"Make your way through the swamps to a plantation house where a boat is coming to save you."
Swamp Fever is Left 4 Dead 2's fourth campaign (originally the third, with The Passing DLC shifting campaign order).
Swamp Fever spans four long chapters and takes place in Louisiana-type bayous and swamplands near a shanty town called Village En Marais.
Chronologically, it follows on from Dark Carnival and picks up the Survivors' story in wake of Nick shooting the helicopter pilot due to the latter becoming an Infected. Once they have shaken themselves out following the helicopter crash, the Survivors find themselves stranded in the middle of nowhere with their only route to safety going through a gator farm, a downed commercial airliner, swamp villages and finally at an abandoned plantation where their rescue awaits them. Along the way, they meet a new breed of Infected, the Mud Men.
The campaign culminates in a finale wherein The Survivors must hold out until rescued by a fishing boat captained by Virgil― a likeable and public-spirited Cajun.
Swamp Fever and Cold Stream are the only campaigns to contain Mud Men (a class of Uncommon Infected) who are agile, hard to spot and blur player's vision with mud when attacking. Similar to Jockeys, they move by scuttling along on all fours, but they are of a bigger size and so are easier to hit.
Below is a complete list of video walkthroughs of the 4 levels:
Please know that the gameplay videos are on each campaign's info page not on each map page.
Achievements
- Main article: Achievements
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RAGIN' CAJUN | (20G) |
| Survive the Swamp Fever campaign. | ||
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CONFEDERACY OF CRUNCHES | (30G) |
| Finish a campaign using only melee weapons. | ||
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WING AND A PRAYER | (30G) |
| Defend yourself at the crashed airliner without taking damage. | ||
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DEAD IN THE WATER | (20G) |
| Kill 10 swampy Mudmen while they are in the water. | ||
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CRASS MENAGERIE | (20G) |
| Kill one of each Uncommon Infected. | ||
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THE REAL DEAL | (35G) |
| Survive a campaign on Expert skill with Realism mode enabled. | ||
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STILL SOMETHING TO PROVE | (35G) |
| Survive all campaigns on Expert. | ||
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GRAVE ROBBER | (25G) |
| Collect 10 items dropped by a Fallen Survivor. | ||
Behind the Scenes
Originally the Uncommon Infected in this campaign were the Fallen Survivors instead of the Mud Men, but they were cut from the game and later put in The Passing (with the release of The Last Stand Community Update however Fallen Survivors have been put back in this campaign, albeit appearing only in The Swamp sporting military parachutist gear). Also, the Heavy Machine Gun at the finale was going to be in front of the entrance of the house (as can be seen in the Zombie Survival Guide), not on the 2nd floor balcony.
An idea for this campaign was that the wooden walkways would've had rotting wood that would break when stepped on.[1]
Notes
- "Swamp fever" is a term given to a number of diseases that are acquired in wet, swampy environments.
- The campaign's name "Swamp Fever" may be based upon the film franchise "Cabin Fever". the tagline of the campaign could refer to the fact the disease of the films was incurable.
- A paratrooper can be found in the trees of the second chapter carrying some type of tier 2 weapon, a grenade, and a temporary healing item.
- Swamp Fever was the first campaign revealed to have four chapters (Dead Center was the second) as opposed to the usual five. However, Swamp Fever's total campaign length is unchanged from the five-chapter norm since its four chapters are individually longer.
- Swamp Fever, alongside Dark Carnival and The Passing, have uniquely depicted Common Infected. They are simply Common Infected who are covered in mud and swamp water rather than blood. They are not to be confused with Mud Men who belong to the Uncommon Infected class, as their attacks do not blind the player with mud. Swamp Fever Common Infected have no special characteristics and act like any other Common Infected in the Left 4 Dead series.
- The campaign mirrors two Left 4 Dead running gags: the Infected helicopter pilot (Crash Course) and the rescue boat (Death Toll).
- This campaign starts just before dawn and ends in full daylight.
- The crashed airliner in The Swamp could be related to Metro International Airport as the destroyed airliners in Dead Air have identical liveries. If it is from Metro International, there could have been Infected on board, and if they survived the crash, they could be responsible for how the infection got into the swamp in the first place.
- Another possibility is that the airliner is simply a reused asset.
- Strung up at the gator farm in the first chapter is a Charger posed in the shape of Valve's Lambda brand symbol. This continues Valve's tradition of sneaking its brand symbol into the Left 4 Dead titles. In beta gameplay, a Boomer was used instead.
- This and The Passing are the only two campaigns that lack a hidden Left 4 Dead poster in their loading screens.
- The swamp people may have heard of the Infection when it hit, as in the third chapter there is an area with dead cows. Rochelle wonders if the virus can spread through animals, suggesting that the swamp people killed their animals in order to prevent them from infecting them.
- Despite having no CEDA Infected, Boomer Bile can be found more often in this chapter compared to the others (excluding Dead Center). This is possibly due to the military giving airdrops for the people living in the area.
- On the campaign poster, Rochelle and Ellis are holding M4 Carbines, a weapon not featured in the game.
- Like Death Toll, this campaign is the only campaign in Left 4 Dead 2 to lack alarmed cars, possibly due to the rural setting.
- Grenade Launchers and Chainsaws along with Special Ammo are more common in this campaign than in any other, possibly due to the large amounts of Infected or the length of each section. This is most likely because of the rural setting, where most forms of military support are either outright impossible, or are rejected. The same would affect rural people in real life, as farmers keep weapons to drive off intruders and wild animals. For the chainsaw, it would be for log cutting.
- The campaign poster refers to the finale by stating "Original music by Plantation House".
- The crashed helicopter can be found (if playing as an Infected) and seen (if playing as a Survivor) behind the train cars at the start of Chapter One. However, the crashed helicopter is News Chopper 5 from the starting point of Crash Course from Left 4 Dead and not the same one that rescued the Survivors from the Dark Carnival finale.
- It is possible to 'skip' the Crescendo Event at the Gator Farm. Should Re: Your Brains be played on the jukebox, summoning a horde, next a Survivor calls the ferry. The Director does not spawn additional Infected since the Survivors are dealing with the horde from the jukebox. Once the horde is cleared there should not be any more Common Infected spawning. The Survivors can then wait for the ferry in peace, except for the occasional Special Infected.
- In the opening cutscene on the Xbox 360 version of the game, the color of the abandoned car near the gas station is white, whereas on the PC version the color of the car is red.
- The Swamp is the only chapter the Magnum Pistol can appear in.
- Swamp Fever is the only campaign that the survivors do not discuss their rescue plan. Given that graffiti in the safehouse between The Swamp and Shanty Town mentions going to the plantation house, and the survivors (except for Nick) will point out the house, it can be surmised that they saw the graffiti and used it as their plan.
- Although there are certain houses or shacks that are built on stilts during the campaign, none are as tall as the one depicted in the background on the campaign's poster.
- The finale of this campaign is notably the only time in either game where two tanks will spawn at once (during the second encounter after the rescue vehicle has been called). Normally it's horde, tank, another horde, then another tank and then finally the vehicle arrives. A similar event occurs in the comic book where Bill faces off with three tanks at one point.
Gallery
References
- ↑ Official Xbox Magazine, Issue 99 (August 2009)
