ZombiU Hardcore -- Into the Royal Bunker

The approach to this level is pretty long, and there's not much to say about most of it. Finding the way through the Safe House to the door giving you access to the actual "level" involves two zombies in a hall, one at the top of the stairs and one at the bottom, both of whom start prone and thus if approached quickly can be shoved back to the ground as they start to get up and then can be ZR smashed. Further along there'll be three or four supposedly dead zombies in water -- one or two (two if there's four) are alive -- scan for loot before bothering to kill them.

REACH THE COMM BUILDING

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When you exit the building, you'll see it looks like rain -- London, are you surprised? -- don't worry, it'll be pouring in a minute.

Travel through the first crate past the ravens flying past you  -- look up to the right after exiting and you'll see a zombie who'll jump down on you later. If you do get to kill him here, all bets are off with timing after this point. If you don't get to kill him here, and it's hard to do, continue through the crates rather than going left across the boxes. Turn left at the end and exit the crate structure, pass the boxes on the left and crouch in to the passage on the right past the boxes. Crawl under and you'll emerge just in time for a zombie to drop down in front of you facing the other way -- shove him over twice and ZR smash him.

Return the way you came, killing any zombie that's in the crawlspace first and shaking off any zombies that yank you out. Move towards the door -- there should be a zombie in front of the door to the COMM building, although occasionally he may bash his way into the building. Whack him once but keep your eye out for other zombies -- one will jump off of the building, just above the door, within three whacks usually. When you see a second zombie -- it may be him or another -- run for the last set of boxes you passed earlier, near the crawlspace, and climb to the top of the second box for safety. Climb onto the top of the crate from there and you can cruise around the top of that and two other crates around and you are 100 percent safe up here. With two or more zombies below, fire off a flare near the crawlspace so it attracts any zombies near the door to the COMM building and then fire off a cocktail to burn them.

TIP: It is not far enough of a drop to hurt you, so you can jump off anywhere.

When all five zombies in the area are dead, proceed to the remove the barricade from the door. However, beware: removing the barricade wakes up a zombie above you and to the left, who jumps down behind you and to your left (as your facing the door) just as you finish removing the barricade -- you have about three seconds before he hits you after removing the barricade.

NOTE: If you want, you can place a mine to waste him, but only do so carefully placing the mine far enough from the door not to hurt you, too -- it's a good idea to go IN to the COMM building after opening the door just to be sure you don't get blown up, in this case. A better use for a mine, though, is to make things more interesting in the gunfight later.

SAFE ZONES 2 AND 3: The preceding crate tops are Safe Zone 2. Safe Zone 3 is directly opposite the door to the COMM building -- you'll see a tank, to the right of it in that corner are a bunch of boxes that the zombies cannot find their way through. You may have to do some careful shoving to get out of that corner if there are zombies there aching to get you, and you have to be careful not to get hit while near the front of the tank, but nestled into that corner you're as safe as Jerry was from Tom.

BEYOND THE COMM BUILDING

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Walk out and ZR smash the zombie to the left of the ammo box. Loot him, then the box.

Approach the box across the way with a flare; when a zombie opens the door throw the flare in from an angle behind the zombie so it rests in the middle of the box (they'll go around the box if it's too far back), shove the approching zombie back into the box (he'll follow the flare after) and then toss in a cocktail to set all three zombies aflame. Go back and get the rubbish bin with two ammo in it, check the nearby corpse, just in case he has something.

Clear out the box you just flambéd, then shove the corpse off near the entrance to the crate off with ZR only, loot them, and wait for the armored zombie to approach. Either waste him with a mine -- make sure you have enough time to set it and get away from it -- or approach him, whack him three times, and then take him out with two shots from the rifle. Use your handgun instead if he's at too close range for the rifle.

A zombie is on top of the crates behind the ambulance, you can shoot him with the rifle at any time to take out his legs and make him a crawling zombie, or shove him as he jumps off to the ground and ZR smash him.

Loot the zombie near the flames and approach the palace. Take out the zombie near the box -- don't go back there, let him cross over to you. Shove him as he tries to land on your side and ZR smash him.

Approach the zombie near the fence, shove him over (he's leaning if you didn't alert him), then ZR smash him.

Ignore the ammo box for now, cruise right through the crate and shove the armored zombie over just as he drops. Smash him three times on the ground to take out his helmet and the fourth hit can be a ZR smash.

Don't loot the lockpick item yet -- go get the four ammo boxes first, then apply any weapon upgrades and save.

TIP: As mentioned earlier, you can lay mine near the tanks -- preferably near the barrels or by the very small gas container near the bottom barrel -- to make life more difficult for zombies that come from those directions. Make sure as always with mines, however, NOT to blow yourself up!

When you're ready to go, loot the lockpick item -- you'll hear a chime indicating you've started the next chapter. Go to the entrance of BUT NOT IN the crate; kill the approaching zombie without stepping in.

NOTE: The reason for the caution here is that the trigger for the upcoming scene is stepping about a third to a half of the way into this crate, so stepping past this trigger point isn't a good plan until you're ready.

When you've killed the zombie and have saved if necessary to heal yourself, check that you have equipped a flare and cocktail, as well as a gun and medpack, for the likelihood that you get knocked out of the gunfight by a stray zombie that gets through. When you're prepared, head out through the crate.

GUNFIGHT
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Having grabbed all four nearby ammo boxes, grab the gun. Pick off the first few zombies and you'll hit a brief lull -- that is the easiest time to reload up to 400.

Zombies come from the left first, from the right and center second and third, and then from all three directions.

You'll see two barrels you can blow up -- do so when zombies appear near them -- and at extreme left a red gas can you can also blow up when things get heavy on that side, which happens near the end of the battle.

Two armored zombies come in near the end -- you have to shoot off their helmets just like with any other gun before you can kill them.

CAUTION: If you get knocked off of the gun, back into the crate and throw a flare and cocktail, using your gun if necessary to get any nearby zombies away from you for the moment you need to throw the flare. Don't forget to shove again after throwing the flare.

TIP: If you're in trouble, run for the beginning of the level and shut yourself into the building with the CCTV camera for long enough to heal up and/or equip a flare or other item.

When all zombies are dead, you're done. Save, loot anything else you can -- you really don't need to save the ammo boxes -- and especially grab the two grenades if you haven't already so the game will start giving them to you in random loot drops.

Finally, approach the gate near the yellow ambulance, unlock it, grab the weapon upgrade in the crate to the right, and then go down the ladder.

NOTE: If you've got zombies on your tail as you come through the gate, close it behind you first, then bear in mind that you have to approach the actual ladder; you cannot go down the ladder from across the hole. Seconds count when the zombies are banging down the door, after all. I died horribly this way because the zombies will keep yanking you up the ladder and crowd around you after the door's open.

At the bottom of the ladder you'll see a door in front of you -- there's actually a zombie in this room with you but I've yet to be molested by it -- go through the door.

FINAL APPROACH

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Run through the corridor and either run past or kill a live zombie in the first alcove to your left as well as two live zombies in the larger room adjacent. I run past the first two and avoid the third.

NOTE: By this time in Survival Mode, I'm about now stopping to scan every live zombie for potential loot -- I run past all three of these guys.

Turn off your light and equip your bat before entering the hall -- run down it, shove the zombie at the end standing there facing away from you, then turn on your light (or risk dying horribly if you lose the zombie in the dark), shove him a second time to the ground, and ZR smash him.

Scan the CCTV cam but save this area, which contains two faux-dead zombies, a cake, and a chocolate bar, for later if you are desperately in need of food and are in the area.

Continue onto the platform bridges where the Prepper starts talking about the Queen being a lizard and you're to the bunker entrance.

NOTE: You'll find what the Prepper is saying here is that it was the government, not the Queen, that didn't want news of the prophecy to get out. At first I thought he was blaming her, but actually he's absolving her while throwing in the reptile jibe for whatever reason, most likely because she couldn't save him from being locked up.