The Apartments

The Apartments is the first chapter of the No Mercy campaign.

The Survivors start off on the roof of an apartment block under a sheet with a table of Tier 1 weapons, ammo and first-aid kits. A helicopter flies past and through a loudspeaker tells them to make their way to Mercy Hospital where they will be evacuated. One of the survivors then says that they can get there through the subway.

They must initially work their way down, through apartments using stairs and a hole in the floor. Once at the bottom, they exit to an alleyway, followed by a main street. Several cars can be found along the way and one sets off alarms when shot at, hit by melee, or jumped on which will attract The Horde.

The Survivors will eventually find their way to the safe room which is the entrance to the ruined subway.

Strategy
Also see: Tactics

All campaign walkthroughs are done on Normal difficulty in single player, and are meant to give tips on what to do and generally point out things that might otherwise be missed.

There are, of course, a few key things to always remember:
 * Stop, look, and listen.
 * Stopping to observe your surroundings might allow you to prepare for something nasty, like a Witch, Tank, or special Infected in a really bad place for them to be.
 * Things can always get worse.
 * Are you and your teammates all hurting, your health down under 50%? Well, guess what? The Director doesn't care. You are now facing a Tank with Tier 1 weapons.
 * Teamwork.
 * This cannot be stressed enough. Left 4 Dead is supposed to be a cooperative game. Communicate with your teammates, if you're playing with others, or if you're by yourself with the AI, point out things they might otherwise miss. In all cases, watch out for each other and take care of each other. You are not going to survive the zombie apocalypse by yourself.
 * Be ready for anything.
 * Don't panic.

The Apartments are usually fairly easy to clear out. It's exceedingly rare for a Tank or Witch to spawn here, but don't let that put you into a false sense of security.

Campaign
At the beginning...
 * Bill will grab a pump shotgun.
 * Francis will grab a pump shotgun.
 * Louis will grab a submachine gun.
 * Zoey will grab a submachine gun.

Note: These are what the Survivor AI will usually grab.

Make sure everybody has a first aid kit before you leave the roof. They are vital to your survival. It's recommended you take a shotgun, whether you're an accurate shot or not, as the vast majority of the chapter is in close quarters. After everybody is ready, there are a few different ways to begin:




 * 1) Go through the door to the apartments. Be sure to close it behind you; don't want to let the rain in! Or the Infected, even though they'll just break it open. It slows them down a little, however.
 * 2) Break the glass over the sky light and jump down there.
 * 3) It's best to shoot any Infected you see before going down.
 * 4) Although more dangerous (as you are guaranteed to take damage, or you may even miss altogether and die), there is a way to skip the apartments entirely. Look over the side of the roof that's facing an alleyway, and you'll see two generators which look a lot like air conditioning units. Try to jump on these, but be careful. If you landed successfully, heal up, and wait for the other Survivors to join you. If not? You're dead. Just restart and try again, or go a safer route. Taking this route, you can skip part of this guide and go down to where you would normally exit the apartments. This generator has been removed in a patch on Xbox 360

Assuming you took the apartment route, be sure to check every corner and room that you can. Being ambushed is not fun. Not to mention, there may be useful supplies (i.e. grenades or pills) hiding around. If you already have everything you can carry, it's still useful to find them; though AI won't grab grenades, they will grab pills, and they might give them to you later if they think you need them! There are a lot of rooms to look at, and these rooms are also effective in use against fighting a horde. Bathrooms are great.

Aside from this, the apartments are pretty straight forward. You'll eventually come to a hole in the floor. Don't go down yet. Look on the other side, as there tend to be supplies over there. Check the hole, as well. There might be zombies down there. When you're satisfied that it's all clear, go down. Much of the time, there is another hole in the wall (such destructive zombies!). You can either go through there, or you can take the slightly longer way which is always available, even if the hole isn't. They both lead to the same place: outside.

Once you're in the alley, watch out. Special Infected like to hang out around here, especially on the rooftops. However, if your teammates are still doing fine, you should be fine, too. Always be sure to watch each others' backs. Keep moving, though. There should be a pistol on a car, generally spawning all the way out to a bench on the right of the street. If you find it, take it. If you are ever incapacitated, you go out on a last stand of sorts with your pistols. Dual-wielding them can save your life if you have a mob on top of you.

Now that you're out in the open, there are three different paths to take.
 * 1) The road. It's open, and things are generally easy to deal with, unless you're out there with a horde rushing at you.
 * 2) Next to the Give Blood sign, there's a door. Inside there is a small hallway with another door and a desk. There's a first aid box in there, and depending on how well you're doing, there will either be first aid kits or pain pills inside of it. The hallway itself is fairly easy to defend, especially if you get in or near the closet at the end.
 * 3) Behind a crashed truck, there's a storage place. Though it's dark, sometimes useful things spawn back there.

Again, all three lead you to the same place: a back entrance to the subways, and some cars. One of said cars has an alarm that will go off if you shoot it, touch it, etc. Unless you are deliberately looking for trouble, avoid it at all costs. It triggers a Panic Event. Have you accidentally set it off, and you don't want to deal with the aftermath? Run. There's a safe house down the stairs, and once you're inside with the door closed, they can't get you. Just make sure nobody was left behind!

Video Walkthrough
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The Survivors
Due to the fact that humans are now playing as the special Infected, things are going to be less predictable, and tougher. They can't spawn until you leave the roof top, however, so make sure that everybody is ready before opening that door or dropping down the sky light. Don't even try to jump onto the generators that were there in campaign, because they're not there anymore. Jumping off now will just kill you, no matter where you land.

Enter the apartments as you and your teammates will, but stay together. They're going to be continuously coming at you. And no matter what, keep moving. You cannot afford to stand still for long.

Watch out for ambushes as you descend through the apartments. When you reach the hole, make sure everybody jumps down at the same time. If somebody lags behind when everybody else has jumped down, they could easily get pounced by something. Once you get out into the open, be extra careful. Smokers and Hunters spook around the rooftops, ready to snatch or pin the very first Survivor they can. They usually target anybody who is alone, so don't give them that chance. Ever.

The Infected
See also: The Boomer, The Hunter, The Smoker, The Tank

Silly Survivors, thinking they can escape the Infection. Teach them a thing or two! Just remember, work together as much as you can. Even blood-thirsty zombies need to rely on their buddies to hunt efficiently.

Over-all Tips:
 * Lone wolves. Mmm, mmm, mmm, tasty.
 * The Survivors all have outlines around them, showing their status and location. Green means they're healthy. Yellow means they're hurt. Red means they're low on health. Purple means they've been covered in Boomer bile. You can probably discern which to seek out first if possible.
 * Think like a Survivor. When you play as one, when are the worst times that something could come at you? Exploit that knowledge.
 * Teamwork, as aforementioned. Has a Boomer gotten their bile all over the Survivors? Jump one of them or a clean one. They can't see their teammates' aura until they're clean... and by then it might be too late.
 * As much as teamwork is a strength for you and your enemies, a lack there of will be their downfall. If you can focus all of your energy on killing one of the Survivors, the rest will be that much easier to take down. Not only will they have one less gun, but they will have three Survivors to your four incapacitating Infected.

Techniques:
 * Banzai - Smokers and Boomers are both loud and easy to kill from a distance. You can however use this to your advantage.  Standing in front of an alarmed car can be an excellent trick.  While there is a good chance one of the survivors will be too smart to fall for it, the chance that all four will be able to resist getting "an easy kill" is slim.  To add additional pressure to the situation, a smoker can drag one of the survivors to the car to attempt to lure gunfire.  This technique is extremely effective as the summoning of the horde does everything your team is trying to do.  The enemy will be panicked, separated, and taking a lot of damage from regulars which will help your Boomer and Hunters move in close with less risk of taking fire while additionally allowing the Smoker, if he's still alive, to ensnare one of the survivors without his team being able to reach him. This concept can be applied to the witch with slightly different results.


 * Bait and Switch - If the Smoker can ensnare a survivor just a few yards behind the group and pull them back you can have a Boomer waiting to spray their teammates when they come to the rescue. If all of the rescuers are blinded then you can have a hunter pin the stranded survivor while the smoker maneuvers to pull another survivor away from the main group. If some of the survivors were not close enough to the boomer to get bile or were lagging behind the first rescuer, you can have your hunters pin them down.


 * Chain Smoking - To maximize the amount of damage you do to the survivors wait for the smoker to drag a survivor backwards from the group and have two hunters ready to pounce on the rescuers that will follow. This technique buys your spawning teammates time to hide ahead of the survivors as well as slowing them down.


 * Drag and Drop - There aren't many opportunities on this level, but if you ever get the opportunity as a smoker to drag someone off of a high surface with no barrier, you can release the survivors before they hit the ground to ensure that they take falling damage. This is often immediately lethal.

Boomers: Though you are fragile, you can be a real nuisance if you do your job correctly. Try to hide around corners to slime people. Can't find a corner? Go kamikaze on them. Even if you miss, maybe they won't. Also this map has a good period of time in the alley. Hit them from the roofs, or a window.

Hunters: Ferocious and stealthy, you are a force to be reckoned with. Just make sure you see your prey before they see you, but don't try to attack large groups. Hide around in small spaces, and pounce people who wander off. Also remember you have a strong melee attack, if they are all covered in boomer vile come up behind them and just rip. It can do a lot of damage.

Smokers: Staying outside is optimal, but if you can get inside the apartments behind the survivors, you can try and snag the last person to jump down the hole in the floor and their teammates won't be able to help them. One survivor down! Wait for Survivors outside, preferably from the rooftops. You're harder to spot up there than you are standing right on the street. Try to grab as many Survivors as you can, usually if they're alone or low on health. If you're in a good spot, it doesn't matter if somebody breaks your tongue and frees the helpless Survivor: just get back, let your gauge refill, and grab somebody again. Second chances are wonderful, and third and fourth and fifth chances are incredible. Just keep trying; you'll kill somebody eventually. Additionally, as a Smoker, if standing behind the car with the alarm, you can pull a survivor over the car to set it off.

Tanks: Tanks are especially rare here, but they can do quite a lot of damage... if they're careful. Yes, you may think it's easy to slaughter the Survivors, since they only have Tier 1 weapons, but on the off chance you get hit by a Molotov or any other fiery substance, the flames of which will kill you very quickly, this strategy will take care of the Survivors quickly. You can use either the car with the alarm or the white car in the alleyway just before the main street. Simply punch either of them to send it flying at the Survivors. If a Survivor is so much as touched by the moving car, it's an instant incapacitation. If incapacitated and hit by another car, the Survivor will die instantly.

Trivia

 * There are some common infected ambling around the alleyways, and they can be seen and shot at from the roof you start on.
 * On one of the newspapers, there is an image of what appears to be Dr. Breen, who is from another of Valve's popular series, Half-Life.
 * Although The Apartments supposedly picks up right after the introduction cutscene, where the Survivors are seen with Tier 2 weapons (which never spawn in this chapter), everybody starts with only a pistol, and pick up Tier 1 weapons from the table. It's possible that they dropped their weapons as they scrambled up the emergency exit stairs, like how Zoey dropped her second sidearm when she nearly fell.