Weather

Some missions have special weather conditions that change the way they have to be played.

Sandstorm

A mission affected by a sandstorm.

In missions with sandstorms, units will suffer from a speed decrease of 30%, the only exceptions being Heavyweight units who possess full immunity, except Red Hood. Although it isn't mentioned in the weather description, movement speed for all zombies is increased by 70%. Knockback against enemies is also affected as they will be pushed towards the left after being hit by knockback, effectively making knockback rather useless against enemies.

Missions hit with a sandstorm tend to have a few running zombies present in them, Girl and Runner in particular. This makes fast, spammable units like Redneck and Mechanic the best option for their completion to ensure that the fast enemies don't land a hit on the bus if they are used well. Otherwise, the Mechanic 2/2 Team Power must be relied upon to repair any damage done to the bus.

Two units in particular are uniquely affected by this weather: SpecOps and Flamethrower. When Specops is used, he cannot be dropped from the sky. Instead, he will come out of the bus just like every other human unit. While this means he will be ready to fight immediately instead of having to wait until after he arrives and lands on the ground, he cannot be dropped in the player's preferred position. When Flamethrower is used, his namesake weapon has its effective range reduced by 50%. Flamethrower's attack range is comparable to that of Willy's, and of similar note, Flamethrower can now melee attack the barricade just like him. However, Flamethrower will always try to attack it with his weapon's fire before attacking it with melee. While this means he can be used to destroy the barricade, the countless downsides Flamethrower possesses and how these missions further worsened them simply makes doing so wholly inefficient and a large waste of time when literally every other melee unit available will suffice. Dr. Norman's weapon, despite behaving similarly, does not suffer from the range penalty.

A cosmetic effect of this weather is that particle effects such as the smoke from fire or the snowflakes from Nitrogen will be blown to the left.

Heatwave

In missions affected by a heatwave, courage is produced at a severely reduced rate. Additionally, courage packs dropped from enemy kills only grant 15 points only. The courage packs dropped by the Extra Courage buff are unaffected.

Due to the drastically slower rate at which courage is naturally gathered, it is a factor that must be taken into account when deciding the units that get brought into the mission. High-costing units will prove more detrimental as they can be sent out less frequently. It is recommended to use lower cost units or give them upgrade items with cost reduction upgrades.

Rain

A mission affected by rainy weather.

In missions where it's raining, the fire debuff can't be applied on anyone, and fire pools fade away instantly after their creation, rendering their potential damage useless.

Obviously, fire-related units and rage abilities are highly discouraged from being used on missions with rainy weather. In particular, Molotov is rendered completely useless, being unable to even burn corpses off the ground unlike every other unit and rage ability that is capable of leaving behind a fire pool from exploding on death/destruction. Interestingly enough, such missions rarely have large swarms of enemies, and fire-resistant enemies like Epidemiologist and Slob also often appear there, implying that rain is barely just an indicator of such zombies' presence.

During the mission, lightning has a chance to strike at random intervals. While they occur somewhat infrequently, they can still pose a risk as they can't be easily predicted. The damage these strikes deal scale depending on the distance between the bolt and the unit. In addition, the damage done by lightning can damage and destroy rage abilities. The splash of the bolt is significantly larger than what is visually seen. Fire-resistant units should be considered should they prove too bothersome. While largely a burden, the lightning strikes do harm enemies as well and can contribute to dealing with certain enemies on the battlefield, though this is not a reliable strategy given its random nature.

As of the rain weather rework update, now the player units are prioritized to be struck by lightning strikes over enemy units.

Toxic Fog

In missions afflicted with toxic fog, units without proper protection will immediately take poison damage after exiting the bus.

While units that possess poison resistance should be considered before entering these missions, the damage poison actually does is miniscule enough to not be as much of a decisive factor. Medkit can easily undo the damage done by the fog and high health units are barely affected by the continual damage.

Trivia

• In the past, sandstorm weather used to function differently:
  • Units were not slowed down and enemies were not sped up;
  • At random intervals, a strong gust of wind (indicated by the sandstorm becoming denser) would blow, slowly pushing units back, extinguish anyone currently on fire, and cause fire pools to disappear.