Deadenator is one of the longest, most difficult Custom Maps that is still playable and beatable on Expert with Pubs.

Each of its 5 Chapters are extremely long, are confusingly labyrinthine, have loads of empty rooms and dead-ends pointlessly included, and have very few supplies (including ammo/weapons) provided.

It took us until near the end of Chapter 2 (around 1 hour in, with the whole campaign taking about 2 hours) to even find Tier 2 weapons (minus Magnums, which could fortunately be found on Chapter 1), and I never once found a Military Sniper Rifle, just Hunting Rifles.

As a result of the extreme lack of health supplies, Deadenator is one of those rare Custom Maps where it's all but essential for 3/4 Survivors below 50 permanent health to suicide in each Safe Room, just to get back that extra bit of health and speed between Chapters (similar to other extremely health-stingy Custom Maps like Silent Hill 1).

Deadenator also doesn’t have enough intrigue or uniqueness to justify the slog required to get through each Chapter.

The whole spawning separately on Chapter 1 feature was kind of unique, but had the potential to get a Survivor or two pinned and killed early.

The Tank punching cars down the hill at high velocity on Chapter 3 was an interesting sort of little minigame. The Tank On The Hill event was also notably the hardest part of the entire campaign, as it doesn’t provide you with healing supplies or ammo before it (though we did get a single AK-47 spawn to work with), is set mid-way into the massive Chapter 3; when you’ll likely be low on ammo and most types of supplies, it can have a random Tank spawn just before it (as it did on our playthrough), and it spawns a Crescendo + Tank once you avoid the flying cars and reach the top of the hill. Complete insanity.

There are several other Crescendo events sprinkled throughout the Chapters besides this one, but they're barely worth mentioning, as the hardest thing about them will just be surviving them with little to no ammo/health supplies.

The shadow/ghost patient in the wheelchair in the asylum on Chapter 2 was also a nice small detail that many people may miss.

The Finale of Deadenator is a remarkably easy and standard Defend-Tank-Defend-Tank; quite an anti-climax after what you would have already survived to get there.

There are a few very jank things to note about Deadenator’s Chapter 4 Finale, however.

One is that there’s an entire massive Chapter’s worth of content (30+ minutes’ worth) pointlessly placed on the Finale Chapter, before the actual Finale itself even begins (why not just make that its own Chapter? 'Great design').

Two is that the escape helicopter can ‘pinch’ and crush you as it’s descending, Downing you instantly, rather than pushing you out of the way (great design).

And three is that the ending Tank(s) can enter the escape helicopter (atypical compared to the vanilla campaigns and the majority of Custom Maps, again, great design).

All of this culminates in Deadenator being perfectly playable in its current state, but once your entire team is inching through the massive Chapters on 1 HP and low/no primary weapon ammo, as a result of the desolate lack of healing and other critical supplies, you’ll wish you were playing on almost any other Custom Map.

All of which is reflected in my low Quality score, super-high Difficulty score, and Super Long Length rating for Deadenator.


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