While Valve may be moving the franchise forward with Left 4 Dead 2, they certainly are making sure that the original game gets some love as well, announcing that the second DLC pack for the game will be released (probably) sometime in September. The new content will feature a new campaign, “Crash Course”, which bridges together the No Mercy and Death Toll campaigns. The campaign is being designed around delivering a full “versus mode experience” within thirty minutes – a nice change of pace from the current campaigns, which can take somewhere along the lines of an hour to complete, depending on the amount of rage quitting. The update also promises other small changes like item spawn balancing (whatever that means) and team wide infected recharge timers for special abilities. There will also be new voice lines for the four survivors to ensure that voice bind spamming stays fresh and varied throughout the new content.
I’m interested to see if Valve takes their new L4D2 philosophy on this new content (ie. more “gauntlet” events rather than the “hold out” type in the game now), or if this is just a bone Gabe Newell and the crew are throwing to the angered mass of nerds threatening to boycott the new game. I actually have access to a time machine and have gone forward in time to November, and oddly enough every single person in the boycott group will end up buying Left 4 Dead 2 once they see all their friends playing it. Strange how that works out, really.
Personally, I’m a big fan of the “Boycott the Boycott” group, since I will be very happy to shoot zombies on Left 4 Dead 2’s release day, thank you very much.
Update: Thanks ILikePopCans for pointing out that the PC version gets this update for free, while the 360 version is seven bucks.
Cool! Can I have your time machine? I need it for….research purposes as far as you need to know.
In all seriousness, I’m glad to hear Valve is throwing out some more content to keep the continuity straight in the story. I didn’t like how all the campaigns were independent of each other but featured the same survivors without an explanation. I hope they do this for the other campaigns.
This is really good news, new maps and content brings renewed interest in this really good game. I tend to play Zoey and I hear she’s the one who shot the pilot to bring the helicopter down.
Just want to say, the PC DLC is free, while the Xbox one cost 7$.
Thanks ILikePopcans, I forgot that part.
I’ll add it into the post!
Does Microsoft HAVE to charge for everything? Obviously, Valve wants to give this away for free, or else it would cost money on PC. This falls right into line with Epic wanting to give away Gears of War content but Microsoft making them charge for it. Wouldn’t it be nice to throw the consumer a bone every once in a while?
My personal opinion, and I love Left 4 Dead, is to skip this content on the 360 and just wait for Left 4 Dead 2. No sense paying for this when you’re paying for L4D2 right around the corner.
there is no reason at all to get L4D2. with the user content being created rapidly for the current game, most of the features in the “new” L4D will exist for the original once it is released and the mod community slaps the new skins and weapons together. and to say all the people who are playing currently will buy part 2 is foolish if you consider the history of counter strike 1.6 and source. a ton of people didn’t make that upgrade and a lot took a long time to make that switch if they finally did. People aren’t fooled by cosmetic upgrades disguised as new games. it is something that happens often. And I imagine if blizzard doesn’t get starcraft 2 absolutely perfect, many people will still be playing the original and not upgrading at all. just because something is shiny and new does not make it an upgrade. just ask american car manufacturers haha. if only it were the 70s again…
I dunno. That’s what everyone said about Call of Duty: World at War, too. But it didn’t stop those DL’s from selling brazillions of copies.
So first, just because CS players didn’t make the upgrade from a finely tuned game to a poorly tuned 95% the same game doesn’t mean all games and and sequels turn out that way. False premise alert.
Second, if you look at the absurd laundry list of things being added to the sequel, it’s hardly just a cosmetic upgrade. In fact, the aesthetics of the game haven’t really improved much at all, and the baseline changes are the added features.
Third, I’ve played most of the user generated maps, and so far, considering how bad the custom maps + AI director + spawning zombies happens to be, they aren’t nearly as fun as any of the shipped maps. People can keep cranking out maps, but as long as they’re unpolished, don’t spawn correctly, and are a length best saved for self masturbation, they won’t hold a candle to well tested, well polished new campaigns.
I’ll probably play both, although I’m really hoping for crossplay functionality, like they’re sorta promising.
Also Karl Vanderslice, where is your commentary on the fact that despite this new DLC, they’re still not releasing 4v4 matchmaking like they promised? To me this is the bigger annoyance. I think shortening levels for versus is great and all, but the larger problem with ragequitting is 4 player groups against randoms.
I’ve given up hope for a 4v4 matchmaking system.
the examples I listed are specific as I definitely didn’t generalize and say “all games and and all sequels turn out that way” as you have made it sound. The premise is very real, there are various examples, and in the case of those I listed I am 100% correct. The fact is, marketing this as a new game is foolish. Package it as what it truly is, an expansion of the original. People wanted an expansion to the original, thus the user created content fills that gap between official DLC releases like the one announced. Now to be fair and clarify, I am talking specifically about the PC game. I am one of the people who moved on to source because I was not a pro by any stretch of the imagination and enjoyed the new look and larger hit box. I am not boycotting for the sake of boycotting. There is a reason people are talking about this so much, and that is because it is pretty lame.
I agree with everyone. If you play this on the PC, than you should keep playing L4D1, cause of the user created maps and mods.
But I say buy L4D2 on the Xbox, just for the hell of it.
And it pisses me off that Microsoft makes Valve charge for a map when the sequel is 2 months away.
I guess its up to each individual to decide if the sequel is actually worth the $60. I don’t think this is a case of “if you buy the sequel for that much now it just eggs Valve on to make more full-priced games instead of supporting DLC for what’s already out there”, because they’ve said they’ll still support L4D1 and they’ll likely make sequels no matter what the consumer does or doesn’t do.
I’m not a big fan of the whole boycott thing, I think its silly, to be honest. If gamers really don’t want the sequel, tell Valve with their wallet…but you know most of the people complaining will buy L4D2 anyway, just as Karl pointed out.
Well, the reason they didn’t keep things as a continuous story is because after playing the hour, to hour and forty five minute campaign, is that it got most playtesters frustrated. How would you feel after completing one of the big finales and have a big sigh of relief and accomplishment, only to see a scene of Zoey killing the pilot and the chopper going down. It kind of just negates the whole “high” feeling you get after completing something.
Sadly, I’ll want to see the L4D1 DLC, as I have heard it is much more scary and intense than any of the currently shipped maps.
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