First-person shooters are home to some of the most iconic, beloved levels in video game history. These range from instantly-recognizable locations like ‘Hangar’ from DOOM, the densely-populated multiplayer map 2Fort from Team Fortress 2, and the fan-favorite ‘Rust’, which made a name for itself in the original Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2.

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At the other end of the spectrum, however, are the levels and maps that have made a name for themselves in FPS history for all the wrong reasons. This could be for a variety of factors. They could contain controversial plot points, frustrating difficulty spikes, excessive backtracking, ridiculous jokes, and so much more. Beyond such examples like Planet Xen from Half-Life, what else is out there?

1 Mansion (TimeSplitters)

Zombies With Itchy Trigger Fingers

• ‘Mansion’ contains many zombies, some of which teleport in abruptly.
• Zombies deal serious damage, and don’t reload when firing shotguns rapidly.
• The difficulty is infamously high on Hard mode.

The original TimeSplitters didn’t have much going on in terms of its story. Each of its missions involved rushing into a heavily-defended location, collecting a special item, and rushing back to the collection point while the titular extraterrestrial creatures begin to teleport in and attack. Taking place in the past and futuristic locations, one of the levels is a horror-themed haunted house filled with zombies and mutants. It's just the kind of place that would be filled with shock and horror.

The undead in particular deal serious melee damage, and walking across certain spots will cause them to teleport in. Worse still are the zombies armed with shotguns, as they fire them rapidly with no need to reload. While they can have their guns knocked out of their hands by being shot, shooting their heads is the only way to kill them. All of this made the 'Mansion' level almost unbearable. For countless players, the amount of cheap jump-scares and sudden ambushes made this level both frightening and frustrating. Playing it on Hard mode is a considerable feat, due to countless zombies abruptly teleporting in with shotguns in-hand.

2 No Russian (Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2)

“Remember: No Russian”

• This level from the original 2009 version of the game had players shooting their way through an airport alongside the antagonist.
• The player can join in with blasting the civilians, though the game deliberately does not say this is required.
• The game was fiercely criticized by mainstream media outlets after the its initial release.

An infamous level from the otherwise-acclaimed Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, ‘No Russian’ takes a drastic turn from fighting terrorists to strolling through an airport while undercover and mowing down civilians alongside said terrorists. What the game does not mention is that shooting innocents is entirely optional, while battling the armed police force is mandatory to progress and complete the level.

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Media outlets mostly lambasted the level, accusing Infinity Ward of creating shock value and even going so far as to compare it to real-life terrorist attacks that took place after the game’s release. Over time, the critical response to the mission has softened, and has since opened up discussion about the depiction of mature themes in video games. It was also alluded to in the trailer for the 2023 version of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III. The tone of the games used to be very straight-faced, before it introduced things like cameos from Heavy Metal artists and Nicki Minaj skins.

3 Wednesday (POSTAL 2)

Rampaging Rednecks

• POSTAL 2 has players completing seemingly-menial tasks from Monday to Friday.
• Regardless of playstyle, things tend to take a bizarre twist.
• Rednecks knockout and kidnap the Postal Dude, and he awakens in a gimp outfit.

POSTAL 2 is a wacky game. Just when the Postal Dude thinks he can go day by day completing simple tasks like going to work and getting meat for a BBQ, things often take a drastically bad turn. Of course, the option of being a pacifist or a raging lunatic is entirely up to the player, which is an important aspect of the title and its many mods, too. On 'Wednesday,' completing the bleak task of urinating on the Dude’s detested father’s grave turns sour after he’s knocked out and abducted by rednecks.

Upon waking up, he finds himself dressed up as a gimp, with the nearby rednecks ready for… something. It’s an incredibly dark scene, though it is played for laughs, as seen by the silly, stereotypical dialogue from said hillbillies. The player will be able to fight their way out of their brewery upon waking up, should they so desire. This was likely inspired by the highly infamous scene from Quentin Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction involving the chained-up gimp in the gun shop.

4 Wutville (Team Fortress 2)

A Not-So-Pleasant Xmas Gift

• Wutville is a community-made Payload map developed by Andrew “Rogue13” Risch.
• This is a festive-themed Payload map.
• It has been criticized harshly by fans for its numerous bugs and questionable design choices.

The team-based online shooterTeam Fortress 2 is kept alive these days via community-created updates. Valve Software, in turn, compensates these contributors and implements their levels in the game. ‘Wutville’ was implemented in the Smissmas 2020 update as a festive-themed Payload map, where BLU must push the bomb into RED territory - who in turn must stop them - within the time limit.

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Unfortunately, the map has since been lambasted by fans. Upon release, players suffered from performance issues, could reach out-of-bounds areas, and were confused by the overly-cluttered design of this winter village. Even after numerous patches, Snipers can still kill opponents from across the map. The developer of the map, Andrew “Rogue13” Risch, claimed that Valve gave him four days to personally find and fix all bugs before it was implemented. It has since been branded as one of the most infamous maps in the game’s history.

5 The Chasm (DOOM II: Hell On Earth)

Such Slimy Design Choices

• ‘The Chasm’ is the 24th level of DOOM II: Hell On Earth.
• It was designed by Sandy Peterson.
• Fans collectively consider the map as one of the worst in the series for its frustrating design choices.

Sandy Peterson’s maps for DOOM were notably different from those created by the other developers of id Software. Peterson liked more abstract designs for maps, and was more experimental. As such, fans remain divided to this day about his creations. One such level, ‘The Chasm’ from DOOM II: Hell On Earth, was said to have been inspired by a nightmare the developer had involving thin bridges and deep chasms.

Ironically enough, it has been described as a nightmare to play by fans. There are long falls into damage-inducing slime, mandatory tightrope walking sections to progress, copious amounts of platforming, and punishing enemy placements that sour the experience. There’s even a section at the end of the level where slipping into the toxic waste will leave the player unable to escape, and they'll eventually die. Considering its bloated size, it’s also a terrible choice for deathmatches, and it's no wonder it was never ported to the PlayStation version.

6 The Hive (Duke Nukem Forever)

Tasteless Humor And Uncomfortable Setpieces

• ‘The Hive’ is the eighth chapter (split into two parts) of Duke Nukem Forever.
• The level is set in an alien hive, where the invaders have kidnapped many women from Las Vegas.
• Duke makes a snide remark about the Holson twins being forcibly impregnated by the aliens.

Duke Nukem Forever has been criticized considerably ever since its notorious development cycle and after its eventual release date. The writing, visuals, puzzles, and jokes did not sit well with many. One level was considered to be particularly heinous, that being ‘The Hive’. Within the alien-made lair, the invaders have abducted and impregnated numerous captive women, including Duke’s latest girlfriends, the Holsom Twins. His response? Make a tasteless joke about the scene.

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Critics and Duke fans both hated this scene, as not only was it uncomfortable and tasteless, but also out-of-character. Duke Nukem co-creator Scott Miller has gone on record to say that developers don’t get the character’s personality right as “Duke is not an a**hole,” and that he doesn’t deliberately attempt to be funny. His personality is supposed to be both charming and badass. Even Randy Pitchford of Gearbox Software, who swept up the rights to the game and IP, claimed that he wasn’t comfortable with the scene but did not outright tell the developers to remove it.

7 This Causes An Error! (Rise of the Triad: Dark War)

“I’M FREE!”

• ‘This Causes An Error!’ is a warp-only level from Rise of the Triad: Dark War.
• It is a joke level; a moving pillar with a face on it would crash the game once it moved out of the map's bounds.
• A silly doodle can be seen on-screen before the game crashes.

Rise of the Triad: Dark War is an FPS with tonnes of clever ideas and brimming with personality. The 2023 port of the title by Nightdive Studios and New Blood Interactive reignited interest in the title for many retro shooter fans, and with it came all the excitement and silliness of the base game and its expansions. This also included the unusually-named ‘This Causes An Error!’

Accessible only via cheats, the level features a pillar with faces on it. As it clips through the level's walls, the pillar eventually travels out of bounds before crashing the game (in the aforementioned source port, the player is thrust back to the main menu instead). Before this happens, a doodle of a flying block floating out of the level and into the void exclaiming “I’M FREE!” will be shown on-screen. This was drawn by the developers as they found the glitch to be very funny, and went so far as to scan the doodle and implement it into the game as a quirky gag before the title would close and send players back to DOS.

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