D3
- Template
- Place
- Status
- Canon
- Kind
- Level
- Parent
- Military Base
1. Summary
D3 — Biological and Medical Research Level.
This level once housed extensive biomedical research programs, including experiments involving animals and human subjects. Decades of scientific activity have left behind abandoned surgical theaters, experimental laboratories, veterinary facilities, medical archives, and biological specimens.
2. History
Construction of Level D3 began on May 22, 1951, under joint Brazilian-American administration, and the level became operational on December 8, 1954. Designed as a large subterranean research and containment complex, D3 absorbed the chemical, biological, and medical programs previously conducted in D2. Its facilities supported pharmaceutical research, experimental treatments, toxicology, radiological studies, and biological weapons research. D3 also marked the beginning of the underground railway network. Until then, the facility had relied only on its truck network; a few months after D3's construction began, its planners recognized that the complex needed a railway and began building the first line, the A1–D2 freight railway. The network that grew from it came to connect the main complex to auxiliary installations, facilitating the transportation of personnel, equipment, biological specimens, and human remains.
Although most departments conducted conventional scientific research, certain restricted sectors became notorious for unethical human experimentation, including invasive surgery, chemical exposure, and procedures performed without anesthesia. The level contains surgical laboratories, observation chambers, animal testing facilities, furnaces for biological waste disposal, and photographic archives documenting experimental subjects. Records left by Dr. Valério, a Brazilian physician educated at Harvard, reveal his growing moral conflict after discovering these practices. His correspondence also references Dr. Hatzinger, a former Nazi officer associated with Josef Mengele who concealed his continued racial convictions after joining the American research program. Hatzinger organized and supervised the human experiments and privately admired Josef Mengele and Shirō Ishii. Valério eventually stabbed him to death in his office; the institution reported an accident, and Valério later died of poisoning. Over subsequent decades, increasingly sensitive projects were transferred to deeper levels, while D3 retained its original scientific functions until 1999.
During the 1999 catastrophe, the severity of the informational hazard forced an immediate evacuation and quarantine, preventing the systematic removal of classified documents and experimental materials. Personnel without known exposure were evacuated, while exposed individuals remained isolated. Consequently, much of D3 remains almost exactly as it was at the time of the disaster. The player encounters disturbing evidence of human and animal suffering, including rooms filled with experimental photographs and cages containing the skeletal remains of dogs. Upon entering one such room, the protagonist briefly perceives the animals alive, barking and whimpering, before the vision abruptly disappears into silence. Whether this experience is psychological or supernatural remains deliberately unresolved.
See: Characters › Dr. Hatzinger
See: Places › Transportation Network
3. Function and Contents
Three creature categories are confirmed for D3: Roach Rats, Cancer Dogs and Flesh Nests.
See: Enemies › Roach Rat
See: Enemies › Cancer Dog
See: Enemies › Flesh Nest
3.1 The Abandoned Veterinary Ward
The veterinary research ward is one of the most disturbing locations in D3.
The complex contains examination rooms, surgical facilities, veterinary offices, storage compartments, and extensive kennel areas.
Rows of metal cages extend along the corridors.
Animal identification plates remain attached to some enclosures.
The facility was abandoned during the catastrophe of 1999.
In the large kennel chamber, the cages contain the bones of dogs that died decades earlier. Some skeletons lie near the doors. Others remain collapsed in the corners of their enclosures.
The kennel hallucination takes place in this chamber.
3.2 The Surgical Theater
D3 holds an abandoned human surgical theater.
The room contains an operating table, old medical instruments, recording equipment, and archived research materials.
Its surviving recording: See: In-World Documents › The Surgical Recording
3.3 Historical References and Hatzinger's Legacy
D3 contains evidence of the scientific leadership responsible for the human experimentation programs.
Hatzinger maintained a private office containing documents, scientific notes, and personal possessions.
A concealed room or restricted section of his working area reveals his intellectual influences.
Among the objects are historical portraits of Shirō Ishii, associated with Japan's Unit 731, and Josef Mengele, associated with medical experimentation at Auschwitz.
The presence of these portraits establishes Hatzinger's admiration for real historical perpetrators; it does not imply that they personally participated in the fictional Schwarzwald project.
3.4 The Forgotten Pharmacy
Among D3's abandoned medical storage and pharmaceutical laboratories lies a restricted pharmaceutical storage facility.
The pharmacy was used to store medications and experimental medical supplies for the biomedical research programs.
It is located within an abandoned section of D3.
The area contains damaged laboratories, locked storage rooms, chemical hazards, and hostile biological organisms.
Inside lies a limited quantity of preserved medical supplies.
The area also holds additional evidence of unethical medical research carried out within the complex.
The side quest The Forgotten Pharmacy takes place here.
3.5 The Last Veterinary Ward
The veterinary research facilities and animal handling areas hold the abandoned veterinary ward's animal behavior research records.
Certain researchers developed an acoustic device intended to influence the movement of experimental animals.
See: Artifacts and Technology › Acoustic Animal Deterrent
The side quest The Last Veterinary Ward takes place here.
3.6 The Fusion Energy Facility
Beside D3 lies the experimental fusion energy complex. It was built after the level's original infrastructure, when the deepening research outgrew the conventional power supply, and is connected to the biomedical facilities by protected access tunnels and security checkpoints. Its reactor reached stable net power only through the reverse engineering of the Artifact, the non-human spacecraft recovered in 1977. By studying the spacecraft's antigravity system, the researchers learned to deform local spacetime like a miniature black hole, creating a field that bends the high-energy laser beams so that they converge on the fusion target in synchrony. The reactor powered the deeper installation until its shutdown in the 1999 evacuation.
D3 contains the access route to Schwarzwald's experimental nuclear fusion complex. Why the reactor was built is described with the reactor.
It occupies a heavily protected underground section connected to the biomedical facilities through industrial access tunnels and security checkpoints.
A train is not required to reach it.
The player can travel on foot through protected corridors.
Near the reactor's primary control panel lies a scientific research diary.
See: Artifacts and Technology › Fusion Reactor
See: Artifacts and Technology › Experimental Battery System
3.6.1 The Abandonment of 1999
The researchers' response to the 1999 order to shut down the reactor survives in a written note.
See: In-World Documents › The Reactor Shutdown Note
What the reactor's abandonment reveals about the catastrophe is described with the reactor.
3.7 Environmental Storytelling and Moral Atmosphere
The evidence D3 holds of its people, their ambitions and their crimes is part of the chapter's environmental storytelling.
See: Campaign › 6. Gates Of Hell
See: Factions › Project Schwarzwald
See: In-World Documents › Dr. Valério's Unsent Letter
See: In-World Documents › The Murder Recording
4. Architecture and Style
D3 follows the engineering principles of American underground military facilities of the early 1950s but on a substantially larger and more sophisticated scale than D2. Its architecture emphasizes reinforced concrete, durable industrial materials, oversized hermetic steel doors, pressurized compartments, isolated ventilation systems, decontamination showers, airlocks, and controlled-access laboratories. Large medical and biological research chambers are separated by reinforced corridors and security checkpoints. Radiation warnings, contamination indicators, observation windows, heavy laboratory equipment, and industrial lighting reinforce its identity as a highly controlled scientific environment.
Unlike D2, D3 was constructed with more resilient materials and specialized protective finishes, resulting in significantly better preservation despite receiving no automated robotic maintenance. Most corridors, laboratories, and containment chambers remain structurally intact, although more than two decades of abandonment have left dust, localized rust, peeling paint, occasional mold, damaged wiring, and malfunctioning equipment. Pale laboratory walls, muted institutional greens, stainless steel fixtures, and aging fluorescent lighting create a recognizable mid-century research atmosphere, while later technological additions reflect the facility's continued operation through the 1990s.
4.1 Arrival at D3 — The Darkness
Edmund's arrival in the dark level and the environmental principles of its exploration belong to the chapter's opening.
4.2 Environmental Transformation
The reactivation of the fusion reactor produces a lasting change in D3's lighting, described with the chapter.
5. Security and Access
Security is maintained through an extensive surveillance network rather than permanent robotic patrols. Cameras and selected detection systems monitor corridors and restricted areas. They run on the base's experimental battery system, an energy-storage infrastructure dedicated to security, maintenance and monitoring, which also powers the artificial intelligence and automated maintenance that have preserved the fusion reactor since its 1999 shutdown; the rest of D3, its lighting included, stays dark until the reactor is restored. Brazilian military patrols are not authorized to enter D3. If these systems detect the protagonist, for example through a camera that silently stops its normal movement and starts tracking him, the American operators are mobilized and appear near the relevant elevator access after a delay; Hamish may notice and warn him that an unknown force is approaching. Careful stealth allows the player to explore without direct military confrontation. The overall atmosphere should resemble a remarkably preserved but abandoned Cold War biological research complex, where clinical order and scientific sophistication conceal decades of institutionalized suffering.
See: Artifacts and Technology › Experimental Battery System
See: Enemies › American Operator
6. Connections
The D2–D3 elevator and the emergency maintenance passage descend from D2.
See: Places › D2
D3 ↔ A4: containment-related railway.
D3 ↔ D5: an established sealed transfer connection.
See: Places › A4 — Hazardous Materials And Disposal Complex
See: Places › D5
6.1 The Blocked Maintenance Route
Operational elevators are necessary to reach D4.
However, the elevators cannot operate without the fusion system.
A conventional maintenance route toward D4 initially appears promising.
Its corridors descend into older sections of the facility.
Eventually, however, it reaches an area destroyed by a major structural collapse.
Concrete, rock, twisted support beams, and industrial debris have completely buried the passage.
The obstruction is too extensive to clear with the resources available to Edmund.
The route is genuinely impassable.
This is not an artificial locked door.
It is the physical consequence of a disaster.
See: Places › D4
7. Concept Image
D3 — Biological and Medical Research Level concept, kept in the game repository at environments/military_base/children/d3/concept.png
8. Open Questions
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