Highway To Hell attempts to stand out amongst its peers by trying to do something different. However, I feel that this didn’t quite pan out in Highway To Hell’s favour.

Specifically, Highway To Hell attempted to be a little less linear and more pseudo-open-world.

To encourage more exploration of the environment, the map designer also removed the semi-random horde timer from most Chapters, in favour of instead plastering the Chapters with Alarm Cars, Alarm Doors, Alarmed Security Glass, and a couple other scripted events.

However, almost all of these Megamob-summoning events and obstacles can be avoided/skipped by simply avoiding/not shooting them.

There are only two unavoidable true Crescendo events in this campaign.

The first is a Hard Gauntlet on Chapter 3 set in and around a river, which features sloped and slippery terrain, low visibility, and water that slows your movement (an odd choice for a Gauntlet). Fortunately, this Hard Gauntlet can be mostly trivialized by a Bile Bomb or two (which can be provided during the Gauntlet itself, via Hazmat Uncommon Infected).

The second is a pretty easy Crescendo event on Chapter 4, which activates when you open an alarmed door from inside the military base, which you must do in order to progress.

Whilst this unique map design all sounds interesting and good on paper, it ultimately results in Highway To Hell having a highly variable relative difficulty, and thus a very uneven experience, overall.

The Chapters can either be extremely easy, if you carefully avoid each trap/obstacle, or they can become frustrating and somewhat hellish; with back-to-back alarm cars going off, Witches enraging, and Tanks attacking simultaneously.

This ironically also means that Highway To Hell may be one of the few campaigns that is actually made easier by playing with Survivor Bots compared to humans, as the former cannot set off alarms/activate optional Crescendo events.

The relatively non-linear level design also effectively results in Highway To Hell being easy to get lost/confused in at times on your first playthrough, as is often the case when Custom Maps try to be pseudo-open-world.

This campaign is pretty generous on supplies in general, which makes the exploration not feel quite as rewarding as it otherwise could have been (although you can sometimes find Laser Sights pickups in partially-hidden back areas, which is a notable exception).

The hardest part of Highway To Hell is by far the optional Megamob + Tank military base gate opening event on Chapter 4, which was activated immediately by other players both times that I played through this campaign. Despite the fact that this event is easily avoidable by just going down the street and bypassing the closed gate altogether.

The Finale is a very easy and basic Defend-Tank-Defend-Tank set in an airport hangar, right beside the escape plane.

There are several easy areas to hold on this Finale near the Ammo Pile, weapons, and First Aid Kits. Notably including a single-entrance room atop an elevated platform.

This Finale is also made easier as a result of the jungle gym-like array of shipping containers and other props that Survivors can jump onto and across (few of which have invisible walls placed above them), making the final escape and the Tank fights very easy for a half-decent team (especially since Gas Cans and Molotovs are also provided around the Finale area).

Do note that this Finale has an annoying feature, whereby two AI-controlled mounted guns exist near the front of the plane, one on each side.

These AI-controlled guns shoot at anything that enters their fixed sightline, including the Survivors (as warned by several signs). These AI-controlled guns deal large amounts of damage to Survivors very quickly.

Strangely, if one of these AI-controlled guns downs a Survivor, you also can’t revive them, as the gun will continue to shoot them, and its damage has apparently been programmed as ‘Infected’ damage. Which means that it will interrupt your revive attempt every time the gun damages the Downed Survivor, thus resulting in a revive-loop that makes it all but impossible to save the person (which did happen to one silly Pub player on my first playthrough of this Custom Map, resulting in their guaranteed death).

There is also a glitch on this Custom Map, which results in the ending credits statistics being wiped and set to ‘0’ across the board every time, which is obnoxious for those who like to see their team's stats.

Overall, whilst I appreciate the dark, foreboding, and depressive atmosphere of Highway To Hell, and can definitely see what the map designer was going for with the non-linear level designs, I feel that it simply doesn’t translate well into consistently fun and engaging L4D2 gameplay in its current form. Hence why my Quality rating for Highway To Hell is low, and my Difficulty rating has such a wide range of variance.


For more Expert Custom Map Reviews and ratings, see my full Collection here. https://psteamcommunity.yuanyoumao.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2252724380