The Mall

In The Mall the Survivors finally reach Liberty Mall, only to find that the evacuation center there has already been overrun by the Infected. This chapter contains a Crescendo Event in which the Survivors must either open alarmed emergency doors on the first floor or smash the windows of a barricaded store on the second floor, triggering a burglar alarm that attracts Infected hordes until the Survivors get to the security office on the third floor and shut it off. This chapter seems to have an increased amount of horde attacks, often running into them non-stop even on Normal difficulty.

Trivia

 * The Crescendo Event of this chapter is similar to the one in The Park, which also has the Survivors shutting down an alarm to stop the horde.
 * It should be also noted that during the Crescendo Event, the director has the ability to move the location(s) of the escalators making the gauntlet easier/harder accordingly.
 * The design and architecture of the malls interior is roughly based off of the mall from the original Dawn of the Dead.
 * Hazmat Infected do not spawn in this chapter.
 * Interestingly, you can start the event from two places - by opening the emergency doors on the first floor, or by breaking the glass at the second floor. The glass crescendo appears to be slightly easier, though the door crescendo gives less chances to run in different directions from the very start thus increasing the chances of survival. Note that only one option may be available depending on how the Director is feeling.
 * There is a vending machine you can jump on top of that kills you for an unknown reason.
 * In the crescendo event, if you get to the emergency door and a Tank spawns, the Tank will spawn outside the door and you can just wait for the Tank to die outside the emergency door.
 * Survivors will laugh if they hit a mannequin with a melee weapon.
 * Survivors start calling Infected by their names in this chapter.
 * It has been noted that in this chapter, the horde seems to spawn very frequently; about every 20 or 30 seconds. This makes this level one of the hardest, especially on Expert or Realism due to the fact that you don't have much time to develop strategies. However, occasionally the Director will simply spawn two times more Special Infected, even two of the same, instead of spawning a horde seemingly twice as fast.
 * It is possible, even on easy, for a Horde to spawn before you open the Safe Room Door. However, as the door is still barricaded, they can do nothing to you. A player with a melee weapon is capable of killing Infected from inside the Safe Room, provided Infected are attempting to attack Survivors through the bars of the door.
 * The hordes in this level, with the exception of the horde in the Crescendo Event, are relatively small. Each horde consists of 10-15 infected.