Left 4 Dead 2 Map

Left 4 Dead 2 Logo © Valve

This is a project that I spent quite a lot of time on that didn't see the light of day. Ultimately I did do it for fun, but with all the hours I sank into it I should have just finished it up and pushed it out there. This is the map I did for the game Left 4 Dead 2. I had NO idea what I was doing when I went into the project, but my friend was building one so I figured I could make my map and link it to his.

I used the Hammer Editor that is provided to anyone who bought and plays the game on Steam. I got the inspiration from my unnamed office job where I would spend most of my life plowing through mundane busy-work. Everyday I would take long detours to the bathroom to get inspiration for my map, as well as plan out the layout of the building. Considering I had to use the game's premade objects, I think I did a pretty good job designing an office building that includes bathrooms, kitchenettes, an emergency staircase, and even a working elevator.

The way the game works, is that you set up a route for the players to follow, which basically means I had to make a maze out of an office building. In the office building, I wanted to limit the number of floors that I had to build (and furnish) by using as much space on that floor as I could. This was tricky because I needed to make sure that players couldn't short-cut past a big chunk of my map by hopping over one of the blockades.

The top 3 floors of the map. The fire escape stairway that I made is on the right side, and the elevator runs down the middle.

On top of this, I had to make sure the map was fun, so I had to set up attack points and spawning points for the zombie players could have a fair chance at killing the human players. This took a lot of pre-planning and working on scrap paper.

Overall, I'm actually really proud of how it turned out. I stopped working on it just before I finished the ending room. Also, I didn't put in the climbing points to give zombie players access to good attacking points I set up. I think with a bit of polish the map could have been a really fun map to play, but I doubt many would have played it even when the game was popular. I did manage to record myself playing through the map which you can see below or on youtube. If you want to try the game out, contact me and ask me to email it to you.

Hope you like it!