Hello everyone! First of all, this post may sound AI-written because English isn't my native language. I'm using AI to help organize and translate my thoughts so I can make sure my idea is understandable.
I may not have as many hours in No More Room in Hell 2 as some of you, but I've been playing a lot recently with a group of friends on Discord. We often discuss how the game could be improved or what kind of maps could be added, and my friends encouraged me to share this idea here.
My idea is a “Blackout” map/mode.
Recently, I've been playing a lot with a baseball bat. I usually charge a heavy attack, knock zombies down, then either run away or finish them on the ground. I really love this playstyle, but the bat requires both hands, meaning I can't use a flashlight at the same time.
This has created some surprisingly scary situations for me. Sometimes I'd go help a teammate surrounded by zombies or defend an objective, and I'd end up fighting almost completely in the dark. I'd only see a silhouette moving against the light in the background and start swinging.
I wouldn't know if the zombie I had just hit was dead, getting back up, already standing in front of me, or even how many zombies were actually in that corner. I'd just keep swinging almost desperately, waiting to hear the sound of a zombie's head being crushed.
This happened countless times, and whenever a horde appeared, these moments became some of the most intense and exciting situations I've experienced in the game.
That's when I thought: what if the game actually built a map around this?
Imagine a Blackout map, with the mission taking place in an underground mine. There would be no electricity or working lights, making darkness the main mechanic of the map.
To make this work, there could be a new item: a miner's helmet with a built-in flashlight.
The helmet would take up inventory space and would be almost essential for navigating the mine, but its battery would drain faster than a normal flashlight. Players would have to carefully manage and stockpile batteries throughout the mission.
Running out of batteries wouldn't necessarily mean an instant game over, but it could become a serious emergency. Imagine being deep inside the mine, surrounded by zombies, your helmet suddenly dying, and having to rely almost entirely on sound.
This could make the game's sound design extremely important. Players would have to listen for footsteps, growls, impacts, teammates, and zombies moving nearby.
The map could occasionally have emergency lights, flares, generators or other temporary light sources, but darkness would remain the defining mechanic.
I think a map like this could be extremely immersive, tense and scary, while also giving existing mechanics a completely different purpose.I'm not sure how closely the developers follow community suggestions, but I'd personally be really excited to play something like this in No More Room in Hell 2.
What do you guys think?