- "Think anyone is still alive?"
- ―Zoey
The Junkyard is a map featured in The Last Stand Community Update. This map serves as the first chapter of The Last Stand campaign of Left 4 Dead 2.
Strategy[]
The Survivors start outside Riverside Park, the area in which the finale of Death Toll takes place.
The Survivors must fight through several different areas: a stretch of an old countryside road, across a wide stream with a bridge and waterwheel house, a large junkyard, a burned-down village that was seemingly abandoned when the infection hit.
When survivors reach the junkyard, survivors find their path blocked by fences and shipping containers. To get through, they must operate a gigantic electromagnetic crane requiring a fuel pump and 4 generators to power up. When the fuel pump is activated, a crescendo event starts, and hordes of infected swarm into the junkyard. Halfway through the crescendo event, the crane loses power, and the survivors must fight their way to the four generators scattered over the junkyard to return the power to the crane. If the survivors succeed, the crane will move to pick up an empty shipping container that is open at both ends, at which point the survivors must manually release the crane to drop the container over the fence, creating a path for them to get over.
After escaping the junkyard, Survivors make their way up through and finally to an area known as "Cliffside," a park area on some coastal hilltops that leads to the Lighthouse, where a small log cabin serves as the safe house. The general atmosphere of the location implies that, like Riverside Park, it was once a tourist spot.
Survival[]
See also: Survival Mode
The Survivors make their way to the village's junkyard. Trespassing illegally, they sought to find a way to get out of the junkyard by creating a shortcut by dropping a shipping container that was open at both ends. They pumped the fuel, but the old crane did not respond. Attracted by the pump's noise, now an endless stream of Infected coming them. With the realization that they are now trapped, how long can they hold their ground until their bodies lay wasted and heaped like the junkyard heaps?
Overall Tips
- Teamwork is essential to long-term survival.
- In this mode, most of the popular choke points, closets and easily defensible corners are removed. Even if you find one that has not been removed, it is not recommended that you fight from there as The Tank will quickly defeat you when he arrives.
- You have an infinite amount of time to prepare. Use this to your advantage. Take as much time as you need to set up gas cans, propane tanks, oxygen tanks, and to find a good place to fight from.
- When searching for a place to fight from, remember that you need a location that not only limits where the horde attacks from, but also gives you a fair chance against the Tank. You either need to be able to fall back and deal with the Tank easily, or have a good enough vantage point to kill him before he can get too close.
- Ammunition is a problem. Unless you are being overrun with Infected or fighting a Tank, try to use your pistols as much as possible. Conserving ammunition should be a priority, as trying to get more during a horde attack can often be fatal. When you do head out for ammunition, remember to take at least one teammate with you.
Truck Method
- There is a broken truck with a Combat Shotgun, Silenced Submachine Gun, Pills and First Aid Kits behind one of the generators. This spot makes the Infected funnel when running after the Survivors, so the Molotov brings the most utility as it can prevent hordes from getting close like other grenades and can weaken Tanks. Players should watch out for Smokers who can attack from the left past the fence, and of course, Tanks. Due to the lack of ammo and a tier 2 rifle to weaken the Tank from a distance it can be a good idea to use dual pistols or melee weapons to eliminate Common Infected to conserve ammo for such encounters. There is a large amount of gas cans in this map, using one against each Tank fight is an easy way to defeat him.
Trivia[]
- At the beginning of the campaign, Louis is usually seen crouching and healing his leg; this could be a nod to the fact that Louis injured himself in The Sacrifice when the bridge is raised.
- At the beginning of the campaign, under the arch behind the starting point, there is a pile of dead bodies beyond the fence. With a dead soldier's body and military supplies nearby on the truck, it is suggested that the starting point where the Survivors are standing was a kind of makeshift military checkpoint, and there was an attempt to defend the village by the military against an incoming Infected attack.
- Still, at the beginning of the campaign, you can find a corpse near the ration box stack (where you also can find a shovel). The corpse has his back gored and blown off (possibly using a shotgun). Examining the corpse closely, the corpse is similar to a Hunter in design. Interestingly, special infected like Hunter cannot be gibbed in-game play, so such gore effect is impossible to obtain in-game.
- On the right side of the road, not far from the starting point, one may see a bloody puddle of water filled with cattle carcasses and a bloody truck parked nearby. It is suggested that there was an attempt to get rid of infected dead cattle away from the village, which may have become the source of the infection in the village. Such an attempt is similar to what the Village En Marais residents did in Swamp Fever's Shanty Town. The attempt clearly failed, as the way the villagers killed them was unhygienic and possibly caused the infection to spread even further.
- On this map, where one can see a ruined waterwheel house in the village. Enter the house, go upstairs, and jump down. Here, one can access the locked room at the back house. Hit the locked room with any melee weapon multiple times until the door breaks and reveals the body of a survivor who starved to death, still sitting in front of the computer. One can see the names of the Community Update Team's members written over the walls. Clicking the computer's keyboard will result in the player receiving a golden crowbar. Doing this will also unlock the "Household Names" achievement. This video explains how to do it.
- The room is scripted. If one tries to use noclip to access the room, they cannot find the body, the computer sets, or the graffiti listing the map developers. The only thing shown is ZSN69 spray paint.
- No name is assigned for the Junkyard in the Survivors' dialogues or the graffiti. Based on the name written over the garage at the junkyard, the junkyard was known as Rob's Salvage.
- It is possible to find a shovel in some of the abandoned trucks. One also may find many shovels, pitchforks, and crowbars at the Junkyard.
- At the Junkyard, there is a crowbar stuck on a plank barricade behind the fuel pump. The shape of the barricade is lambda (λ) shaped, an apparent reference to Half-Life.
- Sometimes, when a Tank spawns in the area where the Survivors are supposed to jump out of the container after it drops, the container will suddenly disappear as soon as the Tank climbs and enters the Junkyard. Despite the container being gone, a diagonal invisible platform still exists, enabling the Survivors to escape the Junkyard.
- When the Survivors approach the estuary, they may see a falling, burning single-engine plane. Said plane eventually crashes and can be found at the river after they pass the hilltop slope after passing the Junkyard. The crashed plane model is the same one used in The Sacrifice's The Docks which can be found on the main highway between the Army Reserve Center and the demolished bridge.
- If one goes to the crash site earlier by using noclip without triggering the plane crashing animation, the crashed plane prop and burning forest part are already preexisting.
- A charred body can also be found nearby, but it is unknown if the body belongs to the pilot or an unlucky Infected. Since the plane's door is closed even after the impact, it most likely belongs to the latter.
- The animation of the burning plane and subsequent plane crash voice is triggered by a script. The invisible trigger is located at the entrance to the stream until the vehicle pile blockade, not far from the starting point.
- The falling burning single-engine plane is likely based on the falling single-engine plane animation from Dam It. In the original Dam It, the animation of a falling single-engine plane played during the beginning Campground level when you near the supposedly collapsible bridge situated near the farmhouse. However, the plane did not burn in Dam It, and the falling plane did not crash to the ground and cause a forest fire.
- When the Survivors follow the river stream and jump off into the creek, they might see a burning house to the left side. When the fridge inside is opened, one may find the body of a deceased woman Survivor. This refers to a controversial scene in Green Lantern #54 (issued in 1994), in which Green Lantern comes home to his apartment to find that his girlfriend, Alexandra DeWitt, had been killed by the villain Major Force and stuffed into a refrigerator. The scene's depiction sparked controversy from feminist groups who deemed it to be violently sexist. The controversy caused by the scene led to the coinage of the term "Women in Refrigerators" by writer and feminist activist Gail Simone. The term was later used as a name for the website in early 1999 of the same name made by Gail Simone and others, which listed examples of the common superhero comic-book trope whereby female characters are badly maimed or killed in many ways to develop the main male characters' story.
- Atop the RV parked in the front of the two-story house near the cliff side, using noclip will allow the player to find the lower half remains of an unfortunate Survivor. The remains are similar to one found in Swamp Fever's Shanty Town.
- The safehouse doors on this map feature a unique model. Rather than metallic material, the safehouse doors here use wooden material strengthened with iron scraps and some duct tape. This suggests that the builder, even in a remote area with limited resources, was still able to make a secure, mandatory safehouse.
