Extended Preview of Zombie Exodus: Safe Haven, Part 3 (Patreon)

After a year and a half of development time, many of the readers of Zombie Exodus: Safe Haven have been wondering where the story will take their characters in Part 3. In this article I will provide a general overview of each of the five chapters along with some of the major plot points and choices you will make. Anything included that reveals or spoils content will be labeled in case you want to skip that portion of the discussion.

Chapter 8

Chapter 8 begins with your group on their way to Eli’s Junkyard. You ride with the man himself, Eli, and learn he is unaware of the threat of the zombie outbreak. As soon you reach the Junkyard, you meet his son, Kevin, who seems against the invitation his father has extended to the group. Your group decides on how they want to approach Kevin and Eli, but everyone agrees to stay at the Junkyard.

If your group captured Eli in the last chapter, this is an opportunity to speak with him before he’s imprisoned in one of the storage closets of the main house.

If Kelly was captured in the last chapter, the group discusses how this affects everyone and whether or not they want to rescue her from the Silverthornes.

The majority of this chapter is open-ended, allowing the MC to explore the Junkyard and the surrounding area. In fact you can choose to go on a scouting mission with Rachel. If you have a nephew or a pet, you can choose to take them along.

Why is this mission important? (SPOILERS)

This mission provides an opportunity to see the resources available to the New Army, one of the major groups operating in Colorado at the time. You can also have a training session with your nephew if he’s on this mission. He will have the opportunity to kill a zombie under the guidance of you and Rachel.

Another major mission is visiting a convenience store and gas station with Reilly (Gina, Dante, your nephew, and your pet are also optional if they are available). When you reach the convenience store, you meet Sharif, the store’s main staff member. He knows of the zombie outbreak but holds onto the idea that it will be over soon. He is loyal to the owner of the business, Shirley, who you meet later in the mission. After meeting Sharif, he invites you into the back of the store where you are introduced to his sister, Ayana, a young woman with cerebral palsy. Though she’s bedridden and requires consistent care, she is highly intelligent and contributes to decisions affecting her and her brother.

After a few minutes of conversation with them, your group observes a swarm of zombies passing by the store. The group waits inside for the zombies to pass. At one point, the owner of the store, Shirley, runs towards the front door with a small pack of infected in tow. The group must help her to defeat them.

Why is this mission important? (SPOILERS)

You meet Sharif and Ayana, two recurring characters in the story. You also learn that they have been offered a place in the Silverthorne Militia. In a later chapter, you also discover the store has been abandoned and all of the items and supplies are gone. Whether or not you worn Sharif and Ayana about the Silverthornes affects whether or not they join the group.

Aside from those two missions, you can practice hobbies, talk to your fellow survivors, and engage in some romantic interactions. You will be able to train yourself or others. Several events will also occur at different times throughout the day. Members of the Red Mamba Biker Club (Thelma’s gang) will visit the Junkyard to have their motorcycles fixed by Eli and Kevin. This is one of the earliest opportunities to broker an alliance between your two groups.

Chapter 8 also provides a considerable amount of content if your MC is the leader of the group. You will be able to assign roles to each survivor, select improvements to the Junkyard your group will work on, assign roles to members, like second in command and chef, and set up reinforcements.

Chapter 9

In the first part of this chapter, you are approached by Madison and Brody who want to throw a dance for the members of the group. Since the outbreak has cut short their school year, they want to celebrate with a prom. While it may be considered frivolous, many of the survivors agree that the group needs a morale boost. The twins ask for your help in finding a stereo system to use to play music. After talking with Kevin, he suggests searching a railroad station nearby for the stereo. This will also provide an opportunity to scavenge for other supplies. Madison and Brody join you on the mission. Kevin also comes along, and you can take Gina if she’s available. When you reach the train yard, you learn that the Graves family has taken residence there. They are a well-armed and well-coordinated group. One of their members is pregnant, and other members are parents to toddlers.

Why is this mission important? (SPOILERS)

This is the first mission in the entire story where you can choose to be completely good or evil or shades in between. You can meet the Graves family and talk to them. They will offer items if the discussion proves positive. Your group may also choose to attack the Graves family for the purpose of robbing their supplies or even slaughtering them. The Graves family, if alive, will return in chapter 12. They will either become members of the Silverthorne Militia or the River Dogs, depending on how you interact with them.

The next portion of the chapter is devoted to the prom. You will be able to dance with any of the survivors and your romantic partners. If you dance with more than one of your romantic partners, others will see it and may address this with you at a later time.

After the prom (SPOILERS)

Teenager characters will learn from Eli that he worked on one of your parents’ cars. He offers you a phone number to reach a friend of your fathers. When you call the number, you learn that your parents are still alive and looking for you. Unfortunately the call ends, leaving you with no more information.

The rest of the chapter is devoted to the Research Facility. It starts with Madison telling you of a research facility nearby with considerable resources and supplies. You decide to take a trip there with her and Reilly. When you first arrive at the Research Facility, you see several greenhouses where the staff has been experimenting as well as the main building. In one of the greenhouses, you meet Alan David, a researcher who worked at the facility prior to the outbreak. He provides some information about the facility, but he’s mostly a broken man, having been beaten and tortured by bandits in the first few days of the outbreak. The other greenhouse has several zombies blocking the entrance.

The main facility provides a considerable amount of scavenging as you search from room to room.

Why is this mission important? (SPOILERS)

You will meet two new characters, Murphy and Laurel. Murphy is a researcher at the facility who uses a form of knockout gas pumped into a room to put you and your companions to sleep. When you wake up, you’re imprisoned in a room. Murphy tells you that he’s only doing this to protect you from the outbreak. He longs to have friends and companions and has a twisted way of wanting to prove it. Laurel is in another of his prisoners who has been there for a day. She’s a nurse practitioner who wandered into the facility. At some point in the progress of the mission, you will either escape the room or be saved by your companions. You will have to decide the fate of Murphy, either kicking him out of the research facility or murdering him. It’s also possible that Reilly will kill Murphy unless your MC intervenes. Neither Murphy nor Laurel can become members of your group at this time. If Murphy survives he joins the Silverthorne Militia. Laurel will appear in Part 4 and has a chance to join your group.

After returning from the Research Facility, you meet with Rachel and Jamie to discuss the events of your trip. While talking with them you all hear shouts from the main area of the Junkyard. Someone left the gate open, and a horde of zombies has entered the main area.

Why is this event important? (SPOILERS)

Several key members of the main group will die regardless of any decisions you make. This is the first time in Part 3 where scripted deaths occur. However your choices will affect the survival of several other members of the group.

Chapter 10

Most of this chapter (written in large part by Ethan Underhill) involves visiting a regional history museum along with Rachel, Lopez, Brody, Bailey, and Tommy. Brody hears someone shouting outside the Junkyard and your group goes out to find Gilbert, an older man who has fallen and twisted his ankle. You can offer aid to him, and he suggests you follow him to the regional history museum. Once there you meet the rest of his group. They seem like a friendly bunch of people who have all joined together to survive the outbreak after being stranded at the museum. They even offer lunch, a meal of hotdogs and hamburgers.

Why is this mission important? (SPOILERS)

After lunch your group splits up, and you take a tour of the museum. One of the group, a teenager named Mel, brings you through the upper floors of the museum. You soon learn that the museum group has imprisoned several people, who they’ve been torturing over the last few days. Two of these prisoners are members of the Red Mamba Biker Club, Thelma’s gang. The museum survivors have accused them of murder and stealing. You may also see Jude, the sniper from Part 2 when you visited the strip mall. Jude is also a prisoner. At this point you can free the prisoners or leave them there.

The scene soon escalates as the Red Mamba Biker Club (RMBC) launch an attack on the museum. A huge battle ensues, and your group may choose to side with the museum survivors, the RMBC, or neither. If you free the prisoners, they will take part in the fight. At the end of the battle, one side will win. Depending on who you sided with, you will be rewarded in different ways, including an alliance to work with that group in the future.

Chapter 11

This chapter is a solo mission taking place in Safe Haven Lancelot, which you learn about earlier in the story if you are participating in the soldier mission. Members of your team have identified military depots in the area near the Junkyard. Since Rachel worries that the places may be picked clean the longer the outbreak continues, she recommends sending one number of your group to each of the depots. You are assigned to Lancelot.

After driving to the depot and evading a group of zombies on the road, you come across a small cottage set back off the road. Here you meet Fern, a very capable survivor who is living in her family’s cabin. You learn that Fern was one time a member of the Silverthornes, but she didn’t like how they were running their camp. She provides some information on the area, and you can learn from her a secret way into the depot.

Once inside the depot you find that it is completely dark inside at least in most of the rooms. Four main areas can be explored.

In the security room, you can find controls for other rooms in the depot. If you are participating in the hacker mission, this is an opportunity to talk to Julianne and find out the fate of Deter and Jason from the original Zombie Exodus. If you are interested romantically in Julianne, this is an opportunity for an intimate scene with her.

In the decontamination room, you can use this chamber to decontaminate before using the research laboratory. You must wear a hazmat suit before decontaminating. Once this occurs you will be allowed in the viral chamber in the laboratory. Otherwise this room is important only if you have no source of light as a hazmat suit has a built-in light system.

In the Jefferson Laboratory, you can scavenge the area for useful items. If you are participating in the science mission, this room will provide key ingredients for researching the Zeta virus. If you wear a hazmat suit and have gone through the decontamination chamber, you will be able to go into the back of the room, a chamber for culturing virus. Here you will find vials of cultured Zeta virus to use in your own experiments. This will greatly speed up your time in developing a cure, a vaccine, or engineering the virus.

Why is this mission important? (SPOILERS)

The final area to explore is a large storage area. It is only accessible once you visit the other rooms in the depot. This is a somewhat similar experience to the military depot in the original Zombie Exodus, where you will find rows and rows of shelves containing supplies. You will also be contacted by the New Army and by Colonel John Faulkner. For those MCs participating in the military mission, you will learn more about both factions. Colonel Goodman now leads the New Army, taking it from the command of Colonel Faulkner. Both men claimed to be in charge of the true army. Even if you are not participating in the military mission, you will talk to both colonels and decide whether you will help one or the other or neither. Depending on your choices, several outcomes may occur.

• The New Army may send a strike force to take over the depot.
• Colonel Faulkner may send a small unit to interact with the MC.
• The depot maybe destroyed.

In either case you may have the opportunity to loot many of the supplies of the military depot.

Chapter 12

This chapter has you visiting the camps of two of the major factions in the story.

In the first part, you will visit the factory where the River Dogs now live. You may choose a group of people to take with you, including Rachel, Lopez, Jamie, Sean, and Rosie. The River Dogs are a peaceful group who are low on supplies and desperately need food. They want to work with your group if given the opportunity. Their factory holds many supplies useful for building improvements or items, and the River Dogs are willing to trade these supplies for items they need.

Your group may also choose to raid the River Dogs instead of working with them. This may affect the morale of your group. If Jamie is with you he will protest harming anyone or stealing from the group.

Why is this mission important? (SPOILERS)

This is another opportunity to express the morality of your group. You also be able to meet a major faction throughout the rest of the story. The River Dogs may become a major alliance partner or may become enemies.

The last part of this chapter is a trip to the camp of the Silverthorne Militia. There are several possibilities for approaching this event.

• Broker an alliance with the Silverthornes. In this way you become a partner with them but choose to remain at the Junkyard.
• Offer to join the Silverthornes but act as independents who still live out the Junkyard. In this case, they will request some of your group members to join their main camp.
• Negotiate peace with the Silverthornes. After the fight you had with Keith and his crew on the hilltop back in Part 2, you may wish to end hostilities between the two groups.
• Scout the Silverthornes with the plan of attacking them at a later time.
• Attack the Silverthorne camp now. A battle ensues and you may make out with supplies. It will be a hard-fought battle as the camp is well defended.

This event many also involve Benton if he is a prisoner as this is a chance to negotiate handing him over. You may also choose to kill him and leave him for the Silverthornes to find as a way of intimidating them. You also may choose to infect him with the Zeta virus and hand him back to the Silverthornes in the hopes that he will infect others.

If Kelly has been taken by the Silverthornes, you may broker her release or trade Benton for her. Depending on your groups relationship with Kelly, she may not want to go back to the Junkyard.

Why is this mission important? (SPOILERS)

In most situations, the group will encounter the true leader of the Silverthorne Militia and learn of a council that’s forming to lead their group.