Hello there, you're probably here after reaching the end of C2M2 - Dead Heat, and being directed here. Its never easy to put a project on indefinite hiatus, or walk away entirely. But at this point Wings of the Phoenix has halted production. There are a lot of factors leading into this; general burnout, interest in other projects, probably being too ambitious with this campaign to begin with as its the first time I've ever thrown my hat in this kind of modding scene, but above all is a combination of waiting for the big editor update... which never materialized, some bugs just... languishing for years before being fixed and others that still persist (map descriptions, including the devs' own challenge map have been cut off for literally years now. You used to be able to scroll them...), and the editor not being the biggest joy to work with contribute to this. Theres a lot that can be done with it even now, but basic features like... I mean, as fun as it was to invent THE DEAD LOCK as a way to implement doors was in Dead Heat, I really should not have to go that far out of my way to make something so simple. Another feature that I really felt the absent of was the ability to make the infected target something other than the command center. This particularly hurt The Roanoke Rout, as after the initial houses have been infected the infected basically ignore some of the side bunkers. I can think of several other missions where this and other absences will be a hassle I don't want to deal with.


With all that said, the pessimist in me thinks the other half of the map editor update is never going to happen and I don't see anything but that reigniting my vigor for working on WotP. But I absolutely abhor the idea of leaving everyone hanging on where the story was going. Hence, the rest of this guide is dedicated to an overview of every chapter and mission that was planned. Totalling 25 maps in total, I think its safe to say that I definitely bit off more than I could chew for my first real project, as this campaign marked my first foray in making campaigns for any game. I have mixed feelings now about tying in the campaign with the From the Ashes map, though a continuation was always planned. It certainly helped generate traffic to the ongoing campaign, but From the Ashes could have stood on its own - I think I caught lightning in a bottle with that map, and I'm really happy with how it turned out and how well received its been. But I'm itching to move onto other projects, and see what I can do with a different set of tools in some other games - or else just quietly work on personal projects.

This hiatus is indefinite, as the thing that needs to happen for me to come back is the back half of the editor update being released. I don't know when, or if that is going to happen though. So without further adieu, heres what the campaign would have / will look like (Spoilers ahead obviously)

Retrograde marks the shift of perspectives to another side of the conflict, putting the player in the boots of Captain Whitaker - a Croatoan soldier who got a field promotion following the destruction of Numantian Bridge. Its also where progress halted. Sorry. Also these specific 'chapter' entries are mostly here to bring up the sidebar nicely, and probably will be short.

Whitaker's team arrive at Hemit site, or at least the ground level portion of it. A quick reveals a place for housing, a weapons testing range, green house, several generators scattered around, a now heavily corroded power plant, and at the very back a working elevator beneath a radio tower connected to the complex below. This is sort of like a swarm mission, first you get to prepare defenses - with whatever resources you acquired in the previous map letting you build walls with stones, stakes with wood pallets, and to power and repair the automated guns with metal & batteries. There are several generators to defend, each contributing to the speed at which the elevator reaches the top - thus you'll need to hold out longer if generators start to fail.

With the generators and facility systems fully online, the horde rolls in despite the elevator not really being quite noisy. The reason for this would become clear two maps later. After successfully holding out, the elevator is taken back down into the depths of Hemit site.

The hemit complex's underbelly is a mess of infectious gas and infected. Critically, the same gas pervading the complex is the gas Dolway developed for use against Roanoke. Its presence here is initially confusing to whitaker. Whatever section of the lab Whitaker's team is entering seems to have fallen into despair and infection ages ago. Luckily with all the units' filter masks, they'll be fine - so long as they work to reactive the sector's filtration system in a timely manner. Because the gas not letting the soldiers take a breather, health regeneration is disabled for this mission - just like hero missions in the campaign. On top of dispatching the infected within the tunnels, numerous sinkholes litter the hallways and rooms' ceilings, causing more infected to occasionally 'fall in' overtime (just like some hero missions).

Whilest getting power back online and getting filtration running again, some terminals can be found that shed light on what was being attempted. The scientists were working on developing a cure, but they only had a fraction of the data. More importantly, the terminals make one thing clear; Dolway was one of the scientists working in this complex. The other scientists put a stop to Dolway's torturous work attempting to cure infected individuals, and both the gas and outbreak were his doing when he took his leave. One subject is found, Theadric, suffering in isolation - not quite healthy, but not quite infected. He knows the passcodes to get deeper into the complex - and offers them in exchange for a mercy killing.

The mission ends with the airlock leading deeper in being opened, with the bright lights blinding the group for a moment until their eyes focus on the figures beyond and... they are alive. The survivors of hemit site, living beneath the earth in this shelter for decades.

The map opens with a lengthy discussion with the very old head scientist, one of the few still around from the old days. The man explains two critical things about the infected. One, they were engineered such that a percentage of them were highly sensitive to certain types of electromagnetic radiation. Specifically, the high frequency radio waves used to coordinate both in the field and between cities. This is why some small pockets of survivors persist for years unblemished, while larger settlements are seemingly attacked out of nowhere from larger swarms. The radios used to coordinate soldiers & defenses and keep contact with other settlements are like a siren to the infected, and even those not sensitive to radio waves will follow the others. All this to disrupt enemy communications and troop movements during the war. This is also why the horde rolled in after the generators were started - when the backup systems kicked online an automated protocol attempted reestablish a link with the company's HQ over in Numantian Plaza.

The second thing, the 'special' infected were not designed or planned. The virus used an RNA base, making it prone to mutations, and in this case these only become more common the longer the virus remains in a host.... those special infected outside now were some of the oldest, weakest infected before they mutated. Meaning the entire plague is a time bomb, all the regular infected are going to change like that one day - and gods only knows what the special infected themselves might mutate into given enough years.


Defenses are erected, supplies and (a limited number of) people brought up from below to reclaim the Hemit site. The great wall separating the bunker from the rest of the site was destroyed by a giant, and the rubble prevents building toward the rest of it. For both this reason, and the need of contacting the Croatoans for evac, a powerful radio tower is constructed - both to transmit power across the wreckage to mount a stronger defense and to contact Croatoa. So Whitaker directs the survivors, some few hundred strong now, in constructing their automated defenses and getting them ready to weather the horde until help arrives. Just as it does, and everyone readies to leave something horrifying is revealed; The tower is picking up an incoming transmission from within the shimmering valley. From a place called Venture, which had the strongest communications relay ever constructed - the alliance got it back online for whatever reason and it was currently calling all the infected from over the region past the mountains straight to the valley - which will take them right through Croatoa.

We shift perspectives once again, to the Phoenix Commander's point of view. This chapter runs roughly in tandem with chapter 2, with its final mission concluding around the same time as Dunes of the Damned.

The Alliance has a plan to get a leg up on the Croatoan army. There exists a city within the shimmering valley called Venture, which once housed a communications tower constructed by powerful corparation called Numantian - one that developed weapons technologies before the war. The alliance wants to reclaim this tower, both to help coordinate all of their forces and to use its system to search for caches of recoverable prewar tech within the valley to use against the Croatoans.

For this, and to keep Venture running, they will take to take advantage of the old railroads leading there. The first step is to secure the materials needed to repair the railways. So a town is to be constructed on the coast to facilitate this, as the numerous supply barges beached there are made of the same sturdy alloys used in the construction of the trains and rails - the perfect source of salvage. Many of the container ships also double as infected vaults, waiting to be cracked open and plundered at the risk of whethering the powerful infected inside. Once Alloy has been firmly established, the commander heads west. Because the trains are going to need fuel....

In the badlands just north of Sable are the old oilfields, and these will be the lifeblood of the railways connecting settlements - both during and after the war. But first they need to be reclaimed. First, though, Sable greets an unexpected addition to the roster; Alisa Worthington. Having fled across the small lake surrounding the academy during the height of the outbreak in Old Phoenix, she had spent several months carefully hiking toward Sable. With her help, a new titan is constructed - dubbed Saber - to assist in the war efforts.

With the materials and fuel secure, efforts turn toward the middle of the valley, as one piece is still missing from the puzzle.

A large city once acted as a hub for all rail traffic in the valley, and this depot must be retaken to get the rails running again - both because some of the trains are still there, and it has the tools necessary to build and maintain new ones. After a clearing out the city, the trains are ready to run again, although the trains to Venture will stop just shy of the city until enough of it can be secured for this to be done safely.

The Phoenix Commander arrives on one side of Venture, with a captain from Sable named Sinclair arriving on the opposite side. Together, they clear Venture working their way toward the tower in the middle. This will play a little like From the Ashes, scavenging from the city to help supplement development but you have trains providing connection and supplies. Once the tower is secured, work begins getting it running again.

With the tower secured, the rest of the megacity must be reclaimed - all while keeping the tower defended and running while data is gathered. Many promising leads on prewar caches are earmarked for later retrieval, and Venture is kept online to coordinate the Alliance over large distances...

...elsewhere, Whitaker and a platoon scramble to get ahead of the approaching megahorde, hoping to blunt its advance and buy time.

We shift back to Whitaker's perspective again, and this chapter sees whats left of the survivors beyond the Shimmering Valley having to fall back within the mountains, now all thats left of humanity is pooled together in one spot - to either fall or rise together.

Whitaker and a platoon dig in at the pass leading to Croatoa, holding out as long as they can to both stall and weaken the horde. Eventually they must retreat, though the more they kill now the easier the next mission will be to survive.

Croatoa is an already established city, but certainly with room to be expanded and defended more thoroughly. The player is tasked with protecting the city from the seemingly unending onslaught but... it becomes clear there is no saving Croatoa. The objective is then simply to defend the city long enough for the people to evacuate. The survivors all flee further south, to the Northern Pass leading into the Shimmering Valley, through the town of Palegate - the only Croatoan settlement left and the current frontline for the war against the alliance.

With the apocalyptic horde threatening to doom whats left of humanity, Whitaker must fight his way across the infected lines to establish contact with the scattered Alliance forces. You've a limited time to navigate through hordes of infected to recruit as many squads as possible to jointly defend Palegate. Soon, whatever forces you've gathered hurry to Palegate to help defend it, while the others move south to inform The Alliance.

United, the Croatoan and Alliance forces (led by Whitaker) fortify palegate against the massive onslaught. Though Venture, by this point, has been turned off the damage is already done now that the horde is on its way. The defense slowly loses ground, until just before the Phoenix Commander and the titans arrive the fight reaches a turning point; Dolway has convinced a sizeable portion of the garrison to flee into the valley with him. This utterly cripples the defense effort, and even with the addition of the forces from New Phoenix its clear that Palegate will eventually go the way of Croatoa.

But if Palegate falls and the horde is simply allowed to spill into the valley it will be the end of all survivors. Whitaker transfers command over to the Phoenix Commander, and now it becomes a game of holding on long enough for the Alliance to manifest and implement a plan. Eventually, this is done; a series of radio relays and decoys have been refurbished and constructed to direct the horde to one very specific point instead of washing over the valley like wildfire - that point being the strongest bulwark humanity has left, New Phoenix.

A skeleton crew defends other settlements. The vast majority of the human population have all taken the trains toward New Phoenix. Whats left of humanity stands united behind the Phoenix Commander, as humanity's final defenses against the infected onslaught are arranged. New Phoenix has been restructured since we saw it last, and there are multiple avenues which need defending. This is a defense on the scale of that one big ass bridge mission from the regular campaign. Just a solid wall of meat descending on New Phoenix from several directions, thousands, maybe tens of thousands of the infected attempting to snuff out humanity once and for all. But with all of humanity's resources pooled together into this one last stand, ideally the player succeeds! But you could also just fail and doom humanity. I suppose you could just ignore the next chapter if that happens and you're okay with it. Sometimes humanity just... doesn't make it.

Theres a long period of reconstruction, as humanity adapts to the new information regarding how the infected operate - not only can they minimise horde risks by keeping radio communications to a minimum, powerful transmitters can be constructed to coax larger infected groups into specific locations. Though all this happens in the time between this chapter and the next.

The last chapter focuses on securing a future for humanity, not just the survivors of the Shimmering Valley. After all, those infected are only going to grow more powerful if something isn't done - and the only place to do something about that is the megacity beyond the mountains...

Our final piece of the puzzle. With the new coalition finding its footing, securing a lasting future for humanity becomes a concern. With the information gathered from the scientists making it clear the data needed to develop a cure or vaccine lies at the hurt of the megacities to the north, retrieving it would normally be impossible... yet, the data Venture yielded bore fruit. In a town called Fairview, there exists a prototype that could get a small team to Numantian Plaza, the HQ of the company that developed the virus. The prototype? Something being developed at the very late stages of the war... called an airship. A marvellous flying machine capable of flying personal and cargo for hundreds of miles.

It is here in Fairweather that this prototype is re-secured, and protected while Alisa works her magic getting it working again. The mission ends with the airship taking its maiden voyage and receiving its name: The Phoenix (And now you know why the campaign is called Wings of the Phoenix eh?), which is making its way toward Numantian Plaza. Phoenix Commander, Whitaker, Captain Sinclair, Alisa Worthington, a handful of elite soldiers, the two titans Pyrebarer & Saber, and a team of scientists from Hemit Site all on board and ready to secure a cure.

This is a purely optional mission. During flyover, The Phoenix deceives a distress signal from a bunker in the valley below. Dolway, and the soldiers he convinced to flee with him are currently fighting a losing battle against a horde. If the commander intervenes, the mission ends with a choice; the soldiers hate Dolway's guts and want him left behind, and Dolway offers the data he retrieved from the bunker in exchange for safe passage. Picking one means not having the other, so you either end up with more soldiers to make the last missions easier or upgrades to the base stats of your soldiers from Dolway's data.

One last stop before Numantian Plaza, and just outside the outskirts of the megacity. The Phoenix stops at an oilfield to refuel and restock, and you must defend the ship while it does so. This would be a shorter swarm defense style mission. Quick, not necessarily easy.

The Phoenix drops off the team at the very top of Numantian Tower, overlooking the city where there must be... billions... of those things lurking. You fight your way down the tower, eventually arriving at the facility in its basement. The scientists get to work powering the operating core... via wiring the titans' engines to it (and rendering them immobile next to the core. like stationary turrets) and retrieving all the data, and you must endure wave after wave of infected pouring in from all over the city; because you see, some of the wiring must have been faulty and shortly after the core was powered up the building began catching fire.

After a hectic mission scrambling to cover all the tunnels and approaches to the core, the data is finally secured and the scientists are confident a cure can now be found. Unfortunately, the same electrical fault that set off fires in the building short circuited Pyrebearer's systems. The original titan must be left behind, though its engine will power the building's fire suppression systems to cover the group's ascent. There just one. Last. Hurtle.

A towering skyscraper ablaze, broken seals allowing an entire megacity to pour into the building like moths to the flame, and the subjects locked in hidden rooms on the way up now uncaged. Its one last Dead Heat style mission, with humanity's best and brightest fighting their way up a burning skyscraper and holding out long enough for The Phoenix to arrive and evacuate them. All cards are officially on the table in this mission, any and every one of your soldiers (including Whitaker, Captain Sinclair, and Alisa Worthington) can canonically die, and if you lose all of them humanity is doomed.

But if successful, the Shimmering Valley is finally sealed off for good. A vaccine is developed, ensuring there will be no new infected, and a cure is developed to slowly and carefully restore the infected still within the valley. Humanity, thanks to your efforts, is finally ready to emerge from this dark age, into a brighter future.


That's the note the campaign was going to end on. A definite - end - to the end of days. Thank you, Commander.

I want to extend a thank you to everyone who has helped me in my endeavours making these maps, and everyone who has enjoyed them leading to this point. I am sorry that I never manifested a complete campaign, but that fault lies on my over ambition. I'm still blown away by how successful WotP has been, particularly From the Ashes. I knew I had a very solid idea for a map with FtA, and spent weeks refining it before the Editor hit the live branch, and months and months working on it after that. I had never imagined up to that point that anything I created could be see and enjoyed by tens of thousands of people. The part of me which feels like some kind of impostor thinks it would have been better to be a one-hit wonder, never making the attempt to make a sprawling epic... but I enjoyed the experience working on it, though it hurts to pull the plug like this. Should I ever tackle projects like this again, I'll certainly be showing more restraint in terms of scope. However it may have ended, my work on this campaign and experience seeing people playing and enjoying my maps has been very rewarding.

I hope, at least, that this guide has provided some closure for people who liked the series, even if I couldn't quite muster creating the last eighteen maps.