Defiance Diary Episode #6 : Cronkhite Bunker

This has taken me longer to play and longer to write. Last week, when I completed the “Into the Depths” mission, Trion Worlds had announced the new content update “The Plague”. The Plague was about an infection that’s started to spread from San Francisco all the way to the town of Defiance. Arkhunters were called to help stop this from spreading. It was only a matter of time, the town of Defiance was going to be invaded by zombies. Similar to other Defiance updates, The Plague is a crossover event, tied to the TV Show as well. As you are reading this, the new episode of Defiance "If I Ever Leave The World Alive" will be out and we will have seen the aftermath of the Plague, and not everyone would survive.

If I may refresh your memories a little bit, Defiance The Plague features several missions from stopping infected people to fighting dark matter enemies and collecting vaccines before the infectious disease hits the town. Although, in this episode, I was only able to cover the map: “Cronkhite Bunker”. Actually, I had planned to cover a lot more but thanks to the bugs of this map, I was forced to play through the same map several times.

Let’s talk about bugs first. I should say this in advance, I don't think that Defiance has too many bugs. It does have a couple here and couple there but it doesn’t kill the whole game and make it totally unplayable. At least that’s what I have experienced with the shooter. Trion Worlds has been fixing them with small patches too.  I know there are many people on Defiance forums and other community sites complaining about bugs like this, but the game is pretty stable, especially when compared to some other new MMOs.

Eren needs your help

Back to our map; Cronkhite Bunker. The mission is to clear the bunker and take Eren to the missile control room. This was going to be painful, not because the Cronkhite Bunker was too difficult, on the contrary it was quite an easy one. Only if there wasn’t this bug, I think I could have enjoyed it a lot more. Unfortunately, this bug did not let me clear the launch room from enemies as one of them seemed to get stuck in a column (perhaps some kind of a collision problem) and there was no way of shooting it from the outside. Because I couldn’t clear the room, I was stuck at that point. I had to play several times to find a way around it. It was probably a random issue that won’t happen to everyone who plays the same map. I have been asking around and it’s a common bug. Fingers crossed for you, so you don’t run into this bug. It really is annoying to repeat the part with a room full of afflicted humans.

Either wait for his shield to come down or use a grenade...

Aside from the bug, inside the bunker it’s more of a linear path with no options available. You just play “cover and shoot” with the enemy mutants and some afflicted humans (somehow got inside the bunker) who desperately need a more challenging AI. You will see often that they just stand and wait for you to shoot them in the head. If anything, those with the shield will slow you down a little. You can also use a grenade to take care of those shields if you don’t want to wait.

The only real challenge is the part where you are attacked by 30-50 plaguers (while Eren is shocked to see them down there). Lucky for us, there are some auto-turret guns giving us a hand. If it wasn't for them, it’d be impossible to takem all those plaguers on solo. You just need to stay alive until Eren activates them and boy she waits long enough to see that you can’t manage them on your own. I have no idea why she can't activate them earlier... 

clear that room for the missile launch

Once you clear that room with help from the turrets, you will be reaching the missile room. There are three phases of the missile launch and each phase will bring in new enemies. Elite Dark Matter Monitors are those with the shields but the real deal is the Bulwark. After figuring out that I could never take care of it face to face, I thought it could be a good idea to lead him back to the room with the auto-turrets. So there is your tip fort he Bulwark inside the Cronkhite Bunker. Just lead him to the room and the auto turrets will take care of him while you protect yourself on the upper platform. Don’t worry he can’t climb up there! Once the Bulwark is dead, Cronkhite Bunker is almost yours. Clear the remaining Monitors are you Eren will launch the missile and conclude the map.

launching!

As a reward from the Cronkhite Bunker, I received a Tachyon Reloader II D. Cronkhite Bunker was an entertaining map. If you are playing solo, watch out for that Bulwark and the rest is fairly easy. If you run into a bug, don’t worry, the bunker takes about 20 minutes to complete so it’s not really a huge waste of time. In the next episode I will be going into the Verdant Ridge and pay a visit to the mutant farmers there. Until next time, stay Defiant!

• Previous episodes of Defiance Diary