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COLDSTEAMPOSTER
Cold Stream
Tagline "The fields have eyes, the trees have ears... and we have guns."
Creator Matthew "donking" Lourdelet
Stephan "CosmicD" Vandenborn (music soundtrack)
Chapters
  1. Alpine Creek
  2. South Pine Stream
  3. Memorial Bridge
  4. Cut-throat Creek


"This community created campaign throws you deep in the back woods to face thousands of zombies as you battle your way to a helicopter rescue. Don't let the water or waves of zombies sweep you away to your death."


"Make your way out of the canyon."


Cold Stream is the third DLC for Left 4 Dead 2. It was announced in a blog post on February 16, 2011.[1] Cold Stream was released on March 22, 2011 in beta form on Steam, and it was officially released in its final form on Steam on July 24th, 2012. Cold Stream was released on the Xbox Marketplace August 3rd, 2012 for 560MSP.[2]

Cold Stream is unique in that every chapter, with the exception of the third chapter, Memorial Bridge, ends with a gauntlet crescendo event leading to the safe room. The finale, Cut-throat Creek, is also a hectic gauntlet event going through the entire chapter, like The Bridge from The Parish. Cold Stream is also noted for relatively few calm spots compared to other Left 4 Dead 2 campaigns.

Below is a complete list of video walkthroughs of the final versions of the 4 levels, with the first two levels in one video:

  1. Alpine Creek and South Pine Stream
  2. Memorial Bridge
  3. Cut-throat Creek Finale

Released in Cold Stream[]

Only for Left 4 Dead 2[]

Setting[]

Cold Stream takes place in forested area located deep in the mountains. Survivors make their way from the creek, passing the forest, and jumping into utility bunker fulled with infected for shelter. After resting for a while, they walk out into the stream and traversing a long stretch of never ending traffic jam of abandoned vehicles, before running down into a tunnel filled with restless infected and reaching another maintenance room for safety. From here, they must ascend from the darkness to the ruined bridge and make their way to the junkyard, while military bombs the highway above. Reaching the storage room, they call for extraction, and fight for their own life against a stream of a never ending infected horde and finally reaching a waterworks technical depot converted into a CEDA processing and extraction point. In a dramatic escape, survivors must climb upstairs (and fight a tank that occasionally spawns here) and finally escaping the place which is now surrounded by a untamed forest fire.

Graffiti[]

Main article: Graffiti#Cold Stream

Unlike other campaigns in Left 4 Dead series, scattered graffiti that normally serves as a story telling mechanic appear very scarce in this map. Not only scarce, graffiti in Cold Stream also unusually appear disjointed and incongruent each other, so the story about the event what happened in the area can not be easily deducted. That is possible because of the places visited by survivors during their journey in this campaigns are places that normally restricted or unusually accessed by public (such as utility room, maintenance room, etc.) prior the Green Flu, hence not so much people knowing about it and passing through the places. With no much people passing, not much information left for the future passing survivors. These matched with the desolated and isolation vibes of this campaign.

Achievements[]

Main article: Achievements

Confedaracy of crunches
CONFEDERACY OF CRUNCHES (30G)
Finish a campaign using only melee weapons.

Dead in the water
DEAD IN THE WATER (20G)
Kill 10 swampy Mudmen while they are in the water.

Crass menagerie
CRASS MENAGERIE (20G)
Kill one of each Uncommon Infected.

The real deal
THE REAL DEAL (35G)
Survive a campaign on Expert difficulty with Realism mode enabled.

Streamcrosser
STREAM CROSSER
Survive the Cold Stream campaign on any difficulty.


The Xbox 360 version of the Cold Stream DLC has no unique achievements added to the game.

Beta[]

Sfw

Cold Stream was released to the public on the official servers on PC/Mac via beta release on March 22, 2011 for play testing and bug-seeking, such as finding nav-mesh bugs, navigational issues, hit box problems, missing zombie ladders, art problems, and more.

An in-game bug reporter was activated at the same time allowing players to send feedback and bug reports. This feature was announced by Valve to be extended eventually to work with other community campaigns. But strangely, there's no "Report Bug" button in the main menu or the in-game menu, which requires writing "bug" in the Developer Console yourself.

Players can also post feedback on the official forums in the Cold Stream section. Development of Cold Stream can also be followed on Valve's official Twitter account located here.

Notes[]

Outrotitle coldstream

  • Sometimes the Survivor Bots will fail to get on the chopper ladder at the end and fall out of the map.
  • Earlier revisions of the campaign featured models re-used from the Garry's Mod map gm_forest, amongst content from other games. The game files in "left4dead2_dlc3" contained models and textures for ex. "gm_forest."
    • Since the SteamPipe conversion on July 2, 2013, many un-sourced models were removed before Cold Stream was officially released. The models can be downloaded from GameMaps.com.
  • Despite the fact that it is an official map, and though parts of the campaign reference the Left 4 Dead campaigns made by Valve, Cold Stream is not part of the official Left 4 Dead canon, and as such, does not fit in with the central storyline in Left 4 Dead and Left 4 Dead 2.
  • The campaign has several artifacts recycled from other Left 4 Dead campaigns, having the SOS painted sign and the News Chopper 5 Helicopter from No Mercy, the elevator from Hard Rain, graffiti from all of the campaigns, and the military jets from The Parish.
  • In-game character dialogue is notably sparse, being largely confined to repetitive one-liners recycled from Left 4 Dead 2.
    • Similar to other custom campaigns, this campaign simply doesn't use variating dialogue and is all the same.
  • Left 4 Dead tropes encountered in this campaign include a high-level bridge crossing, rescue helicopters, aerial bombing of a freeway overpass, radio-for-rescue, climbing tanker trucks, a crescendo event maze and cabins in the middle of a forest.
  • In reply to a Twitter post on May 4, 2011, Valve explained that they are experimenting with moving community campaigns over to the Xbox 360, along with Cold Stream.
  • Cold Stream features Swamp Fever's Mud Men and The Parish's Riot Infected. Riot Infected are the only way to obtain the nightstick.
  • Since the release of Dead Air for Left 4 Dead 2, Cold Stream has its own intro theme music and horde theme (albeit a mashup of the Left 4 Dead and Left 4 Dead 2 horde themes), a decision largely suggested by players from the forums. Prior to this, Cold Stream re-used Swamp Fever's intro and horde music; although deemed fitting for this campaign, they were eventually replaced by the soundtracks mentioned above.
  • An achievement called STREAM CROSSER was added. Valve said that if 20,000 players get it they would be rewarded. This goal was achieved almost four hours after the achievement was released according to the L4D blog, and the reward was to release the Dead Air campaign to Left 4 Dead 2 early, which was on July 22, 2011.
  • Significant changes were rolled out in the July 2011 update. Among the more notable revisions were wholesale (and most welcome) changes to the Memorial Bridge chapter and ultimate Finale sequences. Common Infected spawning behaviours were now more credible and had tighter sequence linking whilst the number of Special Infected was refined in to enhance the "surprise factor" during gameplay. In addition, the revised Cut-throat Creek chapter saw the introduction of an innovative visibility-reducing mist effect.
  • In the game files, the rescue helicopter from the Parish Finale can be found in a folder called "bunny". This helicopter however has an unfinished crashing animation, which was cut from the final release.
  • During the intro, an Infected may attack Ellis, but deal no damage.
  • Cold Stream is the only campaign poster not to feature the Survivors or the campaign's tagline.
  • The Last Stand was not included in this DLC, making it the only campaign from the first Left 4 Dead not to be playable in its sequel without being modded into the game. However, a remade and expanded version of the campaign was released for Left 4 Dead 2 on September 24, 2020 for players on Steam..
  • This is the only campaign where no Witches spawn in any chapters.
    • However, there are exceptions on some Mutations.
    • Also, on rare occasions, Witches will spawn during a Versus game. (Confirmed on Xbox 360)
  • There is evidence suggesting that this campaign takes place in New Jersey. In the final chapter, there is a map in the Safe Room depicting Union County, with cities like Roselle and Elizabeth marked as well as the NJ Transit railroad line.
  • The helicopter in the Beta version seems to be modeled after the US Army Huey model.
  • This is the only map in the entire series to show the Chapter's title card in-game.

Gallery[]

References[]

External Links[]

Campaigns
Left 4 Dead Left 4 Dead 2
Achievement Mercy Killer No Mercy
The Apartments / The Subway / The Sewer / The Hospital / Rooftop Finale
Achievement Price Chopper Dead Center
The Hotel / The Streets / The Mall / The Atrium
Achievement Crash-proof Crash Course
The Alleys / The Truck Depot Finale
Achievement Torch Bearer The Passing
The Riverbank / The Underground / The Port
Achievement Toll Collector Death Toll
The Turnpike / The Drains / The Church / The Town / Boathouse Finale
Achievement Midnight Rider Dark Carnival
The Highway / The Fairgrounds / The Coaster / The Barns / The Concert
Achievement Dead Baron Dead Air
The Greenhouse / The Crane / The Construction Site / The Terminal / Runway Finale
Achievement Ragin' Cajun Swamp Fever
Plank Country / The Swamp / Shanty Town / The Plantation
Achievement Grim Reaper Blood Harvest
The Woods / The Tunnel / The Bridge / The Train Station / Farmhouse Finale
Achievement Weatherman Hard Rain
The Milltown / The Sugar Mill / Mill Escape / Return To Town / Town Escape
Achievement Supreme Sacrifice The Sacrifice
The Docks / The Barge / Port Finale
Achievement Bridge Burner The Parish
The Waterfront / The Park / The Cemetery / The Quarter / The Bridge
Non-Canon Campaigns
Achievement Last Stand The Last Stand
The Lighthouse
Achievement Stream Crosser Cold Stream
Alpine Creek / South Pine Stream / Memorial Bridge / Cut-throat Creek
L4D Random Map Cropped Dam It (unfinished)
Orchard / Campground / Dam
Achievement Still Standing The Last Stand
The Junkyard / Lighthouse Finale
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