I think Infection Free Zone would benefit a lot from a new mode, DLC, or standalone expansion called Outbreak Mode. Instead of rebuilding after the collapse, this version would take place during the first days of the infection, when everything still worked, when the world still believed it could stop what was coming. Governments, militaries, and emergency services are still active, trying to contain the chaos, still issuing orders, still fighting to hold cities together. The player takes command of national or regional crisis response units, controlling police, army squads, medics, and engineers, trying to manage hospitals, evacuation routes, and convoys while the situation falls apart piece by piece. The gameplay would focus on crisis management, evacuation, logistics, and defense. You would need to send convoys with soldiers, medics, and trucks to rescue civilians, secure key buildings, and recover resources. You would have to protect these convoys from riots, looters, and early infected attacks, while trying to keep morale high and prevent panic. The player could build safe zones, quarantine districts, and establish fortified checkpoints using barricades, fences, and sandbags. Military and police squads could be deployed to protect hospitals, defend evacuation routes, or hold critical positions in cities. Combat missions could involve cleaning infected areas, securing supplies, rescuing survivors, or escorting convoys through dangerous zones. Vehicles like APCs, transport trucks, and helicopters could be used to move troops and supplies between zones. Hospitals and labs could be used for research, trying to understand the infection and create temporary treatments or slow its spread. The game would include social and political tension, with riots, protests, and civil unrest as people lose trust in the authorities and as more of the civilised world gets lost due to the infection rate and chaos on the streets. You would need to balance humanitarian aid, military response, and public order. Every decision would have consequences, affecting how long the government can hold the situation together. Eventually, if containment fails, the game would transition naturally into the collapse, showing the fall of civilization before the rebuilding begins. It would fit perfectly into the lore and give players a completely new way to experience the world of the game. You start inside a functioning city. Lights are still on, cars move, people work, and the infection is only whispered about on the radio. Your base could be a city hall, military base, or regional emergency operations center. You begin with limited squads, supplies, and communication links to hospitals, police stations, and shelters. Early missions involve identifying the first infection cases, isolating hospitals, and establishing containment zones or patrolling around districts. You might be ordered to enforce curfews, escort doctors to infected hospitals, or search for missing research teams in dangerous areas. You can construct buildings suited for the crisis phase, including command centers, communication hubs, police outposts, medical tents, field hospitals, refugee camps, decontamination zones, storage depots, barricades, and evacuation points. As the infection spreads, more structures become available, such as quarantine fences, research labs, power generators, water purification plants, and fortified defense lines like towers, gates, and checkpoints with barriers that you can place freely on the map. The player could designate areas as evacuation sites or refugee shelters and assign units to defend or manage them. Police units could control riots, manage crowds, and hold checkpoints. Military infantry could secure perimeters and fight infected. Medics could treat injured civilians and soldiers or evacuate the sick. Engineers could build fortifications, repair power grids, or clear blocked roads. Special units like hazmat teams could enter contaminated zones to recover samples or rescue trapped scientists. Vehicles would also play a role, including police cars for quick response, APCs and transport trucks for troop movements and transport or rescuing civilian groups, ambulances for medical evacuations, and helicopters for airlift missions or reconnaissance. Missions could range from containment and rescue to logistics and survival. You could be tasked to evacuate civilians from a collapsing hospital before it’s overrun, rescue a convoy trapped by riots in a city center, secure a laboratory producing prototype vaccines, fight through a red zone to reach an isolated police station, escort scientists to a research facility, reclaim a power station to restore electricity to refugee camps, or defend evacuation points while civilians board transport trucks or helicopters. Dynamic events would shape the flow of the crisis. You might face civilian uprisings, looting, government orders that conflict with your situation, or unexpected infection spikes in previously safe zones. Infected waves could appear suddenly after containment failures, forcing emergency defense missions. Some areas could be lost entirely, creating red zones that spread infection pressure toward your remaining territory. Players would decide whether to fight to reclaim lost zones or abandon them to save resources. The infection would evolve over time, starting with weak, scattered infected and escalating to larger and more aggressive hordes. Medical research would allow players to slow the spread, improve protective gear, or unlock temporary vaccines. Labs could discover more about the pathogen, unlocking new technologies such as early warning systems, drone surveillance, or infection sensors for checkpoints. Civilian management would be a constant challenge. Each decision would impact trust and morale. Strict quarantine and military enforcement could control the infection but increase fear and rebellion. Compassionate approaches, like delivering food, setting up communication broadcasts, and opening shelters, would improve public support but consume resources and time. Refugee camps could become overcrowded, creating tension, disease, and potential riots if not managed properly. As the crisis worsens, the game would shift from organized control to desperate defense. Communication with higher command might fail, supply routes would break down, and you would have to scavenge for resources by sending squads into abandoned districts, supermarkets, warehouses, or military outposts. Missions could involve clearing infected to retrieve supplies or fighting armed survivors trying to take over strategic points. Story progression would follow the fall of civilization. The first missions would focus on control and order, the middle phase would show chaos spreading as systems collapse, cities fall, and the chain of command breaks, and the final phase would center on survival, with one last stronghold holding out against overwhelming infection. The last timeline could be a large scale evacuation or a final stand. Your actions would decide how much of your region survives and what remains for the Infection Free Zone timeline. Outbreak Mode would tie directly into the main game’s lore. It would show the fall before the rebuilding, connecting the struggle for survival across both timelines. It would introduce new mechanics like civilian interaction, dynamic infection spread, government decision making, crisis management, early infection struggles, slow fall of the civilised world, desperate attempts to get things under control, radio missions, points of interest, and real time crisis management. It would balance strategy, story, and tension while staying true to the Infection Free Zone’s atmosphere. It would feel like the logical prequel to the main game, showing the world’s final days before everything collapsed.