9 Tips For New Contagion Players

The following article comprises nine points from my Contagion survival guide. I have chosen these points in particular as I think they will be the most useful to any willing survivor!

Rule 1. Leave No Rotting Stone Unturned — Always Explore Your Surroundings.

It's easy to just plough through a mission, especially if you're on limited health and just want to get it done. However, you could be missing much-needed supplies. Similar to the Left 4 Dead games, all items have random placements with each playthrough so you never know what useful goodies could be waiting around the corner. Due to its light survival elements, supplies are far harder to acquire than they are to use — especially healing items. Take the time to explore everywhere and you'll always have enough supplies to get the mission done.

Rule 2. Drop Any Dead Weight — Turn Off Bots.

If you do find yourself playing alone, just turn off your NPC allies. They are dreadful, and will most likely just get stuck in the starting area, completely unable to progress due to broken pathfinding. Their voice lines and incessant need to shoot at nothing will also quickly begin to drive you insane. You also cannot complete a mission if they get stuck somewhere and the game will never automatically warp them to you.

Rule 3. Believe In Occam’s Razor — Don't Underestimate Simplicity Of The Starting Sig Pistol.

If you can, carry the starting Sig pistol until the end. It is simply brilliant, being fast and easy to use with a very large available ammo reserve. While its damage output is quite poor, it's more than capable of thinning out mobs of basic zombies. Not much else to say, other than it's a far better choice than the 1911 pistol.

 

Rule 4. Failing To Prepare Is Preparing To Fail — When You Buddy Up, Designate Team Roles.

When playing as a group, decide who's going to fill which role. There aren't any classes available, but different members can be responsible for carrying certain items or fulfilling different team needs. It's always worth having a medic, a damage dealer, or someone who can carry mission-necessary items. You can further specialise or broaden these roles how you see fit, depending on how well your team jells and its needs to ensure efficiency and survival.

Rule 5. You’ve Got Two Hands Don’t You? — Fill Your Inventory.

Empty slots are pointless so get snaffling — when you start a mission, you'll only have a pistol and a bunch of empty inventory slots. In these early stages you never know what may come in handy, so take everything. This will become less important in later sections when key mission items begin to take up your slots instead, but even then, if you've got an empty slot, fill it with a weapon or healing item.

Rule 6. Get The Big Iron On Your Hip — Always Keep The Deagle Handy.

You may think this one is obvious — it's a Desert Eagle after all! However, in Contagion, it fills more of a niche role than you may have expected. Although most would associate the Deagle with raw power (a hand cannon if you will) the zombies in Contagion will still easily withstand body shots from it, brushing off shots like you were attacking them with nothing more than a BB gun. You still need to connect with a headshot. Unfortunately, this makes it mostly useless — being both too slow and clumsy to be feasible in the majority of situations — but if one of the team can keep it handy it'll definitely pull you out of some tricky spots. Where the Deagle shines is with how easily it can take down armoured zombies in particular; these walking bullet sponges will quickly become the bane of your life. One shot, though, is enough to not only destroy their protective riot helmets but to also deliver the necessary one-hit-kill headshot.

 

Rule 7. Variety Is The Spice Of Death — Everyone Should Utilise Different Guns.

It's all well and good trying to look cool while the world is ending, but it's not very practical now, is it? Ideally, you and your co-op partners need to decide who is going to use what, in order to be the most efficient and effective; this may mean using a weapon you're not fond of. Ammo pools are already quite small, so everyone insisting on using the same weapons means ammunition won't go very far. As a team, use the widest range of weapons possible so that available ammunition stretches further.

Rule 8. Bullet Farming Is The Best Kind Of Farming! — Carry All The Ammo.

If you do find your companions maxing out an ammunition pool, just pick up any ammunition they're unable to carry; this allows each member of the team to be a pack mule for the rest. If everyone joins in and does this, you shouldn't really run out of ammo. As ammo occupies its own separate inventory, possessing more ammo than you need will not cause you any issues; you can then simply drop it for your team, as and when they need it.

Rule 9. …This Is A Knife — Always Remember The Kabar Combat Knife Is God-Tier.

You don't necessarily need to keep this knife with you, but if you find one and can spare the space, it's well worth grabbing. It's very quick and its damage is almost unmatched — it is able to kill non-armoured zombies with a single stab. It is, quite frankly, rather overpowered. Being a melee weapon it obviously doesn't consume any ammunition; you can prod zombies from shin to sternum all day long. Arguably, this is the only useful melee weapon available. Its speed allows you to exploit its inherent high damage to just bully enemies.

There we have it, nine tips for survivors. Remember what you've learned here, and good luck on your post-apocalyptic supply runs.