1 would be cool but dont give it too many stranger things vibes, but why not have a location or a deadzone resembling the upside down that would be cool.
sounds way better imo. you could make some places with canals and hidden locations around the canals like some underground sewer systems or something. That sounds like a cool idea
I have another idea for a map which is basically a group of islands, under siege by the coalition and the islands were owned by S7, players spawn either on the main island which the coalition did not manage to control and was in S7 hands now infected, or the other islands which were under coalition control are also infected except for one island or ship, which acts as an NPC location, a similar location should also be there in the main S7 island where there are npcs, also on the other islands there are numerous deadzones all kinda small. Players most of the facilities of scorp 7 will be underground and the player will also spawn under ground. In the case of the players spawning on the other islands they will spawn on the surface as normal.
Now the main premise of the map is run and gun shooting basically you get SMGs, ARs and other military grade weapons at the very beginning, but this is pointless as the zombies are present in large numbers and attack you in swarms, so the focus shifts from killing zombies to out maneuvering them and killing the few zombies you can. In both the islands and underground the loot and other stuff should be either on board ships or in caves or other similar narrow passages , thus inhibiting player movement and making getting loot more difficult, there can of curse be areas where you can get SMGs and other low tier guns at a low zombie population area and there will be heavier weapons at locations with higher populations. Also there can be different kinds of loot at the S7 and the coalition base so players are separated on the basis of the gear they have.