As you walk through the abandoned streets of City 96, you wonder to yourself. "Where is everyone?". The feeling of isolation creeps over you. "What happened to the other stabilization teams? Surely the C.P.M.C didn't kill them all!" You blurt out suddenly, lost in a trance of sonder. The only other Combine Unit you've encountered in this City is Cal, and he was half way out of here by the time you found him anyways.
All this pondering makes you think back to before this mission. Your friends, your family back home, before the Combine ripped it all away by conscripting you. The painful memories cause your fist to clench, the knowledge that you will never ever see them again is overpowering. In that sudden moment you are filled with indescribable rage towards The Combine. They took everything away, and destroyed the world, but you still had your wife, right? But they found a way to make it worse. The night you were beaten up, kidnapped and taken away to serve in the Conscript Army. Once you awoke, they handed you an empty gun, and told you that any kind of resistance would mean death... or worse... becoming one of those worker synths...
And then you tumble deeper into the rabbit hole of thoughts... your squad... Most of them survived the initial crash. But it wasn't long until they started dropping one by one. Until all of them were claimed by these streets, and you found yourself alone.
Until Cal, the one glimmer of hope in this desolate wasteland. Its only been a few hours, but you love him in every way that word has meaning. He is the light in your world guiding you through darkness. You think about his personality... the way he tells you the stories of his time in City 17... his knowledge on the Rebel's underground operations... usually you wouldn't find stuff like that very interesting... but when Cal is saying it... its all you want to ever hear about in the entire world... Even his cynical, glass-half-empty nature manages to actually lift you up... because its Cal... Every second around him is surrounded by a dreamlike haze, making it difficult to focus. But he always has your back... always... you just want to hug him as tight as you can and never let him stray too far away... lest you be left to die alone here.
Your daydreaming about Cal is interrupted by a chill going down your spine... Where the hell is Cal? You could've sworn he was right behind you... Hurriedly turning around, you see nothing behind you. You try to retrace your steps. "How long have I been daydreaming for? Minutes? Hours even?" You think to yourself.
Without any time to waste, you begin to run further into the concrete jungle, yelling and screaming bloody murder in a vain attempt to find Cal. But the pure terror you're experiencing is interrupted by the ringing of gunshots followed by "ELEVEN NINTY-NINE, I NEED ASSISTANCE DAMN IT!" For the first time in your entire life, the distinctive rattle of gunfire inspires immense excitement and hope within you.
Its him! Its Cal! You rush in the direction of the gunshots, but they're echoing everywhere. Its hard to follow the direction of the sound, it could be coming from any direction.
You frantically scramble around in circles within these alleyways, like a rat in a maze, aimlessly chasing the sound of distant gunfire, before you suddenly trip and fall to the ground, hitting your head violently against the dusty dirt floor.
You look up to see corpses, mangled ones. They are twisted beyond recognition. Some of them bare the distinctive blue Civilian boiler suit, while others appear to be... conscripts...
There's so many of them, all piled up in this alleyway. But they're not entirely still, you can see them shifting, rustling, and wiggling slightly but stiffly.
Eventually what lies before your eyes finally registers... zombies... a lot of zombies...
Before you even realise it, the zombies have already begun rise.
You try to get up... but you can't... the pain in your head is too much... and you can see them lumbering towards you with an ever increasing speed...
This was the answer to your question... this is what happened to the inhabitants of City 96... the civilians... and the other stabilization teams... and now you're about to join them...
In Coalition, there are two new skins for the Zombies!
The regular zombie now dons the attire of a civilian.
While the poison zombie is equipped with conscript battle fatigues, or at least half of them, as he doesn't possess a shirt.
Theres some new maps for the apartment! Featuring the abandoned living quarters that are now infested by the resurrected corpses of their previous inhabitants.
The bulk of the fighting between conscripts and the C.P.M.C was carried out in apartments like these, and the remnants of gunfights can be found scattered around. Bullet holes in walls, dead C.P.M.C and Conscripts alike scattering the floor, turned over furniture, etc. All the hallmarks of close quarters combat having recently occurred.
The headcrabs, being the natural opportunists that they are, took advantage of the chaotic situation to pick off the terrified civilians and wounded conscripts. Assimilating the most vulnerable into their ranks.
Finally, there have been some improvements on a previous map I have shown off here!
This map has had some new particle effects added, along side a walkway for one of the doors, and some overhangs on two of the buildings.
i unironically love these changes, but at that alleyway near the white building with veicko on the side, can you add some skybox buildings on the street next to it? I'm talking about the one between the building that looks like the Poland flag and the plain white one. i was gonna do that before uploading the map to you, but i forgot about it. also can you add some soundscapes to it if you haven't already? thanks a lot
Sure thing!