Dead Center

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Dead Center
Tagline	"Prices aren't the only things getting slashed."
Creator	Valve Software
Chapters	The Hotel The Streets The Mall Atrium Finale
Chronology
Previous	The Sacrifice (Left 4 Dead)
Next	The Passing

"Make your way to Liberty Mall and get out of the city using a car."

Dead Center is the first campaign in Left 4 Dead 2. It takes place in Savannah, Georgia, a city that has just been hit by the Infection.

The campaign starts on top of The Vannah Hotel which was once CEDA's central operations and evacuation base but which is now overrun and partially ablaze. The Survivors arrive on the hotel rooftop just too late to board the last evacuation helicopter. With no other option open to them, they all agree that the best thing to do is to get across town to the other CEDA facility at the Liberty Mall.

Their subsequent quest takes them down through the burning hotel, out on to the overrun streets to a gun store from whence they enter the Liberty Mall only find that it too has been overrun by the Infected. Left to their fate, the Survivors elect to escape to New Orleans by refueling the 1969 Dodge Charger formerly run by a local stock car ace named Jimmy Gibbs Junior and which was fortuitously on public display in the mall at the time of the Infection's outbreak.

Walkthrough

Left 4 Dead 2 Dead Center 1 Health and Safety Issues

Part 1 — The Hotel

Chapter 1

Left4Dead 2 - DeadCenter - Hotel Normal

Chapter 2

Left4Dead 2 - DeadCenter - Streets Normal

Chapter 3

Left4Dead 2 - DeadCenter - Mall Normal

Chapter 4

Left4Dead 2 - DeadCenter - Atrium Normal

Achievements

See Main Article: Achievements

	PRICE CHOPPER	(20G)
	Survive the Dead Center campaign.

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	ROBBED ZOMBIE	(15G)
	Collect 10 vials of Boomer vomit from infected CEDA agents you have killed.

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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.

Behind the Scenes

Originally the Uncommon Infected were going to be the Riot Infected, not the CEDA Worker Infected.

Notes

• The campaign poster is the only Left 4 Dead 2 poster that features melee weapons.
  • Ellis' left arm is not fully drawn leading some to conclude that it is behind Nick or in his pocket.
  • Rochelle is shown dual wielding a Chainsaw and a Machete — a game play impossibility.
  • Coach and Rochelle are holding Machetes. However, Machetes can only be found in Swamp Fever, The Parish, and the ported versions of Death Toll and Blood Harvest. It is possible however, that Machetes were planned to be usable in this campaign, but the concept was subsequently scrapped later on.
• Like Dark Carnival, the tagline had been suggested on internet forums several times before its public reveal.
• This campaign's plotline is consistent with the "shopping mall cliché" found in the Survival horror video game Dead Rising and the movie Dawn of the Dead.
• The city of Savannah has no three-story malls in real life.
• Dead Center's music.

Dead Air easter egg during the Dead Center loading screen.

• The poster for Dead Air can be seen to the left of this campaign's poster in the loading screen, although it is nearly invisible and may be difficult to see. There also is an additional poster below that of Dead Center, most likely that for Dead Air as well — or perhaps Crash Course.
• This is the only campaign which guarantees laser sights. In the second chapter, The Streets, there is always a laser sight upgrade in Whitaker's Gun Shop. A laser sight is very rarely found in all the other Left 4 Dead 2 campaigns. Oddly enough, in one of the CEDA tents near the safe room, another laser sight upgrade can spawn.
• Dead Center (and later on Hard Rain), for some unknown reason on Valve's part, is the only campaign that does not spawn the female Boomer due to the fact that "no_female_boomers" is set to 1 in the mission text. This act would be carried later on in The Passing and the ported original campaigns; the reason behind this is still in question.
• The campaign's name appears to be a compound word-play: shopping malls are often called "shopping centers", everyone in the center is dead, a perfect shot strikes dead center, and dead centers are lifeless zones.
• On the campaign poster, one can see the caption: "Stunt/Fight Coordinator Jimmy Gibbs, "
• Dead Center and the Left 4 Dead 2 ports of No Mercy and The Sacrifice are the only campaigns where two Uncommon Infected can appear simultaneously.

External Links

• Dead Center Screenshots.