Hong Kong Survival

21:45, 2030. A high-frequency transmission with no traceable source lands on the dome of the Space Museum. The EMP edge of it drops the Tsim Sha Tsui waterfront grid, and in the control room the duty technician — headphones on — takes the signal amplified ten thousand times. He does not die. From that moment the city belongs to something else. Hong Kong · Survival is a first-person survival shooter built on a real 3D model of Hong Kong. Nathan Road, Temple Street, Hysan Place, Lin Fa Kung, the Hong Kong Stadium, Fu Shin Street in Tai Po. ■ THREE DISTRICTS, ONE STORY · Tsim Sha Tsui — dinner on Nathan Road, and then the lights go out. Kowloon Park has already fallen. A radio in a Temple Street lock-up, a month of dead air, a supply run to the funeral parlour, and a helicopter lifting from the Science Museum in one hour. · Causeway Bay — that helicopter never had to cross the harbour. Ho Nam begged the pilot for one pass over the island to look for his girlfriend. The old man in the back seat turned mid-flight, and it came down hard on the running track at Wan Chai Sports Ground. Hysan Place, Causeway Bay Market, Lin Fa Kung, Hong Kong Stadium — this one is a search, not an escape. · Tai Po — the helicopter comes over the hills on the fuel light and puts them down at the bus terminus under Tai Po Market station. The pilot will land once more, at first light, on the Waterfront Park lawn on the far side of town. Man Mo Temple, Fu Shin Street, the Mega Mall, the hospital on the hill — a supply run through a market town nobody has stripped yet, and three waves held on the grass under the spiral tower. Finish a district and the next one opens. More are being built. ■ TWO MODES · Story — four chapters a district, spawn to safehouse. Checkpoints, a finale, and a helicopter that only shows up once you have earned it. · Kill Rush — ten minutes on the clock and one question: how many. No route, no checkpoints, and the crowd grows as the timer runs down. ■ THREE DIFFICULTIES Easy, Normal, Expert. Infected health, speed and damage, how much you find on the street, and whether friendly fire counts — all of it moves. ■ FIVE SURVIVORS Mark Gor, Uncle Nine, Uncle Tong, Ho Nam, Ho Do Si. Each opens with something different in their hands: an SMG and the only real ammo budget, a baseball bat and a molotov, a fire axe and a medkit, a crowbar and an adrenaline shot. Each has one move that is theirs alone, and Ho Do Si is earned with an hour of play. The pick decides your first five minutes — and in Causeway Bay it is Ho Nam's girlfriend the whole squad is walking towards. ■ THEY COME TO NOISE A pipe bomb gathers a horde and deletes it. A bile jar points one at something else. A molotov denies the ground. A frag grenade is a plain blast that lures nothing — which is exactly when you want it. ■ SPECIAL INFECTED The Bucket Monster, the Scaffold Leaper, the Pavement Spitter, the Flip-Flop Demon, the Mutant Bullfrog, the Braided Girl, the Rubbish Monster, the Demolition Man — and Lo Ting, who comes up out of the water on the Causeway Bay shore and spits acid. Something is watching how well you are doing and deciding what arrives next. ■ TWO CODEXES Every infected you meet writes itself into the bestiary, with its own body and where its name comes from. Every landmark you walk past writes itself into the landmark codex — the real history of that street, that temple, that station.