Bracknell: Chimeran Tunnels

Into The Depths

Start killing off the Menials in front of you and move ahead. There are plenty of Leaper Pods in the room in front of you; you can lace the areas around them with Sapper mines before approaching them, and they’ll jump right into them when they hatch. The Intel: Bracknell: Conduits document is in a small hole in the floor on one side of this room.

Be ready for an ambush of Grey Jacks in the next room; luckily, there’s plenty of shotgun ammo before the entrance. Hybrids and a Steelhead will attack when they die, so be ready to rush forward and ice them with an air-fuel grenade.

Video Walk-through

Defeating the gauntlet at the mining platform can be tough; just remember to use all of the tools available.

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Keep moving through the tunnels until you find a circular platform with ammo and health on it. This is the mining platform, and will be the scene of a tough-ass fight. After you drop down, a series of platforms will begin rising up, bringing enemies right to your doorstep, with anything from Menials to Grey Jacks approaching. The platforms come up at set times, and won’t wait for you to kill previous waves, so it’ll be in your best interest to kill your enemies quickly.

The Menials and Grey Jacks can be easily taken out with shotgun blasts, but the Hybrids will be more wearing on your health. They’ll be close enough to deal serious damage, so either shotgun them or switch to your M5 and quickly grenade them when they appear. You can earn a Skill achievement by preventing any of your foes from being on the mining platform for more than ten seconds. There’s also an Intel: Bracknell: Surrounded document on the outer ring of the platform, near a health module.

Move from here into the cavern beyond, but be ready for a flood of Rollers. These are basically upgraded Leapers, and can be tackled in precisely the same way. If you have Sapper ammo, lay some down around the doorway leading into the cavern, then run in until you trigger the appearance of the Rollers before retreating; the mines will kill anything that comes close.

The Conduits

You’ll come to a wonderful series of tubes when you fall down the hole that the Rollers emerged from. Three Slipskulls will attack when you hit the first platform, so quickly take them down, then start jumping into the jets of air nearby to move on to the other tubes here.

When you reach solid ground and hit a checkpoint, be ready for a fight; at the top of the ramp are two Steelheads and a huge number of Menials. Try roasting the group with an air-fuel grenade before mopping up the Steelheads. There’s plenty of Sapper ammo up top, so laying some mines from the cover of the overhang is a possibility. Keep moving up the ramps you encounter until you reach an elevator, which signals the end of the level.

In A Darker Place

You’re going to start off against a huge number of Menials in this area. There are at least three boxes of Frag Grenades here, so feel free to use those if you like. When you clear out most of the Menials, a group of Hybrids will attack from three directions, so be ready to take them down! Using the alt-fire on the Hailstorm is a good way to weaken your foes while you run for cover.

Don’t miss the appearance of the L209 LAARK rocket launcher here; it’ll come in handy later in the level, even if you don’t have a large enough ammo capacity to make constant use of it. Save it for tough encounters. It’s on the floor near the cache of grenades and ammo.

Speak of the devil! Large groups of Steelheads wait for you when you reach the top of the lift here. There are three groups in all, and you should have three rounds for the LAARK, so feel free to roast them with it. You’ll eventually come to a small passageway in the outside ring of this area, which leads to a tunnel heading upward. Kill everything in the tunnel, and be sure to grab the LAARK round near the Hybrid here.

Braaaaiiinnnnnnssss....

Drop down into the circle here, kill the Grey Jacks and Menials, then grab as much ammo as you can before flipping the two switches on the wall. You should have a full load of LAARK ammo, with some likely left over, and you’ll need it: a Stalker waits for you on the other side of the door that opens. On medium difficulty, it’ll take five rockets to kill the Stalker, assuming you manage to land all of them right on its noggin. Including the round that you found up in the tunnel before this area, you should have exactly enough (with a few to spare if you didn’t fire them on the Steelheads earlier).

If you don’t have enough rockets, though, you’ll have to get creative. You can try using other explosive, such as frag grenades or the M5 grenade launcher, or you may have to attempt walking underneath the Stalker and attempting to quickly whip around and fire on its weakspot after doing so. It can be difficult to manage, though, obviously, without getting crushed by a leg. Still, if you don’t have enough ammo to finish the tank off with rockets, then you’re not going to have many other options available to you.