Dread - Dunkelschwamm

  

    Run around a Doom Themed complex, fight enemies, and collect weapons. Find the keys to open the path forward. Don't get lost! Allegedly made in a week.

SCMapDB page

Author: Aurora

Date of release: 2014

Maps in package: 1

Map review of Dread

(originally posted on SCMapDB)

by dunkelschwamm | May 24, 2026 | 3527 characters

    Dread is a classic shooter walkthrough map from the nonstop action to the confusing corridors. Collect keycards, fight enemies crawling out of respawners, and defeat a guest star from another game.

    The first thing you'll notice is the wonderful atmosphere. The lighting and level geometry makes for a wonderful brutal set of concrete corridors and occasional skylights letting in rain. It's good that this map makes corridors beautiful, because I spend much of my time lost in them.

    The description mentions something about multiple pathways, but a big portion of that is in a convolution of corridors on the leftmost side of the map when you start. This thankfully helps when you're trying to escape from firefights with respawning foes and need to get diffused through the series of halls. But, for a fool like myself, it did occasionally turn the map into a maze where my teammate and I spent much time trying to regroup.

    The combat is at the forefront of the map as well. There's a large variety of foes to keep things interesting, but the bulk of the enemies are vortigaunts and shock troopers. Shock troopers can be a pain thanks to their poisonous grenades and shock roaches left after they die, so a portion of the map featuring a shock trooper spawner in front of a puzzle left my buddy and me tearing our hair out.

    Let me tell you something that wasn't apparent to us our first playthrough: the enemy spawners can be disabled. You just have to aim at the part above them. It even has a health display on the hud, yet still neither my partner nor I noticed until the very end of the map required it of us. This is huge- I think we were ready to be highly critical of this map until we learned our biggest complaint could have been solved if we had spent more time looking for a solution. That said, the part you have to aim at is quite blended in with the surrounding indestructible world brushes, so it is hard to realize at first.

    There's a great selection of weapons, though I was quite upset to find myself trying to hunt for them after dying and respawning in the maze. There's also a few secrets which help a decent amount if you check the walls.

    This map features a great boss battle with a kingpin(?) with a new model and set of animations. It can get annoying if you die and respawn, because it's easy for the kingpin and his baby garg cronies to get into the checkpoint respawn, but by that point it's just a mad dash to throw damage at him.

    Overall, I found the map action-packed and pretty. It was occasionally frustrating, but at least one of the reasons for that was my own fault. I highly recommend putting this in a map rotation and think the more players the better.

Pros:

• Really pretty textures and lighting and geometry and environment
• Balls-to-the-wall action
• Classic feel
• Really cool boss battle
• Good length- doesn't overstay its welcome, doesn't end too soon
• Cool secrets

Cons:

• Annoying respawners that need to telegraph better
• Probably a personal criticism but I think shock troopers were an annoying enemy for this map, owing largely to their poison grenades. Felt sometimes like random instant death
• Confusing maze-like structure
• The cool final boss can more easily be set to spawn-camp than not
• The blue key puzzle just overall felt janky and bad

Score: 8.4 / 10