Left 4 Dead 2
Encyclopedia
Left 4 Dead 2 is a cooperative
first-person shooter
video game. It is the sequel to Valve Corporation
's award-winning Left 4 Dead
. The game launched on November 17, 2009, for Microsoft Windows
and Xbox 360
in the United States and November 20 in Europe; in 2010, Left 4 Dead 2 was made available to the Steam client for Mac OS X
. It builds upon the cooperatively-focused gameplay of the original and uses Valve's proprietary Source engine, the same game engine used in Left 4 Dead. The game made its world premiere at E3 2009 with a trailer during the Microsoft
press event.
Like the original
, Left 4 Dead 2 is set during the aftermath of an apocalyptic
pandemic
, and focuses on four survivors fighting against hordes of the infected, who develop severe psychosis and exhibit zombie
-like tendencies. The survivors must fight their way through levels, interspersed with safe house
s that act as checkpoints, with the goal of reaching a rescue vehicle at the campaign's finale. The gameplay is procedurally altered by an artificial intelligence
engine dubbed the "Director" that monitors the players' performance and adjusts the scenario
to provide a dynamic challenge. Several new features have been introduced: new types of infected, melee weapon
s, and a story-arc that connects the game's five campaigns together.
When it was , it received a combination of positive and negative critical and community reactions. It also attracted an unusually high volume of pre-release controversy about the game's graphic content. In response, alterations were made to the cover art and both Australia (due to having no R18+ rating) and Germany refused to rate the unmodified edition. After release however, the game was met with critical acclaim and positive reviews.
that rapidly transforms humans into zombie-like creatures and mutated forms that demonstrate extreme aggression towards non-infected (much like the infected in 28 Days Later
). Few humans are immune to the disease, still carrying the infection but showing no symptoms. The Civil Emergency and Defense Agency (CEDA) and the U.S. military
create safe zones to attempt to evacuate as many American survivors as possible. Left 4 Dead 2 introduces four new survivors—Nick, Ellis, Coach, and Rochelle, who are immune to the disease and have individual back stories that are provided through character dialogue. Like the first game, the five campaigns in Left 4 Dead 2 are set across a story arc, set in the Southern United States
, which starts in Savannah, Georgia
, and ends in New Orleans, Louisiana. The four survivors have to fight their way through the hordes of infected, using safehouses along the way to rest and recuperate in order to reach extraction points.
), the survivors discover that the mall is overrun and all of the CEDA agents have either been killed or have become infected themselves. The four then use a stock car
to bust out of the mall and travel towards New Orleans ("Dead Center"). On their way there, they encounter the original survivors featured in Left 4 Dead at the portside town of Rayford ("The Passing"), who allow them to cross the bridge by first filling up its generator with gasoline. Later, they find the highway completely blocked by wrecked vehicles and are forced to travel through a still-operating but abandoned amusement park, and start a huge fireworks-and-lights show used by the rock band, The Midnight Riders
, in order to attract the attention of a helicopter pilot ("Dark Carnival").
After being rescued, they realize their pilot has been infected. Nick is forced to kill him, which causes the helicopter to crash into a bayou
("Swamp Fever"). They find brief shelter in a plantation mansion and make radio contact with a Cajun
boat captain named Virgil who can get them to rescue, but he needs additional diesel fuel to make it to New Orleans. Amid a torrential downpour, the survivors go ashore, make their way through an abandoned sugar mill to a gas station to get fuel supplies, and return to the boat ("Hard Rain"). Virgil takes them to New Orleans where the military appears to be evacuating civilians. The group head to the extraction point, but discover that the military is actually bombing bridges to cover their retreat. The survivors then make their way across a lift bridge amidst a mass of infected and board the last military helicopter leaving the city before the bridge is destroyed by an air strike. Judging from their dialogue, the military pilots suspect that the survivors are "carriers
" ("The Parish"). Although the survivors' fate after evacuation is left unexplained after the bridge finale, Chet Faliszek, the game's writer, said that the military is taking survivors to cruise ship
s in an attempt to escape the worldwide infection.
The Sacrifice campaign takes place before the main events of Left 4 Dead 2, sometime before the events of The Passing. The survivors from the first Left 4 Dead
arrive at the portside town of Rayford in order to search for a boat that could take them to the Florida Keys
. After finding an adequate vessel, the survivors manually have to start up generators in order to lift a bridge for their boat to pass through. One survivor (canonically Bill) sacrifices himself in order to kick-start a generator once the lift jams, so that the others may reach safety. This is the end of Bill's story in the Left 4 Dead plot.
with a heavy emphasis on cooperative gameplay
. The game presents five new campaigns, each composed of three to five smaller maps. In the first two to four maps of any campaign, the survivors attempt to reach a safehouse, while the final stage requires the survivors to call for rescue and either survive a prolonged onslaught until rescue arrives, pass through an especially challenging gauntlet of infected to reach a rescue vehicle, or collect and deploy fuel cans to facilitate an escape.
Each survivor can carry one main weapon, and either a melee weapon or pistols as a secondary weapon. Though melee weapons cause extra damage to the infected when struck, the survivors can use any other weapon or item for weaker melee attacks and to temporarily push the infected back. Players also carry a flashlight which has infinite battery and makes it possible to see in the dark, but also causes infected to notice the survivors much faster. They may also carry a single first aid kit, special ammo pack, or a defibrillator
; in addition to either pain pills or adrenaline shot. They may also carry a single throwable weapon—Molotov cocktail
s to set an area on fire, pipe bomb
s to attract any nearby infected to the flashing light and sound it makes until it explodes, and Boomer bile
, which can be thrown at infected to cause them to turn on each other.
Because many of the special infected can quickly finish off a survivor if they are not rescued, the game encourages players to stay and work together to traverse the level safely. To enable situational awareness of other players, players are shown the health and status of their fellow survivors. If a player does not have direct sight of another survivor, they will be shown the survivor's highlighted silhouette. As they take more damage from the infected, players move slower. If a survivor's health drops to zero, they become incapacitated and can only fight off the infected using pistols—even if they are carrying a melee weapon—until rescued by another survivor. If a character dies, they remain dead until the next level, unless revived by a defibrillator, or, in Campaign or Single-player mode, reappear in a "rescue closet" to be freed by the other survivors. Should all the survivors be killed or incapacitated, or if all the human-controlled survivors die, the game is over, and players must restart that chapter.
Left 4 Dead 2 retains the three game modes of the original game—Campaign, Versus, and Survival—and adds a new game mode called Scavenge. In Campaign mode up to four human players fight against the computer-controlled infected to make their way between safe houses; any survivor not controlled by a human player is controlled by the computer. In Versus mode up to four other human players take control of the various Special Infected who try to prevent the Survivors from reaching the next safe house. Special Infected are randomly assigned and one player typically controls a "non-pinning" infected which cannot "trap" a survivor (such as a Boomer or Spitter). Occasionally, as determined by the "AI Director", players will become the Tank, who has a massive amount of health and strength. The two teams swap sides once per chapter and are scored based on their play through as Survivors. Points are given during chapter progress, the more distance, the more points. If both teams make it to the saferoom with all four survivors, a 25 point tie-breaker is awarded to the team that dealt the most combined damage as special infected. Versus mode typically requires at least 1 human player on each team. Survival mode
is a timed challenge where the survivors are trapped in a section of the campaign maps, and try to survive as long as possible against an unending onslaught of infected. In the new four-on-four Scavenge mode, the survivor players are required to collect and use as many of the sixteen gas canisters scattered about a level to maintain the fuel of power generators, while the infected players attempt to stop them.
The game also features a realism mode, which can be enabled at any difficulty for either campaign or versus modes. This mode removes some of the video-game aspects from the gameplay: survivors are not able to see the silhouettes of their teammates; if they die, they can only be revived with a defibrillator kit and will not respawn later in the level. Damage dealt to Infected is also changed, with headshots dealing more damage to enemies, whereas limb or body shots require more shots, making gameplay even more of a challenge. Additionally, the Witch will now kill any survivor it would have merely incapacitated. Items such as defibrillators, throwable items and weapons will only glow when the player is within a few feet, forcing the players to investigate more thoroughly. Designed to force players to work closely together and rely on voice communication, the realism mode was created to give players a way "to be challenged as a team" without having to increase the difficulty level of the game.
Left 4 Dead 2 features a new cast of human survivors, which include Coach (voiced by Chad Coleman
), a portly high-school football coach with a bad knee (although it does not show in the game); Nick (voiced by Hugh Dillon
), an unemotional, sarcastic, and rude gambler and con artist; Rochelle (voiced by Rochelle Aytes
), a low-level production assistant reporting on the evacuation for a local television station; and Ellis (voiced by Eric Ladin
), a laid-back (and rather talkative), and friendly mechanic. While the game is intended as a continuation of the original, occurring one week after the first game begins, Valve decided to create a new group of survivors because of the change in location. In addition to the four playable characters, Left 4 Dead 2 also features a supporting character in the form of Virgil (voiced by Randall Newsome), a Cajun
boat captain, who appears (voice only) in the game's final two campaigns. This differs from the original game, where NPCs
made little more than a single appearance.
The infected in Left 4 Dead 2 are largely unchanged from Left 4 Dead. While also referred to as zombies, the infected are humans that have contracted a mutated strain of a virus, though neither the source nor nature of this infectious agent are made clear. The most numerous infected encountered by the survivors are the "common infected." Though individually weak, they can swarm and overwhelm the survivors. Damage to the infected In Left 4 Dead 2 is portrayed more realistically, with bullets ripping off bits of flesh and, in some cases, limbs. A new addition to Left 4 Dead 2 is the "uncommon infected" unique to each campaign. By virtue of equipment worn before infection or mutation they possess an ability that separates them from the common infected. In the Parish campaign, for example, the player encounters infected security personnel wearing riot gear, making them almost impervious to gunfire from the front, while Dead Center features infected civil emergency agents with hazmat suit
s which are immune to fire.
As in the first game, there are "special" or "boss" infected in addition to the common infected whose mutations grant them special attacks that make them much more dangerous. The presence of such infected nearby is hinted at by sound effects or musical cues unique to each type. The five special infected from the first game return in Left 4 Dead 2, some with modified behavior and skin models. They are:
The Boomer, a bloated infected whose vomit and bile (which may be released at will and upon death) blinds the player briefly and attracts a horde of common infected ;
The Hunter, an agile infected that can pounce on survivors from great distances and screams at the sight of a survivor;
The Smoker, an infected that can ensnare survivors with its long tongue from a distance and, upon death, releases a cloud of smoke that obscures vision;
The Tank, a gigantic, muscular infected that can punch survivors and toss concrete slabs.;
The Witch, a trapper infected who, when provoked by loud sounds, light, or proximity of survivors, will attack her provoker—she is able to incapacitate or kill in one hit. In Left 4 Dead 2, the Witch now has the ability to wander aimlessly in daylight.
Several new Special Infected are introduced in Left 4 Dead 2, all of which are playable in versus and the new Scavenge game mode. The Charger, an infected with an enormously mutated right arm, can charge into the survivors and seize and separate one survivor from the others whilst pummeling them into the ground, rendering the player helpless until one of their teammates helps them. The Spitter can project balls of stomach acid that splatter across an area, quickly eroding the survivors' health as long as they remain within it; the longer a player loiters, the faster their health drops. The Jockey can jump onto the back of a survivor and steer them into other infected or environmental hazards, whilst clawing at the player's head.
In introducing the new Infected, the development team had to consider how the new abilities would mesh with the existing Infected and any changes they had made to them. One discarded idea for a new Infected included the "Leaker"; the creature, when having taken damage, would shoot out spouts of goo at the survivors, and then would be able to self-detonate like the Boomer. However, this sacrificial act would have given survivors time to escape, and the idea was dropped, though features of the Leaker were built into the Spitter.
Chet Faliszek stated that Left 4 Dead 2s story would explore more of the world of the game, and that Valve had created a full story for the cause and effects of the infection pandemic, including terms that they have used for the AI Director. Each campaign was purposely designed with a different feel; however, all five campaigns were mapped out at the same time by the entire team to provide the narrative flow and ensure the uniqueness of each campaign. The team used a Left 4 Dead dictionary developed to describe level design and flow within the game to provide a common language for developing the levels.
Left 4 Dead 2 contains about 7,800 unique lines of dialog, a 40% increase over Left 4 Dead. The writers designed the characters and selected appropriate voice actors who had natural accents for their lines and allowed the actors freedom to help authenticate the roles. They would attend recording sessions for the voice actors and allow them to ad-lib their lines for their characters, often getting new ideas for character dialog to be recorded later, particularly in the case of Ellis (voiced by Eric Ladin) and Nick (Hugh Dillion). Randall Newsome, the voice of the boat captain Virgil, was a local actor from Louisiana who naturally spoke Cajun
and helped to embellish the role better than the writers could. Faliszek wanted to include a "no-nonsense" woman from a Department of Motor Vehicles
, but this character did not make the cut. The developers solicited several bands to include them in the game: Depeche Mode
responded eagerly, and allowed Valve to use its music and other imagery in the game, such as on Rochelle's T-shirt.
In development, the programmers wanted to find a way to provide more variation and visual effects for the players, although they were already strained by memory limitations on the Xbox 360 for Left 4 Dead. One key development factor was recognizing a way to create greater variation in the appearance of the common infected through a number of modeling and rendering tasks. Simple changes of the underlying geometry of the model, either the head or the body, with the resulting affects on the texture mapping was one means to create apparent variation. Another means was created by using different head textures along with various blood and dirt maps, and similarly different wounds applied to the body texture. A final means to alter the tone of both the skin and the clothing worn by the infected. As a result, a single infected model could have up to 24,000 variations within the game. This allowed Valve to effectively only keep two to six common infected core models in memory for each level, leaving only the unique infected for each campaign and the special infected as their own unique models. As a result, the memory use for the infected dropped by 50%. Valve's programmers also sought how to better represent damage the players did to the infected by showing inflicted wounds in the appropriate location and in a manner based on the weapon used, allowing for the inclusion of more resilient infected creatures in advanced game modes. They had simulated this in Left 4 Dead by having five possible character models that would result from a fatal attack but felt this could be advanced further. Already limited by memory concerns on the Xbox 360 that prevented further variations on the core infected models, the team devised a system of using textures with transparencies combined with ellipsoid culling from any infected character model to simulate the wounds, with several graphical process simplifications to avoid taxing the rendering system. This allowed the team to simulate up to two such wounds on each infected using only 13% of the memory resources of the based system in Left 4 Dead.
Another visual aspect that the Valve team explored was the rendering of water, particularly in the "Swamp Fever" campaign, which takes place mostly in a large swamp area. Valve found early play-testers would become confused with the large, tree-covered map, but by adding hints of water movement in the direction they were to go, there was a significant reduction in players becoming lost on the map. The water maps were created by using the 3D animation tool Houdini
against its landscape maps to create realistic water flow patterns as surface maps. These surface maps were then applied in a "flowing" manner instead of the scrolling manner used in previous games. These water effects were further expanded upon for Valve's next game, Portal 2
.
Doug Lombardi, vice-president of marketing for Valve, noted that the SDK
released for Left 4 Dead would also be compatible with Left 4 Dead 2.
. The demo became available for all PC and Xbox Live Gold users on November 4, 2009 with Xbox Live Silver users gaining access on November 11, 2009. The demo features the first two maps in "The Parish" campaign.
On October 5, 2009, Valve announced that Left 4 Dead 2 would be promoted by a $25 million advertising campaign, exceeding the $10 million that supported Left 4 Dead. The campaign includes television advertisements during sporting events, on billboards and magazines; and more aggressive advertising for Europe.
In March 2010, Valve announced that it would be bringing the Steam content platform to Mac OS X
computers; along with it, Steam will be providing native versions of existing Valve games including Left 4 Dead 2 and its predecessor
. The games will support cross-platform play, allowing Mac players to play alongside PC players on the same servers, and will also be part of its Steam Play cross-compatible and Steam Cloud titles, allowing a player who has purchased the game on one platform to download and play it on the other platform for free. The Mac OS X client was released on October 5, 2010.
Shortly after the release, Valve launched a mock Web site for the Midnight Riders
, a fictional rock band referenced and heard in the Dark Carnival campaign. This led to speculation that The Midnight Riders could become playable characters in an update, as there are four members in the band, and guitars are featured as weapons in the game. Valve has yet to address these rumors.
installment for Left 4 Dead 2, "The Passing". Though initially planned to be released sometime in March 2010, "The Passing" was released on April 22, 2010. The content costs 560 Microsoft Points
for the Xbox 360
and is free for PC and Mac users. The campaign, taking place between the "Dead Center" and "Dark Carnival" campaigns, features the cast of Left 4 Dead 2 meeting with three of the survivors from the original Left 4 Dead. The new group learns that the fourth original survivor, Bill, sacrificed himself to allow his comrades to continue on safely. The title "The Passing" can be interpreted in several ways; to Bill's passing, the brief passing encounter between the two groups, and of the first group of survivors "passing the torch" to the next. "The Passing" contains references to other zombie-themed works, including the games Dead Rising
and Plants vs. Zombies
, and the movies 28 Days Later
, Shaun of the Dead
, Dawn of the Dead and its remake
. The add-on also features two new weapons, an M60 machine gun
which becomes unusable once depleted of ammo, and a golf club for melee.
A prequel to "The Passing", titled "The Sacrifice", was released on October 5, 2010, as an add-on for both Left 4 Dead and Left 4 Dead 2. This prequel ties up the story of the original game, showing the events leading to the meeting of the two groups of survivors in "The Passing" from the point of the Left 4 Dead characters. However, players will be able to choose which character will sacrifice themselves for the others to safely continue on and not just the canonical choice of Bill. Valve also provided the full "No Mercy" campaign from Left 4 Dead as a Left 4 Dead 2 campaign, which is playable with the original Survivors from Left 4 Dead. Though the maps are nearly identical to their appearance in Left 4 Dead, No Mercy in Left 4 Dead 2 contains all of the enhancements of the sequel, including the new Special Infected, Uncommon Infected, melee weapons, additional guns, and the ability to use the new game modes, including Mutations and Scavenge mode.
An additional downloadable content package, called "Cold Stream", will be released in the near future. Valve have detailed that it will include a community-created non-canonical campaign called Cold Stream, created by Matthew Lourdelet, and the remaining Left 4 Dead campaigns including Crash Course, in the same manner as No Mercy above. The content is in public beta, available to players for testing and data collection on any issues, with a complete release available at a later date for all Left 4 Dead 2 platforms.
for the game. With the kit, players have found ways to include the original Left 4 Dead campaigns into Left 4 Dead 2. Players have also found ways to increase the number of survivors up to 16, duplicating the graphics for the existing survivor characters as needed. In August 2010, Valve announced that it will promote selected community generated maps, one every two weeks, both by blog posts on their official site, and by offering the map on a number of their dedicated servers.
Popular Left 4 Dead 2 custom campaigns include Suicide Blitz 2, Tour of Terror, and I Hate Mountains.
of UK-based gaming website Rock, Paper, Shotgun
has theorized that this is due to higher expectations for Valve, given the perception of its status as an industry leader.
In response to these complaints, Valve marketer Doug Lombardi stated that the announcement of Left 4 Dead 2 at E3 should not be taken to indicate that Valve would no longer support the first game. He asked the community to "trust [them] a little bit," and told them that while their team was eager to get new material to players of Left 4 Dead, they determined that a sequel would be the best option for several reasons: the demand for new campaigns, enemies and weapons could not be met as a simple DLC; both Faliszek and project lead Tom Leonard found that too much of the content relied on each other, making it very difficult to release incremental patches in the same style as Team Fortress 2
; the development team liked the idea of rolling up the content into a sequel to be released a year after Left 4 Deads release. Faliszek stated that Newell was skeptical of the idea when the team brought the sequel forward, but still allowed the project to go through.
In September 2009, Valve flew two of the boycott group leaders to Valve, in order to playtest Left 4 Dead 2; the boycotters felt that the sequel was well done. This event, through a series of correspondences made in jest, shortly led to Valve's Gabe Newell
and designer Erik Johnson flying to Australia to visit "Joe W-A", a Left 4 Dead modder
. Newell jokingly reported that Valve was "boycotting" Joe's new mod for the game when Joe asked when he would be flown to Valve in the same manner as the Left 4 Dead 2 boycotters, but whimsically offered that if Joe was to pay to fly him to the country, he would take a look at it. Joe was able to raise the required funds, $
3000, through donations through his website, though ultimately Newell paid for the trip himself, with Joe's collected donations going to the Child's Play
charity.
On October 14, 2009, the boycott groups' leaders announced that they had ended their boycott and were shutting down the 40,000-plus group because Valve was retaining their promise of additional content and fixes for Left 4 Dead, such as the recent release of the "Crash Course" campaign. The leaders also believed that the group itself, losing its purpose, was now being used just to bad-mouth Valve and other players. In a video interview posted on October 29, 2009, Gabe Newell said, "for people who joined the Boycott Group on Steam ... they're actually pre-ordering the product at a higher rate than Left 4 Dead 1 owners who weren't in the boycott".
Valve was forced to alter its original cover art for the game by the ESRB
; the original image depicted the series' iconic hand with its little finger
, ring finger
and the thumb
torn off, which would thus have the index finger
and middle finger
remaining. It was deemed too explicit, but to appease the ESRB, Valve changed the image so that the fingers were merely bent back instead, but the company was still able to include the torn-off thumb in all regions except for Japan and Germany, where it had to be censored.
The cover was further changed for release in the United Kingdom
, as the two-finger sign with the back of the hand faced toward the viewer is considered an insult; the UK cover features the hand facing the opposite direction to avoid this.
The hand is modeled after Valve artist Andrea Wicklund.
, after seeing initial promotional material for the game, considered that several of the infected "appear to be African-Americans" implying a racist approach to the game, and also noted that "setting the game in a city that was a scene of dead, bloated bodies floating by" some years after the impact of Hurricane Katrina
was "a bad call". Faliszek, commenting on Jefferson's claims, considered the supposition to be "utter insanity", and commented that the infected are a mix of all races, and that the game's version of New Orleans is "not a brick-for-brick representation" of the city and were not trying to make any statement about it with the game. A writer for Kotaku
considered that "Jefferson's seemed to me to be picking a fight where none exists." Others noted that the appearance of African-American infected simply reflected the racial diversity of New Orleans.
Left 4 Dead 2s classification refusal, as well as for other recent games such as Fallout 3
(has since been rerated MA15+ having the same version as other countries) and Aliens vs. Predator
(has since appealed and rerated MA15+ uncut), has reignited debate over the current prohibition of sale and exhibition of video games for mature audiences. On November 14, 2009, approximately 170 people participated in the "Epic Zombie Lurch" protest in Sydney
, Australia, organised by local video gamers in protest of the lack of an R18+ rating for video games in Australia. In mid-December 2009, the Australian government sought public opinion on the adult classification rating for video games, despite statements by South Australian Attorney General Michael Atkinson
believing the issue to only affect a minority of the country's citizens. Following Atkinson's decision to leave the Attorneys General to be replaced by John Rau
, who is reportedly in favour of an R18+ rating, Valve have revealed that, should the bill be passed, they plan to release an uncensored version of Left 4 Dead 2 for PC in Australia.
(Freigegeben ab 18 Jahren gemäß § 14 JuSchG, meaning "Restricted for those below the age of 18"), Valve had to heavily censor the game's violent content similar to the Australian version. However, the international (and thus uncensored) version was indexed by the Federal Department for Media Harmful to Young Persons on December 1, 2009 in order to prevent sellers from advertising or selling it to minors. On February 15, 2010, the Amtsgericht Tiergarten
confiscated all European PC versions for violation of § 131 StGB (representation of violence), meaning they may not be sold; however, it is still legal to import (with the risk that the game is confiscated by customs) and own the game. The court said that the game trivializes violence due to its high killing rate and explicit graphical representation of mutilation. They also sensed a strong cynical attitude behind the game's concept. To make up for the censorship, German players receive exclusive weapons ported from Counter-Strike: Source
, which include the Heckler & Koch MP5
, Accuracy International AWM
, SIG 552, Steyr Scout
and a combat knife
.
praised the game's replayability and the attention put in every detail. Libération
also praised the game, commenting that Valve was one of the last game studios making games geared toward hardcore PC gamers. IGN
considered that the game improved on the first in every way, and that anyone who liked the concepts introduced by the first game should buy the second. Eurogamer
also praised the game, and considered that it was "overflowing with personality". Left 4 Dead 2 received the Best Xbox 360 Game award at the 2009 Spike Video Game Awards. The game has been nominated for the "Outstanding Achievement in Game Play Engineering", "Outstanding Achievement in Online Game Play", and "Action Game of the Year" Interactive Achievement Award from the Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences
.
Valve acknowledged problems with the PC version of the game upon launch, including inability to install the game, or users finding it crashes within minutes. Most users reported successful bug fixes from the patches that followed.
On December 1, 2009, Valve reported that more than two million retailed copies of Left 4 Dead 2 were sold in two weeks, which represents "more than double" the sales of the original game's two week debut. According to the NPD Group
, the Xbox 360 version was the fifth best-selling retail title for consoles in November 2009, with over 744,000 copies sold.
In February 2010, Electronic Arts
, Left 4 Dead 2 retail distributor, revealed that the game had sold 2.9 million on retail so far while Forbes
wrote that more than 4 million copies were sold at stores in 2009.
On May 10, 2011, Doug Lombardi mentioned that each of the Left 4 Dead games has sold 3 million copies on the Xbox 360. On August 11, 2011, in a phone interview with Giant Bomb
, Chet Faliszek said that series has sold over 11 million units in total.
Cooperative gameplay
Cooperative gameplay is a feature in video games that allows players to work together as teammates. It is distinct from other multiplayer modes, such as competitive multiplayer modes like player versus player or deathmatch...
first-person shooter
First-person shooter
First-person shooter is a video game genre that centers the gameplay on gun and projectile weapon-based combat through first-person perspective; i.e., the player experiences the action through the eyes of a protagonist. Generally speaking, the first-person shooter shares common traits with other...
video game. It is the sequel to Valve Corporation
Valve Corporation
Valve Corporation is an American video game development and digital distribution company based in Bellevue, Washington, United States...
's award-winning Left 4 Dead
Left 4 Dead
Left 4 Dead is a cooperative first-person shooter video game. It was developed by Turtle Rock Studios, which was purchased by Valve Corporation during development. The game uses Valve's proprietary Source engine, and is available for Microsoft Windows, Xbox 360 and Mac OS X...
. The game launched on November 17, 2009, for Microsoft Windows
Microsoft Windows
Microsoft Windows is a series of operating systems produced by Microsoft.Microsoft introduced an operating environment named Windows on November 20, 1985 as an add-on to MS-DOS in response to the growing interest in graphical user interfaces . Microsoft Windows came to dominate the world's personal...
and Xbox 360
Xbox 360
The Xbox 360 is the second video game console produced by Microsoft and the successor to the Xbox. The Xbox 360 competes with Sony's PlayStation 3 and Nintendo's Wii as part of the seventh generation of video game consoles...
in the United States and November 20 in Europe; in 2010, Left 4 Dead 2 was made available to the Steam client for Mac OS X
Mac OS X
Mac OS X is a series of Unix-based operating systems and graphical user interfaces developed, marketed, and sold by Apple Inc. Since 2002, has been included with all new Macintosh computer systems...
. It builds upon the cooperatively-focused gameplay of the original and uses Valve's proprietary Source engine, the same game engine used in Left 4 Dead. The game made its world premiere at E3 2009 with a trailer during the Microsoft
Microsoft
Microsoft Corporation is an American public multinational corporation headquartered in Redmond, Washington, USA that develops, manufactures, licenses, and supports a wide range of products and services predominantly related to computing through its various product divisions...
press event.
Like the original
Left 4 Dead
Left 4 Dead is a cooperative first-person shooter video game. It was developed by Turtle Rock Studios, which was purchased by Valve Corporation during development. The game uses Valve's proprietary Source engine, and is available for Microsoft Windows, Xbox 360 and Mac OS X...
, Left 4 Dead 2 is set during the aftermath of an apocalyptic
Zombie apocalypse
A zombie apocalypse is a particular scenario of apocalyptic literature that customarily has a science fiction/horror rationale. In a zombie apocalypse, a widespread rise of zombies hostile to human life engages in a general assault on civilization....
pandemic
Pandemic
A pandemic is an epidemic of infectious disease that is spreading through human populations across a large region; for instance multiple continents, or even worldwide. A widespread endemic disease that is stable in terms of how many people are getting sick from it is not a pandemic...
, and focuses on four survivors fighting against hordes of the infected, who develop severe psychosis and exhibit zombie
Zombie
Zombie is a term used to denote an animated corpse brought back to life by mystical means such as witchcraft. The term is often figuratively applied to describe a hypnotized person bereft of consciousness and self-awareness, yet ambulant and able to respond to surrounding stimuli...
-like tendencies. The survivors must fight their way through levels, interspersed with safe house
Safe house
In the jargon of law enforcement and intelligence agencies, a safe house is a secure location, suitable for hiding witnesses, agents or other persons perceived as being in danger...
s that act as checkpoints, with the goal of reaching a rescue vehicle at the campaign's finale. The gameplay is procedurally altered by an artificial intelligence
Artificial intelligence
Artificial intelligence is the intelligence of machines and the branch of computer science that aims to create it. AI textbooks define the field as "the study and design of intelligent agents" where an intelligent agent is a system that perceives its environment and takes actions that maximize its...
engine dubbed the "Director" that monitors the players' performance and adjusts the scenario
Scenario
A scenario is a synoptical collage of an event or series of actions and events. In the Commedia dell'arte it was an outline of entrances, exits, and action describing the plot of a play that was literally pinned to the back of the scenery...
to provide a dynamic challenge. Several new features have been introduced: new types of infected, melee weapon
Mêlée weapon
A melee weapon is any weapon that does not involve a projectile — that is, both the user and target of the weapon are in contact with it simultaneously in normal use...
s, and a story-arc that connects the game's five campaigns together.
When it was , it received a combination of positive and negative critical and community reactions. It also attracted an unusually high volume of pre-release controversy about the game's graphic content. In response, alterations were made to the cover art and both Australia (due to having no R18+ rating) and Germany refused to rate the unmodified edition. After release however, the game was met with critical acclaim and positive reviews.
Setting
Like its predecessor, Left 4 Dead 2 is set shortly after a worldwide pandemic of an infectious diseaseInfectious disease
Infectious diseases, also known as communicable diseases, contagious diseases or transmissible diseases comprise clinically evident illness resulting from the infection, presence and growth of pathogenic biological agents in an individual host organism...
that rapidly transforms humans into zombie-like creatures and mutated forms that demonstrate extreme aggression towards non-infected (much like the infected in 28 Days Later
28 Days Later
28 Days Later is an acclaimed 2002 British horror film directed by Danny Boyle. The screenplay was written by Alex Garland, and the film stars Cillian Murphy, Naomie Harris, Brendan Gleeson, Megan Burns, and Christopher Eccleston...
). Few humans are immune to the disease, still carrying the infection but showing no symptoms. The Civil Emergency and Defense Agency (CEDA) and the U.S. military
United States armed forces
The United States Armed Forces are the military forces of the United States. They consist of the Army, Navy, Marine Corps, Air Force, and Coast Guard.The United States has a strong tradition of civilian control of the military...
create safe zones to attempt to evacuate as many American survivors as possible. Left 4 Dead 2 introduces four new survivors—Nick, Ellis, Coach, and Rochelle, who are immune to the disease and have individual back stories that are provided through character dialogue. Like the first game, the five campaigns in Left 4 Dead 2 are set across a story arc, set in the Southern United States
Southern United States
The Southern United States—commonly referred to as the American South, Dixie, or simply the South—constitutes a large distinctive area in the southeastern and south-central United States...
, which starts in Savannah, Georgia
Savannah, Georgia
Savannah is the largest city and the county seat of Chatham County, in the U.S. state of Georgia. Established in 1733, the city of Savannah was the colonial capital of the Province of Georgia and later the first state capital of Georgia. Today Savannah is an industrial center and an important...
, and ends in New Orleans, Louisiana. The four survivors have to fight their way through the hordes of infected, using safehouses along the way to rest and recuperate in order to reach extraction points.
Story
After climbing to the roof of a hotel in Savannah to be rescued, the survivors find themselves abandoned by rescue helicopters, and so make their way to the local mall, after hearing word of a second CEDA evacuation point there. After a brief encounter with a gun store owner, Whitaker (voiced by Dayton CallieDayton Callie
Dayton Callie is a Scottish-born American actor, best known for playing Charlie Utter on HBO's Deadwood and Ernie Dell on CSI. He now portrays Police Chief Wayne Unser on Sons of Anarchy. He has also voiced Whitaker in Valve's Left 4 Dead 2, appeared in Halloween 2, & had small roles in episodes...
), the survivors discover that the mall is overrun and all of the CEDA agents have either been killed or have become infected themselves. The four then use a stock car
Stock car racing
Stock car racing is a form of automobile racing found mainly in the United States, Canada, New Zealand, Great Britain, Brazil and Argentina. Traditionally, races are run on oval tracks measuring approximately in length...
to bust out of the mall and travel towards New Orleans ("Dead Center"). On their way there, they encounter the original survivors featured in Left 4 Dead at the portside town of Rayford ("The Passing"), who allow them to cross the bridge by first filling up its generator with gasoline. Later, they find the highway completely blocked by wrecked vehicles and are forced to travel through a still-operating but abandoned amusement park, and start a huge fireworks-and-lights show used by the rock band, The Midnight Riders
Midnight Riders (band)
The Midnight Riders are a virtual band featured in the video game Left 4 Dead 2.-Fictional Biography:In 1983, four young men from Galveston, Texas became the most popular band in America...
, in order to attract the attention of a helicopter pilot ("Dark Carnival").
After being rescued, they realize their pilot has been infected. Nick is forced to kill him, which causes the helicopter to crash into a bayou
Bayou
A bayou is an American term for a body of water typically found in flat, low-lying areas, and can refer either to an extremely slow-moving stream or river , or to a marshy lake or wetland. The name "bayou" can also refer to creeks that see level changes due to tides and hold brackish water which...
("Swamp Fever"). They find brief shelter in a plantation mansion and make radio contact with a Cajun
Cajun
Cajuns are an ethnic group mainly living in the U.S. state of Louisiana, consisting of the descendants of Acadian exiles...
boat captain named Virgil who can get them to rescue, but he needs additional diesel fuel to make it to New Orleans. Amid a torrential downpour, the survivors go ashore, make their way through an abandoned sugar mill to a gas station to get fuel supplies, and return to the boat ("Hard Rain"). Virgil takes them to New Orleans where the military appears to be evacuating civilians. The group head to the extraction point, but discover that the military is actually bombing bridges to cover their retreat. The survivors then make their way across a lift bridge amidst a mass of infected and board the last military helicopter leaving the city before the bridge is destroyed by an air strike. Judging from their dialogue, the military pilots suspect that the survivors are "carriers
Asymptomatic carrier
An asymptomatic carrier is a person or other organism that has contracted an infectious disease, but who displays no symptoms. Although unaffected by the disease themselves, carriers can transmit it to others...
" ("The Parish"). Although the survivors' fate after evacuation is left unexplained after the bridge finale, Chet Faliszek, the game's writer, said that the military is taking survivors to cruise ship
Cruise ship
A cruise ship or cruise liner is a passenger ship used for pleasure voyages, where the voyage itself and the ship's amenities are part of the experience, as well as the different destinations along the way...
s in an attempt to escape the worldwide infection.
The Sacrifice campaign takes place before the main events of Left 4 Dead 2, sometime before the events of The Passing. The survivors from the first Left 4 Dead
Left 4 Dead
Left 4 Dead is a cooperative first-person shooter video game. It was developed by Turtle Rock Studios, which was purchased by Valve Corporation during development. The game uses Valve's proprietary Source engine, and is available for Microsoft Windows, Xbox 360 and Mac OS X...
arrive at the portside town of Rayford in order to search for a boat that could take them to the Florida Keys
Florida Keys
The Florida Keys are a coral archipelago in southeast United States. They begin at the southeastern tip of the Florida peninsula, about south of Miami, and extend in a gentle arc south-southwest and then westward to Key West, the westernmost of the inhabited islands, and on to the uninhabited Dry...
. After finding an adequate vessel, the survivors manually have to start up generators in order to lift a bridge for their boat to pass through. One survivor (canonically Bill) sacrifices himself in order to kick-start a generator once the lift jams, so that the others may reach safety. This is the end of Bill's story in the Left 4 Dead plot.
Gameplay
Like its predecessor, Left 4 Dead 2 is a first-person shooterFirst-person shooter
First-person shooter is a video game genre that centers the gameplay on gun and projectile weapon-based combat through first-person perspective; i.e., the player experiences the action through the eyes of a protagonist. Generally speaking, the first-person shooter shares common traits with other...
with a heavy emphasis on cooperative gameplay
Cooperative gameplay
Cooperative gameplay is a feature in video games that allows players to work together as teammates. It is distinct from other multiplayer modes, such as competitive multiplayer modes like player versus player or deathmatch...
. The game presents five new campaigns, each composed of three to five smaller maps. In the first two to four maps of any campaign, the survivors attempt to reach a safehouse, while the final stage requires the survivors to call for rescue and either survive a prolonged onslaught until rescue arrives, pass through an especially challenging gauntlet of infected to reach a rescue vehicle, or collect and deploy fuel cans to facilitate an escape.
Each survivor can carry one main weapon, and either a melee weapon or pistols as a secondary weapon. Though melee weapons cause extra damage to the infected when struck, the survivors can use any other weapon or item for weaker melee attacks and to temporarily push the infected back. Players also carry a flashlight which has infinite battery and makes it possible to see in the dark, but also causes infected to notice the survivors much faster. They may also carry a single first aid kit, special ammo pack, or a defibrillator
Defibrillation
Defibrillation is a common treatment for life-threatening cardiac arrhythmias, ventricular fibrillation and pulseless ventricular tachycardia. Defibrillation consists of delivering a therapeutic dose of electrical energy to the affected heart with a device called a defibrillator...
; in addition to either pain pills or adrenaline shot. They may also carry a single throwable weapon—Molotov cocktail
Molotov cocktail
The Molotov cocktail, also known as the petrol bomb, gasoline bomb, Molotov bomb, fire bottle, fire bomb, or simply Molotov, is a generic name used for a variety of improvised incendiary weapons...
s to set an area on fire, pipe bomb
Pipe bomb
A pipe bomb is an improvised explosive device, a tightly sealed section of pipe filled with an explosive material. The containment provided by the pipe means that simple low explosives can be used to produce a relatively large explosion, and the fragmentation of the pipe itself creates potentially...
s to attract any nearby infected to the flashing light and sound it makes until it explodes, and Boomer bile
Bile
Bile or gall is a bitter-tasting, dark green to yellowish brown fluid, produced by the liver of most vertebrates, that aids the process of digestion of lipids in the small intestine. In many species, bile is stored in the gallbladder and upon eating is discharged into the duodenum...
, which can be thrown at infected to cause them to turn on each other.
Because many of the special infected can quickly finish off a survivor if they are not rescued, the game encourages players to stay and work together to traverse the level safely. To enable situational awareness of other players, players are shown the health and status of their fellow survivors. If a player does not have direct sight of another survivor, they will be shown the survivor's highlighted silhouette. As they take more damage from the infected, players move slower. If a survivor's health drops to zero, they become incapacitated and can only fight off the infected using pistols—even if they are carrying a melee weapon—until rescued by another survivor. If a character dies, they remain dead until the next level, unless revived by a defibrillator, or, in Campaign or Single-player mode, reappear in a "rescue closet" to be freed by the other survivors. Should all the survivors be killed or incapacitated, or if all the human-controlled survivors die, the game is over, and players must restart that chapter.
Left 4 Dead 2 retains the three game modes of the original game—Campaign, Versus, and Survival—and adds a new game mode called Scavenge. In Campaign mode up to four human players fight against the computer-controlled infected to make their way between safe houses; any survivor not controlled by a human player is controlled by the computer. In Versus mode up to four other human players take control of the various Special Infected who try to prevent the Survivors from reaching the next safe house. Special Infected are randomly assigned and one player typically controls a "non-pinning" infected which cannot "trap" a survivor (such as a Boomer or Spitter). Occasionally, as determined by the "AI Director", players will become the Tank, who has a massive amount of health and strength. The two teams swap sides once per chapter and are scored based on their play through as Survivors. Points are given during chapter progress, the more distance, the more points. If both teams make it to the saferoom with all four survivors, a 25 point tie-breaker is awarded to the team that dealt the most combined damage as special infected. Versus mode typically requires at least 1 human player on each team. Survival mode
Survival mode
Survival mode is a video game mode in which the player must survive by keeping their character alive or preventing the enemy from reaching a certain location for as long as possible, while the game sends waves of enemies to the player that become stronger with each subsequent wave. Another variant...
is a timed challenge where the survivors are trapped in a section of the campaign maps, and try to survive as long as possible against an unending onslaught of infected. In the new four-on-four Scavenge mode, the survivor players are required to collect and use as many of the sixteen gas canisters scattered about a level to maintain the fuel of power generators, while the infected players attempt to stop them.
The game also features a realism mode, which can be enabled at any difficulty for either campaign or versus modes. This mode removes some of the video-game aspects from the gameplay: survivors are not able to see the silhouettes of their teammates; if they die, they can only be revived with a defibrillator kit and will not respawn later in the level. Damage dealt to Infected is also changed, with headshots dealing more damage to enemies, whereas limb or body shots require more shots, making gameplay even more of a challenge. Additionally, the Witch will now kill any survivor it would have merely incapacitated. Items such as defibrillators, throwable items and weapons will only glow when the player is within a few feet, forcing the players to investigate more thoroughly. Designed to force players to work closely together and rely on voice communication, the realism mode was created to give players a way "to be challenged as a team" without having to increase the difficulty level of the game.
Survivor characters
Chad Coleman
Chad Coleman is an American film and television actor. He is best known for playing the character Dennis "Cutty" Wise from The Wire.-Life and career:...
), a portly high-school football coach with a bad knee (although it does not show in the game); Nick (voiced by Hugh Dillon
Hugh Dillon
Hugh Dillon is a Canadian musician and actor.-Music career:Dillon was the lead singer for the Kingston hard rock band The Headstones from 1987 until 2003...
), an unemotional, sarcastic, and rude gambler and con artist; Rochelle (voiced by Rochelle Aytes
Rochelle Aytes
Rochelle Aytes is an American actress. She was born in New York City and attended LaGuardia High School. She graduated with a BA in Fine Arts from State University of New York Purchase College.-Career:...
), a low-level production assistant reporting on the evacuation for a local television station; and Ellis (voiced by Eric Ladin
Eric Ladin
Eric Ladin is an American actor who has guest-starred on multiple episodes of the AMC show Mad Men and the HBO miniseries Generation Kill as Corporal James Chaffin. He also appeared in the movies Toolbox Murders, Cursed, Left in Darkness...
), a laid-back (and rather talkative), and friendly mechanic. While the game is intended as a continuation of the original, occurring one week after the first game begins, Valve decided to create a new group of survivors because of the change in location. In addition to the four playable characters, Left 4 Dead 2 also features a supporting character in the form of Virgil (voiced by Randall Newsome), a Cajun
Cajun
Cajuns are an ethnic group mainly living in the U.S. state of Louisiana, consisting of the descendants of Acadian exiles...
boat captain, who appears (voice only) in the game's final two campaigns. This differs from the original game, where NPCs
Non-player character
A non-player character , sometimes known as a non-person character or non-playable character, in a game is any fictional character not controlled by a player. In electronic games, this usually means a character controlled by the computer through artificial intelligence...
made little more than a single appearance.
Infected characters
Hazmat suit
A hazmat suit is a garment worn as protection from hazardous materials or substances. A hazmat suit is generally combined with breathing apparatus for protection and may be used by firefighters, emergency personnel responding to toxic spills, researchers, specialists cleaning up contaminated...
s which are immune to fire.
As in the first game, there are "special" or "boss" infected in addition to the common infected whose mutations grant them special attacks that make them much more dangerous. The presence of such infected nearby is hinted at by sound effects or musical cues unique to each type. The five special infected from the first game return in Left 4 Dead 2, some with modified behavior and skin models. They are:
The Boomer, a bloated infected whose vomit and bile (which may be released at will and upon death) blinds the player briefly and attracts a horde of common infected ;
The Hunter, an agile infected that can pounce on survivors from great distances and screams at the sight of a survivor;
The Smoker, an infected that can ensnare survivors with its long tongue from a distance and, upon death, releases a cloud of smoke that obscures vision;
The Tank, a gigantic, muscular infected that can punch survivors and toss concrete slabs.;
The Witch, a trapper infected who, when provoked by loud sounds, light, or proximity of survivors, will attack her provoker—she is able to incapacitate or kill in one hit. In Left 4 Dead 2, the Witch now has the ability to wander aimlessly in daylight.
Several new Special Infected are introduced in Left 4 Dead 2, all of which are playable in versus and the new Scavenge game mode. The Charger, an infected with an enormously mutated right arm, can charge into the survivors and seize and separate one survivor from the others whilst pummeling them into the ground, rendering the player helpless until one of their teammates helps them. The Spitter can project balls of stomach acid that splatter across an area, quickly eroding the survivors' health as long as they remain within it; the longer a player loiters, the faster their health drops. The Jockey can jump onto the back of a survivor and steer them into other infected or environmental hazards, whilst clawing at the player's head.
In introducing the new Infected, the development team had to consider how the new abilities would mesh with the existing Infected and any changes they had made to them. One discarded idea for a new Infected included the "Leaker"; the creature, when having taken damage, would shoot out spouts of goo at the survivors, and then would be able to self-detonate like the Boomer. However, this sacrificial act would have given survivors time to escape, and the idea was dropped, though features of the Leaker were built into the Spitter.
The Director
As in the first game an artificial intelligence system called the AI Director drives gameplay by procedurally spawning enemies, weapons and items based on the players' performance. In Left 4 Dead 2, the Director has been improved to encourage more participation by players, forcing players through difficult gauntlets to reach the extraction point. It also has the ability to alter elements of the level such as placement of walls, level layout, lighting, and weather conditions, making each play session unique. The Director now rewards players for taking longer or more difficult paths through each episode by providing more useful equipment, such as incendiary or explosive ammo, along these riskier paths.Development
Development for Left 4 Dead 2 started shortly after the release of the first game—following a short break—building on ideas from the development team to make the next game "bigger and better". The game was given the code name "Carnation" to prevent revealing its details before its official announcement.Chet Faliszek stated that Left 4 Dead 2s story would explore more of the world of the game, and that Valve had created a full story for the cause and effects of the infection pandemic, including terms that they have used for the AI Director. Each campaign was purposely designed with a different feel; however, all five campaigns were mapped out at the same time by the entire team to provide the narrative flow and ensure the uniqueness of each campaign. The team used a Left 4 Dead dictionary developed to describe level design and flow within the game to provide a common language for developing the levels.
Left 4 Dead 2 contains about 7,800 unique lines of dialog, a 40% increase over Left 4 Dead. The writers designed the characters and selected appropriate voice actors who had natural accents for their lines and allowed the actors freedom to help authenticate the roles. They would attend recording sessions for the voice actors and allow them to ad-lib their lines for their characters, often getting new ideas for character dialog to be recorded later, particularly in the case of Ellis (voiced by Eric Ladin) and Nick (Hugh Dillion). Randall Newsome, the voice of the boat captain Virgil, was a local actor from Louisiana who naturally spoke Cajun
Cajun French
Cajun French is a variety or dialects of the French language spoken primarily in Louisiana, specifically in the southern and southwestern parishes....
and helped to embellish the role better than the writers could. Faliszek wanted to include a "no-nonsense" woman from a Department of Motor Vehicles
Department of Motor Vehicles
In the United States of America, a Department of Motor Vehicles is a state-level government agency that administers vehicle registration and driver licensing. Similar departments exist in Canada...
, but this character did not make the cut. The developers solicited several bands to include them in the game: Depeche Mode
Depeche Mode
Depeche Mode are an English electronic music band formed in 1980 in Basildon, Essex. The group's original line-up consisted of Dave Gahan , Martin Gore , Andy Fletcher and Vince Clarke...
responded eagerly, and allowed Valve to use its music and other imagery in the game, such as on Rochelle's T-shirt.
In development, the programmers wanted to find a way to provide more variation and visual effects for the players, although they were already strained by memory limitations on the Xbox 360 for Left 4 Dead. One key development factor was recognizing a way to create greater variation in the appearance of the common infected through a number of modeling and rendering tasks. Simple changes of the underlying geometry of the model, either the head or the body, with the resulting affects on the texture mapping was one means to create apparent variation. Another means was created by using different head textures along with various blood and dirt maps, and similarly different wounds applied to the body texture. A final means to alter the tone of both the skin and the clothing worn by the infected. As a result, a single infected model could have up to 24,000 variations within the game. This allowed Valve to effectively only keep two to six common infected core models in memory for each level, leaving only the unique infected for each campaign and the special infected as their own unique models. As a result, the memory use for the infected dropped by 50%. Valve's programmers also sought how to better represent damage the players did to the infected by showing inflicted wounds in the appropriate location and in a manner based on the weapon used, allowing for the inclusion of more resilient infected creatures in advanced game modes. They had simulated this in Left 4 Dead by having five possible character models that would result from a fatal attack but felt this could be advanced further. Already limited by memory concerns on the Xbox 360 that prevented further variations on the core infected models, the team devised a system of using textures with transparencies combined with ellipsoid culling from any infected character model to simulate the wounds, with several graphical process simplifications to avoid taxing the rendering system. This allowed the team to simulate up to two such wounds on each infected using only 13% of the memory resources of the based system in Left 4 Dead.
Another visual aspect that the Valve team explored was the rendering of water, particularly in the "Swamp Fever" campaign, which takes place mostly in a large swamp area. Valve found early play-testers would become confused with the large, tree-covered map, but by adding hints of water movement in the direction they were to go, there was a significant reduction in players becoming lost on the map. The water maps were created by using the 3D animation tool Houdini
Houdini (software)
Houdini is a high-end 3D animation package developed by Side Effects Software which is headquartered in Toronto, Canada. It is a rewrite of the PRISMS ecosystem of standalone tools. Its chief distinction from other packages is that it has been designed as a purely procedural environment...
against its landscape maps to create realistic water flow patterns as surface maps. These surface maps were then applied in a "flowing" manner instead of the scrolling manner used in previous games. These water effects were further expanded upon for Valve's next game, Portal 2
Portal 2
Portal 2 is a first-person puzzle-platform video game developed and published by Valve Corporation. The sequel to the 2007 video game Portal, it was announced on March 5, 2010, following a week-long alternate reality game based on new patches to the original game...
.
Doug Lombardi, vice-president of marketing for Valve, noted that the SDK
Software development kit
A software development kit is typically a set of software development tools that allows for the creation of applications for a certain software package, software framework, hardware platform, computer system, video game console, operating system, or similar platform.It may be something as simple...
released for Left 4 Dead would also be compatible with Left 4 Dead 2.
Promotion
PC and Xbox 360 players who pre-ordered Left 4 Dead 2 through participating retailers gained early access to the game's demo, which was released on October 27, 2009 for Xbox Live and October 28, 2009 for PC players, and an exclusive baseball bat melee weapon to be used in game. Pre-ordering the PC version of the game through the Steam network also unlocks Bill's beret from Left 4 Dead for use in the PC version of Team Fortress 2Team Fortress 2
Team Fortress 2 is a free-to-play team-based first-person shooter multiplayer video game developed by Valve Corporation. A sequel to the original mod Team Fortress based on the Quake engine, it was first released as part of the video game compilation The Orange Box on October 10, 2007 for Windows...
. The demo became available for all PC and Xbox Live Gold users on November 4, 2009 with Xbox Live Silver users gaining access on November 11, 2009. The demo features the first two maps in "The Parish" campaign.
On October 5, 2009, Valve announced that Left 4 Dead 2 would be promoted by a $25 million advertising campaign, exceeding the $10 million that supported Left 4 Dead. The campaign includes television advertisements during sporting events, on billboards and magazines; and more aggressive advertising for Europe.
Release and updates
Left 4 Dead 2 was released on Steam on November 17, 2009. Retail copies were made available some days after, depending on the country.In March 2010, Valve announced that it would be bringing the Steam content platform to Mac OS X
Mac OS X
Mac OS X is a series of Unix-based operating systems and graphical user interfaces developed, marketed, and sold by Apple Inc. Since 2002, has been included with all new Macintosh computer systems...
computers; along with it, Steam will be providing native versions of existing Valve games including Left 4 Dead 2 and its predecessor
Left 4 Dead
Left 4 Dead is a cooperative first-person shooter video game. It was developed by Turtle Rock Studios, which was purchased by Valve Corporation during development. The game uses Valve's proprietary Source engine, and is available for Microsoft Windows, Xbox 360 and Mac OS X...
. The games will support cross-platform play, allowing Mac players to play alongside PC players on the same servers, and will also be part of its Steam Play cross-compatible and Steam Cloud titles, allowing a player who has purchased the game on one platform to download and play it on the other platform for free. The Mac OS X client was released on October 5, 2010.
Shortly after the release, Valve launched a mock Web site for the Midnight Riders
Midnight Riders (band)
The Midnight Riders are a virtual band featured in the video game Left 4 Dead 2.-Fictional Biography:In 1983, four young men from Galveston, Texas became the most popular band in America...
, a fictional rock band referenced and heard in the Dark Carnival campaign. This led to speculation that The Midnight Riders could become playable characters in an update, as there are four members in the band, and guitars are featured as weapons in the game. Valve has yet to address these rumors.
Downloadable content
On December 14, 2009, Valve announced the first DLCDownloadable content
Downloadable content is official additional content for a video game distributed through the Internet. Downloadable content can be of several types, ranging from a single in-game outfit to an entirely new, extensive storyline, similarly to an expansion pack. As such, DLC may add new game modes,...
installment for Left 4 Dead 2, "The Passing". Though initially planned to be released sometime in March 2010, "The Passing" was released on April 22, 2010. The content costs 560 Microsoft Points
Microsoft Points
Microsoft Points are the currency of the Xbox Live Marketplace, Games for Windows - Live Marketplace, Windows Live Gallery, and Zune online stores. The points allow users to purchase content without a credit card and to reduce the number of small credit card transaction fees, which Microsoft would...
for the Xbox 360
Xbox 360
The Xbox 360 is the second video game console produced by Microsoft and the successor to the Xbox. The Xbox 360 competes with Sony's PlayStation 3 and Nintendo's Wii as part of the seventh generation of video game consoles...
and is free for PC and Mac users. The campaign, taking place between the "Dead Center" and "Dark Carnival" campaigns, features the cast of Left 4 Dead 2 meeting with three of the survivors from the original Left 4 Dead. The new group learns that the fourth original survivor, Bill, sacrificed himself to allow his comrades to continue on safely. The title "The Passing" can be interpreted in several ways; to Bill's passing, the brief passing encounter between the two groups, and of the first group of survivors "passing the torch" to the next. "The Passing" contains references to other zombie-themed works, including the games Dead Rising
Dead Rising
is an action-adventure, survivor horror video game, developed by Capcom and produced by Keiji Inafune. It was released on August 8, 2006 exclusively for the Xbox 360 video game console. The game was a commercial success. It has been introduced into the Xbox 360 "Platinum Hits" lineup, and a cell...
and Plants vs. Zombies
Plants vs. Zombies
Plants vs. Zombies is a tower defense action video game developed and originally published by PopCap Games for Microsoft Windows and Mac OS X. The game involves a homeowner using many varieties of plants to repel an army of zombies from "eating their brains". It was first released on May 5, 2009,...
, and the movies 28 Days Later
28 Days Later
28 Days Later is an acclaimed 2002 British horror film directed by Danny Boyle. The screenplay was written by Alex Garland, and the film stars Cillian Murphy, Naomie Harris, Brendan Gleeson, Megan Burns, and Christopher Eccleston...
, Shaun of the Dead
Shaun of the Dead
Shaun of the Dead is a 2004 British zombie comedy directed by Edgar Wright, starring Simon Pegg and Nick Frost, and written by Pegg and Wright. Pegg plays Shaun, a man attempting to get some kind of focus in his life as he deals with his girlfriend, his mother and stepfather...
, Dawn of the Dead and its remake
Dawn of the Dead (2004 film)
Dawn of the Dead is a 2004 horror film directed by Zack Snyder in his directorial debut. It is a remake of George A. Romero's 1978 film of the same name and stars Sarah Polley, Ving Rhames, and Jake Weber. The film depict a handful of human survivors living in a Milwaukee, Wisconsin shopping mall...
. The add-on also features two new weapons, an M60 machine gun
M60 machine gun
The M60 is a family of American general-purpose machine guns firing 7.62×51mm NATO cartridges from a disintegrating belt of M13 links...
which becomes unusable once depleted of ammo, and a golf club for melee.
A prequel to "The Passing", titled "The Sacrifice", was released on October 5, 2010, as an add-on for both Left 4 Dead and Left 4 Dead 2. This prequel ties up the story of the original game, showing the events leading to the meeting of the two groups of survivors in "The Passing" from the point of the Left 4 Dead characters. However, players will be able to choose which character will sacrifice themselves for the others to safely continue on and not just the canonical choice of Bill. Valve also provided the full "No Mercy" campaign from Left 4 Dead as a Left 4 Dead 2 campaign, which is playable with the original Survivors from Left 4 Dead. Though the maps are nearly identical to their appearance in Left 4 Dead, No Mercy in Left 4 Dead 2 contains all of the enhancements of the sequel, including the new Special Infected, Uncommon Infected, melee weapons, additional guns, and the ability to use the new game modes, including Mutations and Scavenge mode.
An additional downloadable content package, called "Cold Stream", will be released in the near future. Valve have detailed that it will include a community-created non-canonical campaign called Cold Stream, created by Matthew Lourdelet, and the remaining Left 4 Dead campaigns including Crash Course, in the same manner as No Mercy above. The content is in public beta, available to players for testing and data collection on any issues, with a complete release available at a later date for all Left 4 Dead 2 platforms.
Mutations
New game modes, Mutations, have been offered every week after "The Passing's" release; these game modes alter the conditions of play. These "Mutations" are only available for a fortnight at a time, though Valve has added the popular "Realism Versus" mutation to the game as a permanent game mode. Other mutations will be available for voting to make encore appearances every four weeks following the popularity of the "Last Gnome on Earth" mutation.Community modification support
Similar to Left 4 Dead and other Source Engine-based games, a number of players have constructed new maps, campaigns, and other variations for Left 4 Dead 2, supported by Valve through their software development kitSoftware development kit
A software development kit is typically a set of software development tools that allows for the creation of applications for a certain software package, software framework, hardware platform, computer system, video game console, operating system, or similar platform.It may be something as simple...
for the game. With the kit, players have found ways to include the original Left 4 Dead campaigns into Left 4 Dead 2. Players have also found ways to increase the number of survivors up to 16, duplicating the graphics for the existing survivor characters as needed. In August 2010, Valve announced that it will promote selected community generated maps, one every two weeks, both by blog posts on their official site, and by offering the map on a number of their dedicated servers.
Popular Left 4 Dead 2 custom campaigns include Suicide Blitz 2, Tour of Terror, and I Hate Mountains.
Controversy
Left 4 Dead 2 has been a central issue in a number of critical discussions regarding its timing and its graphic and mature content. John WalkerJohn Walker (journalist)
John Walker is a British computer games journalist, as well as a cartoonist and TV critic.-Journalism:Walker has contributed to a range of print publications, including PC Gamer , Total Film, Linux Format, Cult TV, Edge, NGamer, Windows XP, PC Plus, Official Xbox Magazine, Gamesmaster and PC...
of UK-based gaming website Rock, Paper, Shotgun
Rock, Paper, Shotgun
Rock, Paper, Shotgun is a UK-based PC gaming blog written by Alec Meer, Jim Rossignol, John Walker, and previously Kieron Gillen and Quintin Smith. Rock, Paper, Shotgun launched in July 2007. In 2010 the website partnered with Eurogamer...
has theorized that this is due to higher expectations for Valve, given the perception of its status as an industry leader.
Boycott
The weekend following the game's announcement at the 2009 E3 Convention, some Left 4 Dead players called for a boycott of Left 4 Dead 2 and formed the Steam community group called "L4D2 Boycott (NO-L4D2)" which grew to over 10,000 members by the end of that weekend, and reached more than 37,000 about a month later. In addition to a lack of further Left 4 Dead content, they were concerned with the characters, visuals, and music shown in the E3 demonstration video, feeling these were inappropriate to the first game's aesthetics, and that the release of the sequel so soon after the first game would fracture the community.In response to these complaints, Valve marketer Doug Lombardi stated that the announcement of Left 4 Dead 2 at E3 should not be taken to indicate that Valve would no longer support the first game. He asked the community to "trust [them] a little bit," and told them that while their team was eager to get new material to players of Left 4 Dead, they determined that a sequel would be the best option for several reasons: the demand for new campaigns, enemies and weapons could not be met as a simple DLC; both Faliszek and project lead Tom Leonard found that too much of the content relied on each other, making it very difficult to release incremental patches in the same style as Team Fortress 2
Team Fortress 2
Team Fortress 2 is a free-to-play team-based first-person shooter multiplayer video game developed by Valve Corporation. A sequel to the original mod Team Fortress based on the Quake engine, it was first released as part of the video game compilation The Orange Box on October 10, 2007 for Windows...
; the development team liked the idea of rolling up the content into a sequel to be released a year after Left 4 Deads release. Faliszek stated that Newell was skeptical of the idea when the team brought the sequel forward, but still allowed the project to go through.
In September 2009, Valve flew two of the boycott group leaders to Valve, in order to playtest Left 4 Dead 2; the boycotters felt that the sequel was well done. This event, through a series of correspondences made in jest, shortly led to Valve's Gabe Newell
Gabe Newell
Gabe Logan Newell is the co-founder and managing director of video game development and online distribution company Valve Corporation.-Work:...
and designer Erik Johnson flying to Australia to visit "Joe W-A", a Left 4 Dead modder
Mod (computer gaming)
Mod or modification is a term generally applied to personal computer games , especially first-person shooters, role-playing games and real-time strategy games. Mods are made by the general public or a developer, and can be entirely new games in themselves, but mods are not standalone software and...
. Newell jokingly reported that Valve was "boycotting" Joe's new mod for the game when Joe asked when he would be flown to Valve in the same manner as the Left 4 Dead 2 boycotters, but whimsically offered that if Joe was to pay to fly him to the country, he would take a look at it. Joe was able to raise the required funds, $
United States dollar
The United States dollar , also referred to as the American dollar, is the official currency of the United States of America. It is divided into 100 smaller units called cents or pennies....
3000, through donations through his website, though ultimately Newell paid for the trip himself, with Joe's collected donations going to the Child's Play
Child's Play (charity)
Child's Play is a charitable organization founded by the authors of the popular computer and video games-based webcomic Penny Arcade that organizes worldwide toy drives to children's hospitals. Mike Krahulik and Jerry Holkins founded Child's Play in 2003 to improve the lives of sick children by...
charity.
On October 14, 2009, the boycott groups' leaders announced that they had ended their boycott and were shutting down the 40,000-plus group because Valve was retaining their promise of additional content and fixes for Left 4 Dead, such as the recent release of the "Crash Course" campaign. The leaders also believed that the group itself, losing its purpose, was now being used just to bad-mouth Valve and other players. In a video interview posted on October 29, 2009, Gabe Newell said, "for people who joined the Boycott Group on Steam ... they're actually pre-ordering the product at a higher rate than Left 4 Dead 1 owners who weren't in the boycott".
Cover art
Entertainment Software Rating Board
The Entertainment Software Rating Board is a self-regulatory organization that assigns age and content ratings, enforces industry-adopted advertising guidelines, and ensures responsible online privacy principles for computer and video games as well as entertainment software in Canada, Mexico and...
; the original image depicted the series' iconic hand with its little finger
Little finger
The little finger, often called the pinky in American English, pinkie in Scottish English , or small finger in medicine, is the most ulnar and usually smallest finger of the human hand, opposite the thumb, next to the ring finger.-Muscles:There are four muscles that...
, ring finger
Ring finger
The ring finger is the fourth digit of the human hand, and the second most ulnar finger, located between the middle finger and the little finger. It is also called digitus medicinalis, the fourth finger, digitus annularis, digitus quartus, or digitus IV in anatomy.- Etymology :According to László A...
and the thumb
Thumb
The thumb is the first digit of the hand. When a person is standing in the medical anatomical position , the thumb is the lateral-most digit...
torn off, which would thus have the index finger
Index finger
The index finger, , is the first finger and the second digit of a human hand. It is located between the first and third digits, between the thumb and the middle finger...
and middle finger
Middle finger
The middle finger or long finger is the third digit of the human hand, located between the index finger and the ring finger. It is usually the longest finger...
remaining. It was deemed too explicit, but to appease the ESRB, Valve changed the image so that the fingers were merely bent back instead, but the company was still able to include the torn-off thumb in all regions except for Japan and Germany, where it had to be censored.
The cover was further changed for release in the United Kingdom
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
, as the two-finger sign with the back of the hand faced toward the viewer is considered an insult; the UK cover features the hand facing the opposite direction to avoid this.
The hand is modeled after Valve artist Andrea Wicklund.
Racism accusations
Willie Jefferson of the Houston ChronicleHouston Chronicle
The Houston Chronicle is the largest daily newspaper in Texas, USA, headquartered in the Houston Chronicle Building in Downtown Houston. , it is the ninth-largest newspaper by circulation in the United States...
, after seeing initial promotional material for the game, considered that several of the infected "appear to be African-Americans" implying a racist approach to the game, and also noted that "setting the game in a city that was a scene of dead, bloated bodies floating by" some years after the impact of Hurricane Katrina
Hurricane Katrina
Hurricane Katrina of the 2005 Atlantic hurricane season was a powerful Atlantic hurricane. It is the costliest natural disaster, as well as one of the five deadliest hurricanes, in the history of the United States. Among recorded Atlantic hurricanes, it was the sixth strongest overall...
was "a bad call". Faliszek, commenting on Jefferson's claims, considered the supposition to be "utter insanity", and commented that the infected are a mix of all races, and that the game's version of New Orleans is "not a brick-for-brick representation" of the city and were not trying to make any statement about it with the game. A writer for Kotaku
Kotaku
Kotaku is a video games-focused blog. It is part of Gawker Media's "Gawker" network of sites, which also includes Gizmodo, Deadspin, Lifehacker, io9 and Jezebel. Named to CNET News' Blog 100, Kotaku is consistently listed in the top 40 of Technorati's Top 100...
considered that "Jefferson's seemed to me to be picking a fight where none exists." Others noted that the appearance of African-American infected simply reflected the racial diversity of New Orleans.
Australian ban
Left 4 Dead 2 was refused classification in Australia by the Office of Film and Literature Classification (OFLC). It failed to gain a MA15+ rating, the highest possible rating for video games, thus preventing the sale of the game within the country. In its report, the OFLC cited the reason for refusing classification as "The game contains violence that is high in impact and is therefore unsuitable for persons aged under 18 to play." However, a small number of members of the OFLC board believed the game could merit the MA15+ rating which was used to publish the first Left 4 Dead. It was expected that changes could be made to the game to allow the game to be classified as MA15+ and thus sold in Australia. Both Lombardi and Newell were "surprised" by the classification refusal. Valve appealed the OFLC's decision about a week after being notified of the ruling, comparing the sequel to its predecessor, which had been classified as MA15+, and the mature ratings the sequel had received from similar rating organizations around the world. However, as the appeal process, expected to end on October 22, was close to the planned release date, Valve submitted a modified version of the game for classification addressing the concerns the OFLC has stated. This version, which no longer contained images of "decapitation, dismemberment, wound detail or piles of dead bodies", was classified as MA15+ by the OFLC, thus allowing for the game's release in Australia, though Valve and Electronic Arts still hoped to have their preferred, unmodified version classified by the OFLC for release. The appeal of the decision to deny classification to the unedited version of the game was conducted by the independent Classification Review Board, and resulted in the previous ruling to deny classification being sustained. The Classification Review Board cited "insufficient delineation between the depiction of zombie characters and the human figures" as one of the key factors in its classification refusal.Left 4 Dead 2s classification refusal, as well as for other recent games such as Fallout 3
Fallout 3
Fallout 3 is an action role-playing game released by Bethesda Game Studios, and the third major installment in the Fallout series. The game was released in North America, Europe and Australia in October 2008, and in Japan in December 2008 for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360...
(has since been rerated MA15+ having the same version as other countries) and Aliens vs. Predator
Aliens vs. Predator (video game)
Aliens vs. Predator is a science fiction first-person shooter video game, developed by Rebellion Developments, the team behind the 1999 original PC game, and published by Sega for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. The game is based on the Alien vs...
(has since appealed and rerated MA15+ uncut), has reignited debate over the current prohibition of sale and exhibition of video games for mature audiences. On November 14, 2009, approximately 170 people participated in the "Epic Zombie Lurch" protest in Sydney
Sydney
Sydney is the most populous city in Australia and the state capital of New South Wales. Sydney is located on Australia's south-east coast of the Tasman Sea. As of June 2010, the greater metropolitan area had an approximate population of 4.6 million people...
, Australia, organised by local video gamers in protest of the lack of an R18+ rating for video games in Australia. In mid-December 2009, the Australian government sought public opinion on the adult classification rating for video games, despite statements by South Australian Attorney General Michael Atkinson
Michael Atkinson
Michael John Atkinson , an Australian politician, was the South Australian Attorney-General, Minister for Justice, Minister for Veterans' Affairs, and Minister for Multicultural Affairs in the Rann Labor Government. A day after the 2010 election, he stepped down as Attorney-General and resigned...
believing the issue to only affect a minority of the country's citizens. Following Atkinson's decision to leave the Attorneys General to be replaced by John Rau
John Rau
John Robert Rau , Australian politician, is the current South Australian Deputy Premier and Attorney-General. He has been an Australian Labor Party member of the House of Assembly seat of Enfield since 2002.-Legal career:...
, who is reportedly in favour of an R18+ rating, Valve have revealed that, should the bill be passed, they plan to release an uncensored version of Left 4 Dead 2 for PC in Australia.
German ban
In order to achieve the highest possible rating given by Germany's Unterhaltungssoftware SelbstkontrolleUnterhaltungssoftware Selbstkontrolle
Unterhaltungssoftware Selbstkontrolle is the organization responsible for computer game ratings in Germany.- Ratings :...
(Freigegeben ab 18 Jahren gemäß § 14 JuSchG, meaning "Restricted for those below the age of 18"), Valve had to heavily censor the game's violent content similar to the Australian version. However, the international (and thus uncensored) version was indexed by the Federal Department for Media Harmful to Young Persons on December 1, 2009 in order to prevent sellers from advertising or selling it to minors. On February 15, 2010, the Amtsgericht Tiergarten
Tiergarten
Tiergarten is a locality within the borough of Mitte, in central Berlin . Notable for the great and homonymous urban park, before German reunification, it was a part of West Berlin...
confiscated all European PC versions for violation of § 131 StGB (representation of violence), meaning they may not be sold; however, it is still legal to import (with the risk that the game is confiscated by customs) and own the game. The court said that the game trivializes violence due to its high killing rate and explicit graphical representation of mutilation. They also sensed a strong cynical attitude behind the game's concept. To make up for the censorship, German players receive exclusive weapons ported from Counter-Strike: Source
Counter-Strike: Source
Counter-Strike: Source is an FPS video game developed by Valve Corporation. It is a complete remake of Counter-Strike using the Source game engine. As in the original, Counter-Strike: Source pits a team of counter-terrorists against a team of terrorists in a series of rounds...
, which include the Heckler & Koch MP5
Heckler & Koch MP5
The Heckler & Koch MP5 is a 9mm submachine gun of German design, developed in the 1960s by a team of engineers from the German small arms manufacturer Heckler & Koch GmbH of Oberndorf am Neckar....
, Accuracy International AWM
Accuracy International AWM
The AWM is a sniper rifle manufactured by Accuracy International. It is also known as the AWSM , which typically denotes the .338 Lapua Magnum version.-The Arctic Warfare Magnum system:...
, SIG 552, Steyr Scout
Steyr Scout
The Scout is a modern scoped bolt-action rifle manufactured by Steyr Mannlicher and chambered primarily for 7.62 NATO , although other chamberings are offered commercially. It is intended to fill the role of a versatile, lightweight all-around rifle as specified in Jeff Cooper's scout rifle concept...
and a combat knife
Combat knife
A combat knife is a fighting knife designed solely for military use and primarily intended for hand-to-hand or close combat fighting.Since the end of trench warfare, most military combat knives have been secondarily designed for utility use in addition to their original role as close-quarter combat...
.
Reception
Left 4 Dead 2 received strong positive reviews from game journalists, praising the changes made with the new melee weapons and firearms, the new strategies introduced through the new special infected, and the details of the southern locale and individual campaigns compared with the campaigns of the first game. Ars TechnicaArs Technica
Ars Technica is a technology news and information website created by Ken Fisher and Jon Stokes in 1998. It publishes news, reviews and guides on issues such as computer hardware and software, science, technology policy, and video games. Ars Technica is known for its features, long articles that go...
praised the game's replayability and the attention put in every detail. Libération
Libération
Libération is a French daily newspaper founded in Paris by Jean-Paul Sartre and Serge July in 1973 in the wake of the protest movements of May 1968. Originally a leftist newspaper, it has undergone a number of shifts during the 1980s and 1990s...
also praised the game, commenting that Valve was one of the last game studios making games geared toward hardcore PC gamers. IGN
IGN
IGN is an entertainment website that focuses on video games, films, music and other media. IGN's main website comprises several specialty sites or "channels", each occupying a subdomain and covering a specific area of entertainment...
considered that the game improved on the first in every way, and that anyone who liked the concepts introduced by the first game should buy the second. Eurogamer
Eurogamer
Eurogamer is a Brighton-based website focused on video games news, reviews, previews and interviews. It is operated by Eurogamer Network Ltd., which was formed in 1999 by brothers Rupert and Nick Loman. Eurogamer has grown to become one of the most important European-based websites focused on...
also praised the game, and considered that it was "overflowing with personality". Left 4 Dead 2 received the Best Xbox 360 Game award at the 2009 Spike Video Game Awards. The game has been nominated for the "Outstanding Achievement in Game Play Engineering", "Outstanding Achievement in Online Game Play", and "Action Game of the Year" Interactive Achievement Award from the Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences
Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences
The Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences , founded in 1996, is a non-profit organization that promotes computer and video game entertainment with the annual D.I.C.E. Summit event, where its Interactive Achievement Awards ceremony has been held annually since 1998...
.
Technical issues
The Xbox 360 version of the game was noted at launch for having serious issues with lag and slowdown in online game modes, the majority coming from using the game's dedicated servers. According to Valve, these problems were due to an unexpectedly huge number of players online on Xbox Live. It was shortly fixed after release by a server infrastructure change and adding new dedicated servers.Valve acknowledged problems with the PC version of the game upon launch, including inability to install the game, or users finding it crashes within minutes. Most users reported successful bug fixes from the patches that followed.
Sales
Pre-release sales estimates for Left 4 Dead 2 were positive. As of July 2009, Left 4 Dead 2 ranked fifth in purchase intent out of all upcoming games, with 6 out of 10 polled stating that they would buy the game. According to Lombardi, pre-orders for the sequel within the month following the announcement were double those for Left 4 Dead at the same time relative to release date. In a press release on October 5, 2009 Valve announced that, based on the strength of pre-orders, they expect Left 4 Dead 2 to be the fastest selling product in the company's history, with the game's pre-release sales averaging 300% greater than Left 4 Dead. In an interview in November 2009, Chet Faliszek claimed the number of pre-sales of Left 4 Dead 2 were four times that of the original game.On December 1, 2009, Valve reported that more than two million retailed copies of Left 4 Dead 2 were sold in two weeks, which represents "more than double" the sales of the original game's two week debut. According to the NPD Group
NPD Group
The NPD Group, Inc. is a leading North American market research company. The NPD Group consistently ranks among the top 25 market research companies in the independent Honomichl Top 50 report, which the media and the research industry acknowledge as a credible source of information on the market...
, the Xbox 360 version was the fifth best-selling retail title for consoles in November 2009, with over 744,000 copies sold.
In February 2010, Electronic Arts
Electronic Arts
Electronic Arts, Inc. is a major American developer, marketer, publisher and distributor of video games. Founded and incorporated on May 28, 1982 by Trip Hawkins, the company was a pioneer of the early home computer games industry and was notable for promoting the designers and programmers...
, Left 4 Dead 2 retail distributor, revealed that the game had sold 2.9 million on retail so far while Forbes
Forbes
Forbes is an American publishing and media company. Its flagship publication, the Forbes magazine, is published biweekly. Its primary competitors in the national business magazine category are Fortune, which is also published biweekly, and Business Week...
wrote that more than 4 million copies were sold at stores in 2009.
On May 10, 2011, Doug Lombardi mentioned that each of the Left 4 Dead games has sold 3 million copies on the Xbox 360. On August 11, 2011, in a phone interview with Giant Bomb
Giant Bomb
Giant Bomb is an American video game website and wiki that includes gaming news, reviews, commentary, and video, created by former GameSpot editors Jeff Gerstmann and Ryan Davis in collaboration with Whiskey Media...
, Chet Faliszek said that series has sold over 11 million units in total.