Warcelona

Title: Warcelona
Link: https://www.gamemaps.com/details/3131
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1910147798
Author: Carlos Coronado, Dani Navarro, Emilio Raya
Survivors: L4D2
Notes: A beta version of this campaign also exists on Gamemaps, as well as bonus content and developer content in the form of a "making of" on the campaign's website.

Warcelona is a fairly ambitious campaign that intelligently reins in its ambitions and sets out to accomplish two realistic goals. The first is to represent Barcelona, Spain in a detailed manner during a time of collapse during the infection. The second is to create fully fleshed out levels with varied and interesting areas that facilitate good gameplay. The campaign uses many unique assets but never gets carried away from its realistically accomplished goals. As such, it doesn't fall prey to gimmicks or haphazardly constructed levels, it's simply a good and polished campaign through and through.

There are a lot of unique areas in this campaign that are appropriately developed that you don't really see in many other campaigns. For one, the church that starts you out is very appealing to look at, as well as appropriate in conveying a tone of a heavy, dark atmosphere. Even though it might not make sense that the L4D2 survivors are for some reason in a church in Barcelona, it doesn't really have to make sense, and I'm grateful for the fact that the developers don't feel the need to acknowledge this. We're just in Barcelona because why not.

There's a little bit of a shaky start to the campaign. I'm not really sure why there needed to be a place for the survivors to all stay together for twenty or so seconds while some doors open up. I mean, I guess it might make sense but I feel like some voice lines could've gone a long way to not make it so awkward. After that you're treated to a skyline very similar to Dead Air, and in fact the tone of Dead Air permeates almost all the outdoor areas of this campaign, which is in my opinion somewhat of a detriment. In fact, we'll soon see how the way in which this campaign uses ideas from previous campaigns is one of its shortcomings.

The first relatively big area to explore seems to be some kind of apartment complex or condo, and in some places it feels adequately detailed while in others it feels a bit primitive. Take the red, green, and blue container models in the above picture, for instance. It's very possible that these are fashionable in Spain and I've just never seen them before, but to me they look like really simple models that don't contribute much to the scene and in fact simplify things by kind of just being packed against an otherwise blank wall. Some of the holes in the floor feel a little contrived in directing the player flow, and right off the bat it allows for players to get separated, which feels like one of the biggest gameplay oversights in this map in particular (imagine someone lagging behind getting pounced on a floor above everyone else and suddenly he's out for the rest of the map when it's really just started). Just as an aside, something else I wanted to mention was that both times I played this recently, I only found myself with a T1 shotgun in the beginning that had to hold me through until I found the armory at the bottom of the apartments. I mean, I guess having a T1 shotgun is better than having nothing at all, but I swear the bots or other players found the SMGs while I couldn't, which is strange.

Anyway, there's yet another one-way as the players drop into the swimming pool area, although the swimming pool itself is pretty nice to look at and an immediate change in color tones. By the way, I seemed to be able to pick up a big hunk of meat and while I couldn't necessarily use it to attack, I could shove with it. It was here that you can find a tank or a witch. It's a nice set here but being underwater heavily impacts the way you naturally deal with infected, so if you happen to drop into the water, you might find yourself getting unfortunately screwed.

The rest of the first map kind of goes on for a bit outside, and there are some nice industrial-looking areas that recall to me the second and third maps of Hard Rain. The layout is pretty decent even though there's a bit of that wandering around feeling, but otherwise it doesn't continue on for that long. Honestly the first map is probably one of the weakest, as it seems to be going through random, disconnected areas, but that's just the impression I got. The supplies, such as weapons and healthkits are removed from the first saferoom with a foreboding message.

Honestly I'm not sure why the supplies are taken, since of course this campaign would be frowned upon if it didn't give supplies upon starting the next map, which of course it does. Also I'm not sure why the writing here is in English while all the rest of the writing is in Spanish, but if I were here to nitpick every little inconsistency with every campaign, I would never be done. In any case, the second map is where things open up and fortunately so. There's a lot more freedom to explore and space to move around here, it seems.

The beginning takes you through some back alleys that are really quite reminiscent of the opening construction zone of the third map of Dead Air before leading to an open street. The cool thing about this street is that there's a weapons shop that displays weapons such as the military sniper and auto-shotgun behind glass, which you can smash to get, but in doing so it will set off an alarm that will alert the infected. I thought this was a nice touch, which has an appropriate risk alongside a great reward.

The second map is fairly long too, and will take you through the streets of Barcelona and through various shops and stores to find the way around some barricades. It appears as though there are multiple ways to go through, so it may be beneficial to explore all the areas in the vicinity. I did manage to find a store with an arrow that pointed down to the floor, which I assume was pointing to something that could be interacted with if you know a secret or password, but of course I don't so I guess there's nothing I can do about that. In any case, eventually you'll happen upon a much larger street littered with cars, and it was here that I first encountered the riot zombies. Now, I'm normally not all that indisposed of riot zombies themselves, but they are the worst of the uncommon infected, so it's a little disappointing that they're here, as I know people who absolutely hate them.

Along this deserted street, you'll find supplies (I believe the first instance of tier 2's if you didn't ransack the weapons store) and an entrance into the subway, which constitutes the bulk of the second half of the second map. Upon dropping into the subway, there's a pretty decently long gauntlet that goes through a variety of areas, even if it might not totally make sense why you're going through them. Anyway, the bigger problem I had was that after deactivating the alarm, there seemed to be more infected attacking than during the actual gauntlet, which was strange.

Once that's over, the map continues a short while longer, making the players enter the obligatory sewer level for a short while. It's not really all that clear to me why this is right before the saferoom, since quite a bit already happened in the map already and there's another sewer in the next map. As such, it looks nice but gameplay-wise feels a little like padding. Anyway, it doesn't last too long and ends with a saferoom with actual supplies still inside.

The next map begins in what looks like a lumber mill or something before it leads to a large outdoor area that definitely shows military presence, with fortifications set up and vehicles all around. It's a nice setup on the highway that leads to a really broken up section of the street that you'll have to climb down. I did notice special infected getting stuck on this particular section, so I'm not sure if this was just a weird bug or if they're actually frequently prone to getting stuck there.

Dropping down (man, there is a lot of dropping in this campaign, isn't there?) leads again to more sewers, this time forcing you to wade through more water. Oddly enough, there are two ammo piles right next to each other by a van with some weapons, which seems like either a lazy way to get nav to work or an oversight. It's a bit weird as an oversight though because so much of the rest of the campaign is pretty well-polished. In any case, the sewers are again pretty short and soon lead to some dry offices. The goal at the end of the offices is to use the scaffolding lift machine from No Mercy map 3 to ascend to the next higher level of military fortification, I suppose. We had to fight a tank here, which is pretty unfortunate as the space up above is extremely limited.

After that spot, you're forced to open a plane door like in Swamp Fever map 2, but the issue here is that it's not clear if you should proceed on. On one run, I had a tank right after the airplane door-opening thing, which was a nightmare because it decimated the bots with all the cars around, and remember that infected are all over the place, too. In fact, there is a ludicrous amount of infected from now until the end of the map, so much so that it honestly feels like a bug. After running through the field of cars, there is a howitzer cannon to fire, and it honestly started to feel like a mishmash of different events from the stock campaigns. There really hadn't been anything that felt fully original except the setting, so it's almost like running from familiar event to familiar event.

Fortunately, the ending changes all that, as it's the only part of the campaign that really feels like its own original thing. Strangely enough, the map actually seems to require a tank fight before even starting the gauntlet finale, so I guess that's to test players' strength first. Personally I think that's bullshit, since it's an unnecessary challenge and the arena to fight the tank in is very close quarters. Anyway, it's made up for by the really beautiful and fleshed out finale segments.

There are essentially two parts to this finale, one which is just making it to this building, which in itself is a fairly difficult challenge because the infected hit you hard and furiously. Thankfully you can use some bile to mitigate the process and there are plenty of explosive barrels to help quell the hordes behind you. The path forward isn't always straight but it is almost always clear, which is very nice to see. I believe there's a tank on this first stretch of the finale section that the players may have to deal with. The second half of the finale takes place inside the burning building. Again, the pathway isn't straightforward because of fallen debris and broken architecture, but it's usually very clear where it is you need to go. There will more than likely be a tank at this second point in the finale as well, since the players are almost at the end. Upon arriving at the rooftop, you're greeted with a helicopter and escorted out, as you're treated to a very appealing, short final cinematic of the helicopter leaving the city.

Difficulty: Warcelona has more than its fair share of difficult parts. The second and third maps throw a lot of infected at the player. In fact, in my game the second map had close to 600 and the third map had over 800. That's quite a bit overkill for a campaign that doesn't particularly bill itself as being notoriously difficult. This is a map that should probably played on Normal for first-timers (Advanced for seasoned Expert players) to save people from frustration of not knowing where to go while also being bombarded by infected at many turns and also running the risk of being separated by one-ways. The finale itself is very rough and challenging, especially with bots, but I had forgotten how much of a punch the third map packs as well.

Final Verdict: Warcelona is, in places (most notably the gauntlets of map 2 and almost the entirety of map 4), a very fun campaign to play. In other places, such as the first map, it can feel dull and a bit under-developed. The third map is probably its biggest detriment, throwing an unreasonably high number of infected at the players during its two outdoor events. Additionally, the campaign borrows too heavily from places seen in the original L4D1 and 2. There's even a staircase that looks straight up lifted out of the hotel staircases from Dead Center. The campaign's falling back on those parts of the base game are probably the weakest in terms of design; it sometimes feels derivative and lazy. The first three maps are generally not bad, but the fourth is the one everyone remembers, for good reason. As a campaign on the whole, it's mostly above average with a great finale, but it still has room for improvement. Overall, still recommended.

Rating: 4.07/5.