The finale of The Parish is the first example we've seen of 'gauntlet' gameplay, new to the sequel. Starting at one end of a bridge, your party has to make it to the other end, where - a radio message informs you - a rescue helicopter is waiting. There's no holing up and surviving until help arrives. Your mission is literally, and in the best Arnie voice I can muster: "Get to the chopper!"

What plays out is an astonishingly relentless trek down the bridge, clambering over upturned cars and crashed trucks, while crashing waves of zombies burst towards you in a seething, ceaseless flow. There is no respite. There is nowhere to hide. There is only forwards. And if you die, you die. It's up to the remaining party members to push on regardless.

The pile-up of broken motors littering the roadway means that, while the zombies are all coming at you from a narrow, defined space up ahead, their sheer volume means you're under constant threat from those splitting off from the pack to scurry up and down the bridge structure to flank you or box you in from the rear. The closest things to a corner to cower in are open truck containers, which is where to find ammo pickups and the like. But there's very little point in hiding away here other than seizing an opportunity to heal yourself.


Not everyone was pleased with the addition of daylight missions.
One moment sticks in the mind that sums up the frenzy. My character and another had fallen off edges (there are also great holes ripped through the roadway at various point), and were clinging on for dear life, waiting to be dragged to safety by one of the others. Help duly arrived, and, unable to move, I watched with hilarity as endless swarms of zombies kept aborting any attempts to pull us up, until just enough space was cleared before the next onslaught to haul us both up.

It's bloody hard. I don't know what difficulty it was set to, but I didn't see a single group reach the chopper all afternoon. But what a rush.