Returning to the main Zombies story line the 4 playable characters from TranZit/Green Run and Die Rise find themselves in an underground Western style town overrun by zombies (because at this point anything is plausible). This map is the final instalment of the Richtofen and Maxis paths, so if you have completed the previous maps following one path then make sure you complete this final leg to reveal the story.

Additions: Many new features make their appearance here as well as some welcome additions to some faithful friends. The first new addition comes in the form of a helpful NPC, The Giant. The Giant can kill zombies, break barriers and provide some assistance to the player, but must be stimulated with Candy or Booze to perform certain tasks, like most people.

The new Wonder Weapon is the Paralyzer, a blast from this fantastic creation will slow and incapacitate any advancing zombies before killing them, this weapon can also be pointed downwards and fired whilst the player jumps to act and a propellant, jet-packing the player across the map until the weapon overheats. When Pack-a-Punched the Paralyzer (now the Petrifier) runs for 10 seconds rather than 6 (those 4 seconds can make all the difference) before it overheats.

One of the two new buildables in this map is the Head Chopper (does what it says on the tin), all parts found in the general store. The second is the Subsurface Resonator (all parts found in the General Store, man this place has everything!), this is fancy talk for huge killer speaker, it requires the Turbine to function and blasts zombies with sound waves that kill or knock back zombies.Other new weapons include the Remington New Model (similar to the python), the Time Bomb (which sends a player to the location the bomb is placed) and finally the Ray Gun got a little upgrade. The Ray Gun Mark II is a pretty useful upgrade to the every reliable Ray Gun, the upgrade now gives the weapon a 3-round burst and removes the splash damage of the shot, however each shot can go through multiple enemies.

A final new helpful addition is the Perk-a-Cola Vulture Aid, this highlights the locations of weapons, Perk machines, Pack-a-Punch and Mystery Box through walls (but only from a short distance). Zombies will occasionally drop small ammunition refills or a small amount of points. A final perk from the Vulture aid is that certain Zombies will emit a green gas upon death which causes the player to be ignored by zombies if they are in the green gas.

The player must contend with a new foe in the Haunted Mansion, the spooky ghost lady will haunt the player and multiple copies of this demented spirit will fly at the player (taking 2000 points with each hit), although these ghosts are quick they are pretty easy to kill.

Easter Egg: Now for the main Easter Eggs, this follows the Mined Games Achievement and Trophy. As mentioned earlier follow the path that you took in both Green run and Die Rise.

Richtofen’s Path

–First step is to build the Guillotine (located on a table to the left of the Saloon), turn this Western town into 1790s France, the four pieces will be located in the Gun Smith (look for a Spool), the Caves (a crystal), the Saloon (a Satellite) and the Barn (an Antenna).

– Next get the Paralyzer and power up the 4 Crystal Ball looking red orbs around the map; one is between the Saloon and Candy Shop, another near the Church entrance, the third is in the Tunnel system and the last one is in some Shrubbery by the stairs when entering the Mansion from the Maze. Shoot each orb with the Paralyzer until it turns from red to white and make a ding sound.

-Once the orbs a charged a Lantern will spookily float out the mansion and trace around above the map. So cook a grenade (so it will explode mid air) and knock the Lantern out the sky with the explosion.

-Find the Lantern after it falls from the air and charge it up by picking it up and going into the Mansion to kill some ghosts. You know you are doing it correctly if you hear a chime with each ghost killed (this means the Lantern is charging). Once this is done (should take around 10 ghosts or so) Richtofen will talk to the players and a Lantern symbol will appear on the roof of the Gunsmith shop, go place the Lantern on this symbol.

-Once the Lantern is placed a code will appear on the wall above the Lantern Symbol. Now I don’t know how someone figured this out but to decipher the code you need to use a cipher known as ‘tic-tac-toe cipher’ (use the Internet to bring up a graphic for this) from there you will decipher each of the three lines which spell out locations in the Tunnel system. Go to each of these three signs (for example one cipher might spell out Dry Gulcher Shaft, so go to the Dry Gulcher Shaft sign) and knife them. Knife them in the order they appear on the wall (i.e. knife from top to bottom).

-Once each of the three signs has been knifed a glowing Wisp will appear (please note the player needs Vulture Aid to see the Wisp), walk into the Wisp and press the action button, the Wisp will disappear and re-appear somewhere else on the map (the player can see where due to the Vulture aid, be quick there is a short window to reach the Wisp), repeat this process and follow the Wisp around the map until it finally ends up at the Guillotine.

-With the Wisp next to the Guillotine, lure a Zombie to you and the Wisp will attach itself to the Zombie, kill said zombie and you will find an orb rotates around the crystal. Repeat this process around 5 times and the powering up process will be complete, Richtofen will then tell the player to get the Time bomb.

-Now things get Zombies level weird. Get the Time Bomb from the mystery box and place in on the centre of the Guillotine. Once this is done have everyone gather around the table, have the player activate the Time Bomb and that player will be sent into Round Infinity.

-The players must scour the map in the short 90 seconds allowed in Round Infinity to find the dead bodies of the players. They must search each dead body of the playable characters until a switch is found, the switch will be randomly placed on a body and the bodies are randomly sent to several locations (by the Guillotine, in front of the saloon, left of the Gunsmith entrance, behind the bar and gunsmith house, in front of the jail house, between the general store and mystery box location, below the general store balcony, between a large rock and the candy store, next to the church red orb, near the workbench, and the alley between the bank and barn walls). Don’t worry if you run out of time just get another time bomb and repeat the process

-Once you obtain the switch, survive until the end on Round Infinity (all zombies are basically unkillable so just run and survive, monkey bombs help). Place the switch on the Guillotine.

– Now head into the Maze to find more switches (in normal mode, no need for Time Bombs). There will be four coloured switches (Red, Blue, Green and Yellow) on gates around the Maze. The switches will need to be pulled in the correct order (a trail and error deal here), after all the switches have been pulled those that were pulled in the correct order (e.g. pulling the Green switch first) will spark meaning that this switch was done correctly (in the example above that means the first switch to be pulled will be Green). If you fail the switches will need to be reset, so go back through the mansion into the main playing area and return to the Maze. If completed then Richtofen will tell the players to go to the fountain.

– Break the fountain in front of the Mansion (if you haven’t already). Make a wish at the fountain in the middle of the Maze. which causes targets to appear around the map, all of the targets need to be shot. The targets appear by the Candy Store, the Left side of the Mansion, inside the Saloon and by the Jail cell, so have each player head to one location and shoot the targets (there should be about around 84 targets in total).

-If all targets have been hit then you will receive all perks for the rest of the game.

Dr Maxis’ Path

– First build the gallows (next to the entrance of the courthouse), the four parts can be found in these locations; behind the Altar in the church (battery), Gunsmith (Spool of wire), in a Barn stable (Antenna), above the Giants Cell (Bulbs).

– Next you want to break the red orbs. You need to grab the Paralyzer and build the Turbine and Subsurface Resonator. Shoot the orbs with the Paralyzer until they turn white, then put down the Turbine and Subsurface Resonator to smash the orb. Repeat this for all four orbs, they can be found in the following places; one is between the Saloon and Candy Shop, another near the Church entrance, the third is in the Tunnel system and the last one is in some Shrubbery by the stairs when entering the Mansion from the Maze.

– Now a Lantern will appear in the air above the map and float around. Cook a grenade to blow up mid air next to the Lantern, which causes it to fall. Collect the Lantern and power it up by using Traps, Nukes or the Giant to kill Zombies (a ding sound will be heard for each kill that counts toward the powering up), the player with the Lantern should hang around the Traps or Giant killing the Zombies for it to count.

-Once the Lantern is powered up (Maxis will talk to you) a Lantern symbol will appear on the roof of the gunsmith shop, go there and place the Lantern on the symbol to reveal a code on the wall above. To decipher the code you need to use a cipher known as ‘tic-tac-toe cipher’ (use the Internet to bring up a graphic of this) from there you will decipher each of the three lines, which spell out locations in the Tunnel system. Go to each of these three signs (for example one cipher might spell out Dry Gulcher Shaft, so go to the Dry Gulcher Shaft sign) and knife them. Knife them in the order they appear on the wall (i.e. knife from top to bottom).

– Before knifing the last sign one player must put down the Time Bomb. Once the last sign is knifed a reddish Wisp will appear and start moving fairly quickly (so it is wise to have points spare to swiftly remove any barriers that may be blocking your path). The Wisp will fade out unless it can feed on zombies, so be sure to have a trail of Zombie around or have someone ahead of the Wisp kiting Zombies into it’s path. The Wisp will end up at the Gallows and if it has enough energy it will light up the bulb on the Gallows. Once the bulb is lit then the player who placed the Time Bomb must activate it in order to send the players back. The bulb on the Gallows will remain lit Rinse and repeat until all the bulbs are lit on the Gallows.

-The next step gets a little complicated. There are three locations that contain three bells (the Courtroom, the second floor of the candy shop, and the top level of the barn), you can find the bells as an option to press the bells will appear on the screen. The fourth player will need to head into the Mansion, in the room past the bookcase passage there will be a sofa with a 3×3 grid of bulbs and a lever. When facing the sofa each column represents one location and each bulb in that column represents a different bell in the location. For example if we label each row a letter and each column a number then 1A would be a bell in the Candy shop, 1B would be another bell in the Candy shop, 2A would be in the barn. Column 1 represents the Candy Shop bells, Column 2 is the Barn bells, and Column 3 is the Courthouse bells. Before activate the grid (by pulling the lever) use the time to figure out which bulb corresponds to which bell and label it. Once the lever is activated a bulb will become yellow, the player in the Mansion needs to tell the player in the location corresponding to the yellow light to ring one of the bells (for example if bulb 3B is yellow then the Courthouse player needs to ring the bell that lights up the second bulb in the column) if the right bell is rung then the light will turn green. Continue this until all bulbs have become green and you have completed that step.

-Break the fountain in front of the Mansion (if you haven’t already). Make a wish at the fountain in the middle of the Maze. Targets will appear around the map, all of the targets need to be shot. The targets appear by the Candy Store, the Left side of the Mansion, inside the Saloon and by the Jail cell, so have each player head to one location and shoot the targets (there should be about around 84 targets in total). This step is probably one of the most frustrating as it is something that will probably need repeating until the player has learnt where the targets appear and hits all of them.

-If all targets have been hit then you will receive all perks for the rest of the game.

You think it’s all over? Think again there is more to get the big reveal at the end of the game for both Richtofen and Dr Maxis’ paths (note the player will need to have completed all paths on the same side on Green Run, Die Rise and Buried to get the big ending, for example following Richtofen’s path on all three). So here is how to get the ending for each path.

–For each ending all NAV tables must be built with the correct NAV Cards inserted into them

Richtofen’s Path Ending

– If all four players have completed the Easter Eggs on Richtofen’s side (this can be checked on the Easter Egg tracker in the Courthouse of Buried. A player must shoot the tracker (or press x/square, both have worked) and a button shall be revealed inside the box. Go against all advice and press the big red button, what could go wrong! After a little confrontation between the voices of Richtofen and Maxis, all players will get a permanent Fire Sale and a special Mule Kick that allows four weapons to be carried.

Maxis’ Path Ending

– If all four players have completed the Maxis’ Easter Eggs then go to the Courthouse Easter Egg tracker, open it (by pressing X/Square or shooting it) and press the big button. A short confrontation between Maxis and Richtofen can be heard. The zombies will now be under Maxis’ control (the eyes will turn to orange) and Richtofen will now be transferred into a random zombie, the eyes of the ‘Richtofen Zombie’ will be blue, upon killing this zombie a random power up will be dropped every time you kill the blue eyed zombie.

The Story: We have finally reached the climax of this battle, between good and evil…well evil and slightly less evil. Depending on the path you followed you will end up with one of two endings. Either Maxis will vanquish Richtofen and regain control, or Richtofen will permanently remove Maxis from the picture.

After escaping from Die Rise our band of miserable marauders trek across Asia, Europe and into Southern Angola, to a digging site with a Western Town located beneath it, and the Rift. They enter the area in order to finally find out about these unseen figures that have been commanding/guiding them. However once there Maxis contacts the group and asks for help gaining control of the third and final tower, whilst Richtofen tells Samuel the same.

We discover that Russman was a former agent from Broken Arrow (whose message is heard in Die Rise), an organisation that was experimenting with a shard of Element 115 and accidentally created the outbreak in North America. After the crew have walked to the Buried site, they enter the subterranean Western Town in an attempt to find some answers and help their chosen voice win.

So why is this Western Town underground and seemingly stuck in the past and why is an American mining town in Africa? Well there is no definitive answer, however some clever souls have theorised a possible answer. When the Rockets from the moon hit Earth they formed several ‘time pockets’ around the globe. These pockets are, in the most confusing sense, separate from the reality the game is based in and exists in its own space and time. However the Rift is the area of two time pockets colliding, which is basically what Buried is and how it came to be. Many items and objects in this area are powered and linked to Aether Energy, which can seemingly distort space and time in small areas (as is seen when using the Time Bomb or Paralyzer). Therefore Buried just looks Einstein in the eyes, flips him off and goes into some Doctor Who level logic.

Now lets go into the split endings, we will start with Maxis. If you have followed Dr Maxis’ instructions up to now then you have majorly messed up, because both of these guys are just as evil as each other. Maxis will open a portal to the Aether and Maxis will now take control of the Zombies and basically everything else. Due to his God like powers he decided to proceed with his original plan of finding and opening Agartha, which will kill everyone on Earth as a result…not ideal. This is all to finally be reunited with Samantha and take his revenge on Richtofen by banishing him back to the physical realm and into the body of a random Zombie. If you have listened to Samuel this entire time and helped Richtofen then the Rift will be mended, completely and forever trapping Samantha so that Richtofen can harvest and utilise the Aether Energy. Now Richtofen has all the power he causes Maxis to just stop existing and can freely enter the Physical Realm by using Samuel’s body as a host. So either way you will end up with either Richtofen or Maxis controlling everything and ultimately destroying the Earth, how fun, I’m glad I spent the past few months gruelling over these tasks just to decide who kills me.

This isn’t directly tackled in the map but occurs previously to our gang reaching the Town. When Richtofen teleports Maxis and Samantha from Der Riese, Maxis actually ends up in the Buried Town before being brought to the Moon Base once Samantha is in the MPD. During this time in the Town, where the inhabitants were less dead, Maxis discovered and worked on devices harnessing Aether Energy. He realised the true power that came from controlling the Aether and that this was part of Richtofen’s plan. In an attempt to counter this he developed a device that, when linked with three Polarisation Devices (Pylons), would change whoever controlled the Aether. In an attempt to bring back Samantha from the dead, as he assumed she was killed during teleportation, Maxis accidentally brought back another woman, Sarah Faraday. She was the widower of Michael Faraday, the great Scientist, who at some point lived in the Mansion in Buried.