Cold Stream is a terrible map. I hate it so much that I've only ever willingly played it 3 times; once to make this guide, once when I speedran the entire game with a friend in a single session, and once when I was a new player and didn't know any better. To show just how much I hate this map, I replayed it in single player and looked over every inch of it to identify as many possible problems, errors and oversights as I could. And now you get to read about them.

This guide contains 5 main chapters: the first lists the problems that apply to the campaign as a whole, and the remaining 4 cover the problems that are specific to each of Cold Streams chapters.

- The survivors are not present in the campaigns poster. Every other official campaign poster features the survivors, but not Cold Streams

- Witch spawns are disabled, and I can't find any explanation as to why

- There are no random tank spawns. Each of the 3 tank fights are scripted

- Both mudmen and riot cops, the 2 most annoying uncommon infected varieties, are present on the map

- The entire campaign is incredibly linear. There are almost no branching paths, alternative routes or side rooms

- Many of the item spawns make little to no sense. Items are strewn about seemingly at random directly on the main path, and there's no incentive to scavenge for extra supplies (not that you'd ever be able to because the campaign is so linear.)

The titular stream isn't even a real stream. The water isn't real. It doesn't slow you down, and if you shoot it there's no splash effect.


I shoot the water, but a rock impact effect appears


This waterfall causes significant frame rate issues, even on singleplayer with all other survivors and infected removed.


This staircase lacks safety rails on the most dangerous section.


The wood stove inside this building doesn't align with the chimney on the roof.


This bridge appears to have broken off from the wooden supports, yet its not physically long enough to make that distance. It's also at a fairly extreme downward angle, so it wouldn't make sense to build it that way intentionally.


This window is boarded up from the outside... despite being on the second floor.


The door to this toilet is not connected to the wall.


This scum filled pond is the only real water in the campaign, and it seems to slow you down to the same degree as the log you have to walk over. It's also unusually deep in some places.


Why?


From memory, this is the only instance in the game of a safe room symbol being used as a directional arrow. They're usually drawn with the roof of the house pointing straight up.


There's a lot wrong with this hatch:
- It doesn't need to be opened all the way, but there's nothing to indicate this
- There's no way the survivors could realistically move it, since its a solid slab of concrete with no visible rollers or mechanism to assist it
- There's nowhere for it to go, it seemingly just clips into the dirt mound behind it
- It isn't that loud, so it shouldn't summon a horde

God rays


Despite the stream itself being consistently shallow throughout the entire campaign, this one tunnel in particular is massive compared to most of the others. There's also no real reason for those giant crates to be there.


This tank fight has a lot of problems:
- It's scripted, so the boulder gimmick loses its appeal after the first playthrough
- There's no indication that you're about to trigger the tank fight (unlike the scripted tank fight in the sacrifice, which has you opening a door)
- The boulder can kill you if you happen to be standing in the wrong spot
- The tank can despawn before it gets down the hill
- You don't need to kill the tank to progress, you can just run past it


You can continue to follow the stream after the tank fight, but there's no point: there's no item spawns, and your path gets blocked by a truck.


This gap above the ladder is too small, and it pushes you to the left as you climb up it.


There is an invisible wall here preventing you from getting into the tunnel.


These two sections of the road don't line up.


Half of this staircase is missing for seemingly no reason.


Guaranteed chainsaw spawn.


There's a random ammo pile on the path, even though you would've refilled your ammo about 20 seconds ago after the tank fight.


On the left ridge of the stream there's a medical item spawn. This is maybe what I hate most about Cold Stream. Why is this here? Who put the medical supplies there? Usually when you find items in the world, there's signs that other survivors were there at some point, and they either got overrun or left the supplies behind, but this medkit is just sitting there up on a hill with no signs that a human being has ever been there. It doesn't make any sense, and 80% of the item spawns are like this.


Guaranteed laser spawn. Again, why is this here? It makes no sense.


This event trigger can kill you if you're standing too close. It also sets off an alarm, but there's nothing nearby that would reasonably have an alarm system.


This guy, realising he has access to one of the most powerful weapons in the game, decides to kill himself with it. Probably so he doesn't have to play Cold Stream anymore. Also, guaranteed M60 spawn.


I'm really not sure what the deal is with these giant crates.


This elevator is blocked from above and below by concrete. There is no way it can move, and it has no reason to exist.


This single hole in the floor is enough to stop every drop of the thousands of litres of 'water' from the stream from flooding the safe room.

Part of this staircase is missing. If you walk up it, you won't even notice, but if you jump you can very rarely clip the edge of the top section.


This ladder is perfectly vertical and isn't even touching the wall. It would fall over the moment you tried to climb it.


See this right here? This is where it would make sense to put an item spawn. Other survivors were clearly camped out here, and they might leave an item or two behind when they left, or maybe if they were killed there. But no, there's nothing here.


Another random ammo pile. There's nothing else around it. Nothing to indicate that people were holding out here. It's also about 30 seconds away from the safe room, and you likely don't even need ammo at this point.


I want to take this moment to point out how the entirety of this bridge section makes no sense. So it's seen during the campaign that the military is bombing the bridge. Ok, that explains why there's massives holes in it. But then why the ♥♥♥♥ are there traffic cones around the hole? That suggests someone has gone back after the military began bombing the bridge to set up the cones. The positioning of all the cars also suggests they were being driven as the bridge was being bombed, but why would you bomb a bridge that's being used by civilians that are presumably trying to evacuate? It's like they had 2 different ideas for what the lore related to the bridge should be, but they couldn't decide so they just did them both at once.


The back half of this truck is hanging off the bridge, but both the truck and barrier remain completely intact, meaning the truck would've had to jump over the barrier.


Another random ammo pile, just in case you ran out during the 15 second walk from the last pile to this one.


Reference pose corpse. Also, guaranteed grenade launcher spawn.


This event trigger can kill you if you get too close. You also might not realise its an event trigger, since you've walked right past several other burning vehicles already. The car it launches as it explodes can also kill you or your teammates if they're standing near the grenade launcher spawn.


There's an invisible wall blocking this shortcut.


Yet another random ammo pile, just in case you ignored the last 2.


Guaranteed M60 spawn.


Guaranteed laser spawn.


I haven't tested it, but the car that falls here could probably kill you if you were fast enough.


There's an infinite void on the other side of this fence. As for how the car managed to get there, your guess is as good as mine.

The wheelbarrow that was here in the last chapter is now gone.


Perhaps the dumbest ammo placement in the entire campaign; it is literally 5 seconds away from the safe room.


Another perfectly vertical ladder that isn't touching the wall.


This arrow points you towards the stream, as if the fact that its right in front of you and you have nowhere else to go didn't make it obvious enough.


You'll often hear comparisons between the Cold Stream finale and The Parish finale, since they both have you running through a narrow area. Cold Stream's is way worse, because:
- The rock walls give you far less room to move than the bridge
- There's no cars to give you changes in verticality, cover, or alternate routes
- Special infected will often spawn above you on the ledges where they're harder to kill and can easily get the drop on you
- The tank you fight at the end spawns right in front of you and can't be avoided (the one in the Parish can be skipped if your team moves fast enough


This waterfall also causes FPS drops; perfect for the upcoming tank fight!


A helicopter flies through the air during the tank fight, and you can watch it disappear right in front of you as it crosses into the next section of the map.


Chargers wet dream.


Just in case you ignored the ammo pile in the area where you fight the tank.


Just in case you ignored the ammo pile that was put there in case you ignored the ammo pile in the area where you fight the tank.


This is the largest explorable area off the main path for the entire campaign, and not only is there nothing to find there but you'll also be fighting off an infinite horde so you can't stop to explore. Seriously, there is no reason for this to be accessible. Even in versus mode, you can't spawn here because you're in direct line of sight of the survivors.


And just in case the last point wasn't bad enough, this tiny bit right at the end of it is blocked off by an invisible wall. Why?


It's possible that the tank spawns on the tower. If you don't realise this, it can punch you off and kill you.


They put a hole in the wall, and then blocked it off with an invisible wall.


The edge of the map is visible, unlike the wall that blocks this section off.


The ladder isn't connected to the helicopter. It's also not the sort of ladder that helicopters use. The pilot would've had to get out of his seat to 'attach' it to the side.


The ladder moves as you climb it, but you don't move with it. The last 2 points really make you wonder why they didn't just do it like in No Mercy and Dark Carnival and have the helicopter hover lower to the ground.


The edge of the map is once again visible from the air.

Whilst other official maps have their fair share of flaws, none of them have as many as Cold Stream, especially given its shorter length. I will add more flaws to this guide if I find them in the future, or if other people comment their suggestions.