and I legitimately had a great time with Infected Town. It scores big for originality in the environments, and not just because of the custom textures. It somehow strikes this crazy balance between realism and abstraction that you don't see in a lot of campaigns. For instance, some stores may seem too big or empty but when you step outside it all somehow fits together nicely. I enjoyed the events, and I think the pacing is very well-balanced. The visuals aren't going to win any awards but if the aim was to make it feel like a place in the Philippines, mission accomplished. Overall we had great fun with it and even though it can look a bit silly sometimes, I think it wins a special place as an underdog that really carries it away with the great gameplay.
No. 7: The Real Orange Miracle
I believe this map is a textured version of a previous campaign released as an orange map. With textures it looks really good. Directionality is intuitive and it looks like a lot of care and attention to detail was put into designing a map with great balance. It doesn't feel heavy-handed though, it all feels like things naturally fall into place. Lighting is great, texturing is well-done, the events are fun, and it always feels satisfying to bash everything down a hallway with a shovel. What more could you want?
No. 6: Don't Hurt the Gnomes!
I enjoyed how this campaign really does its own thing with the gnome premise. On this surface this could really easily be a clone of Questionable Ethics or Glubtastic but it feels like it's setting out to do its own thing. There's a lot of detail and the maps are quite large and require effort on your part, but (aside from one instance) they never feel unfair. This campaign wins big with originality, although sometimes it can drag on for a bit. Still, this is a good campaign to shake things up if you don't want to always do vanilla-style campaigns all day.
No. 5: Taft Priority
This is another underdog win, although it's probably pretty plain to see if you look at some screenshots. Despite its brevity (the campaign is only three maps long), there is detail poured into every corner, and it really captures that feeling of urban decay in the immediate aftermath following a zombie infection breakout. The map layouts have intuitive directionality and feel incredibly realistic. A campaign like Taft Priority is a great example of what I'm talking about when I criticize layouts like in The Last Heaven or Lockdown Ch. 2 DLC, everything feels like it coheres naturally, and that's not an easy thing to create. Really the only thing holding this back is the sheer length of the finale, I feel like most people would say it's way too long. But the environments are gorgeous in their decay so it's still an enjoyable place to stay in even if it could be shortened.
No. 4: Vox Aeterna
Okay, we're getting down to the obvious winners of this year, the extremely good campaigns. I think this is the same or a similar team as that which worked on ProDEUS Requiem, but it feels much more organically connected and integrated. I dislike the re-use of a (CS:GO?) layout in one of the maps, which felt the most contrived and out of place. Otherwise it really has incredibly good and original visuals and streamlines and focuses on the gameplay. I don't know about the finale, it seems like it's better than that in ProDEUS Requiem but it also feels a little long while also potentially featuring some cheap deaths with the road in the middle. It's a small price to pay though for the rest of the campaign is pretty tight and well-designed.
No. 3: Atrocity Valley
Atrocity Valley is a bit more uneven than Vox Aeterna but it has higher highs and lower lows than the aforementioned campaign. In particular the campaign shines in the middle and at the finale. The maps feature unique and memorable environments, which is surprising because it seems like it might be pretty standard. The campaign is quite long too, which in some ways is a double-edged sword when you kind of want to get to the end. The finale area looks downright incredible and watching the car soar in the air towards the camera is superb. This is definitely one that warrants multiple playthroughs.
No. 2: Lima Infection
If I'm not mistaken, this campaign had been in development over many years. I remember playing an early alpha of this a long time ago and thought that the only other content they were going to make for it was just skins. Needless to say, this campaign just floors all the previous maps on this list except for Vox Aeterna and Atrocity Valley with its visual setpieces. The lighting is great and the models are great. The gameplay is incredibly focused, well, up until one point: the mall. Once you get into the mall in map 3, I feel like it starts to become less focused as it suddenly opens up lets you wander around more aimlessly. The airport in map 4 is cool and gets back to ramping up the difficulty. But then you get to map 5 and there's a lot more meandering outside on the runway. The level of detail is still present, but I feel like the focus is a little hit or miss in maps 3 and 5. Contrast this with a campaign like Dead Air, which I'd say is focused all around. Still, comparisons with a vanilla L4D1 map are high praise for this campaign, and this is definitely worthy of keeping company with other fantastic South American maps like Cambalache and Cambalache 2.
Honorable Mention: Deadly New Year
People might be up in arms that I haven't yet mentioned Deadly New Year. To be honest, I didn't really have fun with it. The first map, while small, shows a decent enough design but the fact that it's just a scavenge is pretty horrible. The second map is probably the best and it's a lot of wandering. Plus you can just die unpredictably if you happen to fall through the thin ice. I didn't think that the last bit of the second map was that enjoyable, as you don't really do anything. The last map has some okay ideas but at the end of the day it's just fighting hordes, tanks, or witches. I liked the little cutscenes with the gnomes, so I thought that had quite a bit of work put into them, but otherwise the maps were just standard fare, even a little boring or bogged down in tedium in the case of the first map. Maybe the authors can make something I enjoy more next time, but aside from this playthrough, I don't see a need to revisit this one.
(Another one you might think I forgot about was Whispers Beyond the Wind - Beta, because it got quite the reaction upon release. I didn't forget about this one, my friends and I just didn't have a fun time playing it and I didn't think it was that good, despite the visuals being admittedly pretty nice in places.)
No. 1: Early Days
This campaign is top tier. It fits right alongside some of my favorites, like Energy Crisis, Blackout Basement, SaltHell Park, and Prototype Mk. 3. It's vanilla-esque but it still does its own thing. It isn't pouring with extreme levels of unique models like Lima Infection but it is extremely detailed with regular models. It has a unique feel and atmosphere. And most importantly, it has equally high levels of visual presentation and gameplay focus. The maps are substantial but never go on for too long. The events are challenging but never feel insurmountable. There's such great balance here, I'm very impressed with the work that's done here. Contrast this with another campaign that came out this year: Death Corridors 2. That campaign is the most ugly copy-paste bullshit packed with non-stop special infected with zero regard for balance, fun, visual interest, realism, or respect for your time. Early Days does everything the opposite of that. It is extremely polished, it works great conceptually, it's realized beautifully, and is definitely worthy of being considered the best campaign to come out of 2025.
Most Anticipated for 2026: Amid the Ruins
Now that I've put down my thoughts for my favorite campaigns of 2025, I thought I would share one last thing. I'm aware of several campaigns currently being worked on for L4D2, one of which was released in its alpha state for feedback back in August, then removed after a couple of weeks. This was Amid the Ruins, a campaign that, already from its alpha state, looked visually similar to some of Valve's maps, namely Swamp Fever. There were a couple maps to look at in the alpha, one being in the swamp and the other leading from farmland to a city. While there was clearly a lot of work to go, it definitely looked promising. I was glad to see a campaign that used the Swamp Fever assets and style and didn't suck. I don't really have anything tangible to go off of with any of the other campaigns whose development I'm aware of, so I can't really talk about them. However, I'm excited to see what more content will break out in 2026!
Thanks for reading!
