Abandoned Control Room - Dunkelschwamm

  

    Part of a map series that never got finished, explore the ruins of the Sven Co-op forums and fight zombies cosplaying as server errors. I'm guessing we're in the back end of the server because the map looks pretty bleak and sciency.

SCMapDB page

Author: JPolito

Date of release: 2019

Maps in package: 1

Map review of Abandoned Control Room

(originally posted on SCMapDB)

by dunkelschwamm | October 13, 2026 | 3228 characters

    Abandoned Control Room is a brief walkthrough map that earns the "scary" tag by featuring zombie replacements in dark environments. Enemies are themed after silly forum and internet terms, and to the "scary" tag's credit they do startle quite well.

    The map begins with a helpful turret, which is a nice way to let players safely approach the enemy threat early. Once it's made clear enemies are just funky zombies, and we find a crowbar, it's just a game of bashing out way through dark corridors and searching for switches. Over time, we absorb more equipment until it starts to feel more like a standard Sven Co-op map with shotguns and revolvers and medkits. Aside from a brief moment battling enemy turrets, we never find ourselves navigating more of a threat than fast zombies in dark hallways.

    While I'm describing the map so far as dark hallways, I do want to impress that there is very lovely brushwork. There's an incredible electrical generator with wires that can be crossed like a bridge until it is powered on and doing so would cause electrical damage. There's a great room at the start with a huge, cracked screen that is very striking. Late in the map, there's a massive satellite dish that we power up and it's kind of an incredible moment. While I don't think the map is very scary, I think it does create a very coherent atmosphere despite the abstract concept it represents (the ruins of an old forum).

    The ending is pretty abrupt. Once the players power things on it is kind of a blundery scramble to find the next place to go. Eventually you'll find the super zombie with more health than the other ones and shoot it to death which immediately ends the map. I'm not sure what that was supposed to represent for the story, but it's as good an ending as anything I suppose.

    Throughout there are some puzzles which require pressing switches. I found it kinda hard to tell when a switch would or wouldn't work, and later after powering on the forum some switches that didn't work before start working but some remain nonfunctional. I think that was just kind of a small sloppy aspect of the design that caught me up a lot.

    Overall, I think this map cuts a lot of corners but still manages to impress with a cohesive atmosphere and fun visual set pieces. I think the gameplay is pretty basic, but the zombies startled me in the dark enough times that I'd still say it's fun. I recommend if you're looking for something short.

Pros:

• Fun zombie models
• Great cohesive dark atmosphere
• Good beginning with a friendly turret
• I like that the players slowly accumulate items
• Some great visual set pieces

Cons:

• Gameplay is a bit monotous at times
• The way forward doesn't exactly take long to find, but it is not clear at all
• I feel like the map may be a bit too dark
• I don't think the map is actually all that scary, owing mostly to its forum theme
• We just kinda randomly pressed switches to complete puzzles and I'm not sure if that's what we were meant to do
• Ends abruptly

Score: 6.7 / 10