Yesterday marked the release of L4D’s survival mode and a new map for it — The Last Stand. So, I’ve given it a bit of play — here’s how it works.

New Menu

There’s the new menu featuring the lighthouse from the new map. Survival is a multiplayer mode, but can be played as a single-player if you want. It sets up like a multiplayer campaign match — with the choice of 5 maps. Four of the maps are all from previous campaigns.

The Last Stand

The Last Stand’s new movie poster…

Survival Mode -- Set up time

When you first enter the match you’ll have a set-up time that’ll run as long as you want. You have to activate the actual survival mode — think of the other finales or crescendo events. You start with all the equipment you need and there’s ample supplies of explosives — molotovs, pipe bombs, gasoline containers and propane tanks. The maps also have ammo piles around, four extra health kits and numerous bottles of painkillers.

Surviving... or not

Once the survival mode starts you’ll have a clock start to track your best time. To the upper left is the match’s current time and the right your team’s best time so far. Horde, boss infected and tanks will spawn rapidly during the survival time — and there’s no telling how many or what types may be active at once. If you’re unlucky you may find three of your team incapacitated by smokers/hunters and the fourth being bashed into pulp by a tank. So, death is quite fast in this mode. Especially with NPC’s as your teammates. The mode does work in a single-player fashion, but strategy is gonna be thrown out the window and strategy is what you need.