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Till Death Do Us Rend Apart: On L4D Survival Mode

Written by Alec Meer on April 24, 2009.

It’s a little alarming that the game I most want to play during Britain’s sunniest month since 1209AD involves skulking in the dark in the company of several hundred super-pale people: curse you, Valve, for releasing Left 4 Dead’s new, Alamo-tastic Survival mode now. It’s been my staple gaming diet for the last couple of evenings – and it’s very much renewed my interest in a game I’d otherwise grown a leeeeeeetle tired of. Here’s why.
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Restart Steam: L4D Survival Mode Is Out

Written by Jim Rossignol on April 22, 2009.

Left 4 Dead will update with Survival Mode if you restart Steam, and it’s reportedly rather brutal. Dead Air and Death Toll are also now playable in Versus mode (which I think is actually more interesting than the new mode, but hey, that’s just me.) Anyone playing? How long have you managed to stay alive? I’ll try and post some more useful thoughts when I get a proper game of it.

Graph-ick Violence: L4D Survival Mode Out Soon

Written by Jim Rossignol on April 20, 2009.

The downloadable add-on “Survival Mode” for L4D is apparently out sometime this week, and Valve were kind enough to detail it on their L4D blog, last week. I was off being clever somewhere and so didn’t notice it until this morning. Anyway, it says that “given the extreme pace of Survival Mode, the number of zombies killed in a single round often outnumbers an entire campaign.” It also plots spawn-wave frequency against survival time to create the graph you see above. This, I suspect, is the science of game design. Full thing here.

What He Learned From Left 4 Dead

Written by John Walker on February 16, 2009.

This is a short, cute cartoon, gently spoofing the idiosyncrasies of Left 4 Dead. It’ll let you know who’s most likely to be turned zombie in an apocalypse, who might survive, and other useful tips. It’s by =Golden-Silver (Stefan Martello), on his Deviant Art page, and worth a glance. Thanks to Yngvild for the tip-off.

Left 4 Dead DLC 4 Free

Written by John Walker on February 11, 2009.

The matter’s settled. The DLC for Left 4 Dead will be absomolutely free on PC and 360. Valve have proclaimed the good news about the L4D Survival Pack, which we describe in words here. Quite how Valve have managed to get something out on 360 without forcing the masses to tithe to the Redmond Beasts we don’t know, but that’s not our problem anyway.

The Survival Pack will include the mysterious “Survival” multiplayer mode (I’m going to take a guess – it’s a mode where you see how long you can survive for, without safe rooms?), as well as Versus modes for Death Toll and Dead Air. And of course the PC version will come with the much-awaited SDK gubbins. Carry on.

Left 4 Dead DLC, Campaigns, New Mode, SDK

Written by Jim Rossignol on February 5, 2009.

Edit: reader research suggests this is free – see comments – but still no official response from Valve. We’ll let you know, but assume it is free!

Valve say: “The first L4D DLC – dubbed the L4D Survival Pack — is due for release this spring and introduces a new multiplayer game mode entitled, Survival, plus two complete campaigns for Versus Mode.” They also say: “In addition, for PC gamers and aspiring developers, the first Left 4 Dead release for the Source Software Development Kit (Source SDK) will allow the creation of custom Left 4 Dead campaigns that will be discoverable via L4D’s matchmaking system. The SDK update is also due for release this spring, and is free of charge to all owners of L4D on the PC.”

There’s also a new retail version of the game also due in the spring, called “Critic’s Choice”, with all that stuff to be included.

The 12 Games of Christmas: Left 4 Dead

Written by RPS on December 24, 2008.

Ah, look to the streets. Hordes shambling the streets, looking for last minute bargains. Why, it’s almost enough to make you want to write some kind of satire where the consumers become monsters of some kind. But what kind of monsters?

For the eleventh game of Christmas, my true blog gave to me…
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Dawn Of The Left 4 Dead

Written by Alec Meer on November 23, 2008.

Give a modder a first-person shooter, and he can mod for a year. Give a modder a co-operative first-person shooter about a zombie apocalypse and he can mod forever.

Yes, one of the first fruits of the Left 4 Dead modding scene has revealed itself, and it’s a doozy. Fancy slaying deadheads by the metric crapton in a Dawn of the Dead-esque shopping mall?

It’s actually a remake of a map for the old Half-Life 2 mod No More Room In Hell, but there’s hardly anything more appropriate for Valve’s top-notch zomb ‘em up. In fact, it’s the kind of setting I’d guess Valve have considered themselves, and it’s vaguely amazing there wasn’t a mall in the initial L4D release. As the architecture for this Crossroads Mall map exists already, hopefully we should have it very soon. A beta’s due by Christmas, in fact. Until then, there’s a video beneath the cut.
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Chet-Chat On Eurogamer

Written by John Walker on November 21, 2008.

You know what’s quite good? That Left 4 Dead game. I quite like it. Also, you know who’s a nice guy? That Chet Faliszek – you know, the one that isn’t Erik Wolpaw (he loves it when people say that!) off of Old Man Murray. Apparently he had something to do with Left 4 Dead. I imagine he wrote a joke for it or something. There’s probably a joke in it somewhere.

Eurogamer are having a live chitchat with him today at 5pm. You’ll be able to submit questions and everything.

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Left 4 Dead RPS Review Face-Off

Written by Kieron Gillen on November 19, 2008.

You’d have thought with RPS’ extensive Left 4 Dead coverage, we’d have written all pallid, unattractive men could stand to hammer about zombies tearing flesh. And normally you’d be right. But you forgot about the most potent power-up. Money. Lots of Money. And if there’s one thing that RPS is good at, it’s selling our God-given-lack-of talent for a few tiny coins to spend on crisps. Hence Alec and I have bent to the will of our evil corporate paymasters and reviewed it for them. Now, who reviewed it for IGN and who reviewed it for Eurogamer? Guess, before clicking…
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