Zombicidal

Valve has just announced the first DLC addon for Left 4 Dead 2, “The Passing”. The new DLC, set to be released in early spring 2010 for the PC and Xbox 360, will include a “huge offering” of gameplay content, including a new cooperative campaign and narrative; new Survival, Versus, and Scavenge maps; a new Uncommon Common Infected; and a new melee weapon and firearm. Oh, and there’s one more thing…

The Left 4 Dead Survivors will be in it!

You heard us right! After months of speculation on Valve’s promised “ode” to the original Survivors, the studio has decided to call all the Survivors together in one campaign.

The story will be set just after Dead Center, in a small town in rural Georgia. Players will take the role of the L4D2 Survivors when they encounter and interact with the original ones. So, if you’ve been missing your favorite eye candy, pill-pilferer, geriatric gunman, or leather-clad misomaniac, this spring, Valve has just the right medicine for you.

The developers also mention that there will be a brand-spanking-new cooperative “challenge mode” of play. We don’t have any specifics on what this new game mode might be. It could be another difficult campaign-style mode, like Realism, or it could be a competitive game mode that pits two teams of Survivors against each other, much like some on the official forums have been suggesting for months. The latter theory seems particularly plausible, considering that both groups of Survivors will be in it.

We should also mention that this should settle the debates about whether or not the original Survivors died at Last Stand (and thus about its canonicality).

See the official Steam News bulletin, quoted below. ▼

Elunah Left 4 Dead 2, Patch DLC, melee

It seems that Valve has purchased and parked the domain name midnight-riders.com. We can only speculate about the reasons for this move, but we can expect that in the future, we’ll be seeing more about the imaginary rock band and its place in Left 4 Dead 2.

EDIT: It now seems that the site is part of a viral marketing plan from Valve. Whatever the case, it’s pretty interesting, and we may have to walk around town sporting those Midnight Riders shirts they have available.

Elunah Left 4 Dead 2 DLC, speculation

According to an interview with Valve developer Yasser Mailaka, Valve is looking into ways to bring custom content to Xbox 360 players. The custom content, which is crafted in Left 4 Dead’s SDK, is currently only available for PC players.

Mailaka identified integration with Microsoft’s distribution system and finding a way to filter out copyrighted content to be primary hurdles in the way of the potential offering.

Elunah Developer, Left 4 Dead 1 community, DLC, SDK, Xbox 360

Destructoid recently visited Valve to check out more about the upcoming DLC for Left 4 Dead, Crash Course. The preview includes a large number of spoilers, so I won’t include a synopsis here, but if you want to read the juicy, hot-off-the-compiler info, you should surf on over there and have a look.

The Destructoid staff was definitely impressed with the campaign, particularly with how well-suited it was to Versus play. Hunter connoisseurs will be happy to know that there are plenty of death-defying drops and curve-worthy building facades to play around on. As mentioned previously, there will be some sort of artillery that is used to clear the way during the crescendo of the first chapter. The second chapter crescendo sounds even more exciting, but we’d like to give you a chance to experience its thrills first-hand.

Destructoid also gave us a look at the poster art. Apparently, Zoey has improved from Guy Fawkes to be a bit of a Angelina Jolie-Uma Thurman hybrid.

Thanks to GunRabbit for the link.

Elunah Left 4 Dead 1, Patch DLC, gameplay, preview

The recent GameTrailers TV episode featuring Left 4 Dead 2 includes a healthy helping of information on the upcoming DLC for Left 4 Dead, named Crash Course. The eponymous campaign included in the DLC will be geared towards giving players a 30-minute Versus experience, though the campaign will be playable in the other game modes, as well.

The first of the two chapters included will begin at the site of the helicopter crash. As many observant players have noticed, the chopper pilot had been exposed to the infection immediately prior to the daring rescue atop Mercy Hospital, as evidenced by his sickly skin tone, comment about an “incident”, and his unnaturally bad taste in shirts.

In the GTTV feature, Zoey can be heard saying “He turned into a zombie, Francis. He wasn’t gonna land the thing.”

Little else is known about the layout of the campaign, except that it will take place in an urban setting, probably near large roads/highways. At one point in the feature, players appear to use a howitzer to blow up a roadblock. This is probably the beginning of a crescendo, though we would certainly like to see what a howitzer would do to the hungry hordes of doom.

Chet mentioned that there will be a few tweaks to Versus game mechanics. For instance, players will be able to see the status of Infected teammates, namely their progress in recharging skills. All items will spawn in the same places for both teams, potentially increasing balance. In addition, since the campaign is shorter, Level 2 weapons will be available much earlier.

Crash Course is expected to be released on PC and Xbox 360 in September. It will be free on the PC, but there will be a small fee for Xbox players.

Elunah Patch campaign, DLC, gameplay, maps, preview, videos, Xbox 360

Steam News has just announced that a new DLC, named “Crash Course”, will be available in September. The DLC will include content set between the events of No Mercy and Death Toll, with particular aspects aimed at creating the option for a more compact Versus experience. The DLC will include Survival maps, a co-op campaign, and new dialogue, as well. We’re expecting the first forum trolls to declare that this is a superficial attempt to quell the L4D2 boycott any minute now! Stay tuned.

Crash Course Campaign Due in September

August 4, 2009 – Valve, creators of best-selling game franchises (such as Half-Life, Portal, Team Fortress, and Counter-Strike) and leading technologies (such as Steam and Source), today announced the next major downloadable content (DLC) update for its co-operative zombie thriller, Left 4 Dead (L4D), the #1 new game title on Xbox 360 and PC in 2008

Entitled “Crash Course,” the latest DLC delivers new single-player, multiplayer and co-operative gameplay to both platforms. Targeted for release in September, “Crash Course” bridges the gap between the end of the “No Mercy” campaign and the beginning of “Death Toll” in the original game, expanding the game universe with new locations, new dialogue from the original cast, and an explosive finale

While containing both Survival maps and a Co-operative Campaign, the primary goal of “Crash” is to deliver a complete Versus mode experience in just 30 minutes, resulting in a streamlined version of the game’s existing Versus campaigns. A recharge timer for infected teammates has also been added, and item spawn behavior has changed for more balanced gameplay.

“Since the release of Left 4 Dead last November, the design team has been excited about creating new experiences for this world and allowing players to do the same, by releasing much of our internal toolset, like the Survival Pack and Authoring Tools,” said Gabe Newell. “We’re working with the fans toward the ongoing entertainment value of the product.”

Left 4 Dead is an action horror game from Valve that blends the social entertainment experience of multiplayer games such as Counter-Strike and Team Fortress with the dramatic, narrative experience made popular in single player action game classics such as the Half-Life series of games. Released in November of 2008, L4D has earned over 50 industry awards from outlets around the world and sold almost 3 million copies worldwide.

Left 4 Dead: Crash Course is targeted for release in September and will be available free of charge on the PC and for 560 Gamer points on Xbox Live.

Elunah Left 4 Dead 1, Patch Crash Course, DLC

While this is primarily a Left 4 Dead fan site and guide, we like to consider ourselves connoisseurs of the gamut of zombie mayhem. So, when this trailer for the Call of Duty 5: Shi no Numa DLC came out, we pretty much ogled it with slackjawed desire not unlike that found on the undead, and then proceeded to scat ourselves. Metaphorically speaking.

“Shi no Numa” is Japanese for “Swamp of Death”, simplified to “Zombie Swamp” in its official English name. You can find out more about Shi no Numa at the Call of Duty 5 Wiki. We’ve embedded the video below. Enjoy, zombicidal maniacs!

Elunah Media, Other Games call of duty 5, DLC

At around 3 PM PST, Valve released the highly anticipated DLC update for Left 4 Dead, which includes a new game mode, Survival, as well as the official Dead Air and Death Toll Versus maps. Unfortunately, the SDK has been delayed.

The Left 4 Dead Survival Pack is now available for the PC and Xbox 360, free of charge to all owners of the game. The full change list for the PC release is below. In addition, both the retail and Steam versions of the game (PC and 360) are now available for a special price. Check Steam and local retailers for pricing details. For more information about L4D, please visit www.l4d.com

Survival Mode

• New gameplay Mode
• 16 maps including Last Stand
• Leaderboards
• 7 new achievements

Versus Changes

• Fixed a case where versus team score would continue to be recalculated after the score panel was displayed
• Fixed an issue with recalculating the versus score health bonus for a player when they are rescued from being incapacitated
• Fixed being able to start a swing as an infected, then teleport to the survivors and have the claw swing hit a survivor
• Fixed a case where teleporting to the survivors would not reset the ability timer
• Fixed an exploit where you could load the chamber of a weapon with bullets by holding down the melee key
• Fixed a case where it was not possible to join a game while it was in a finale
• Fixed a rare case where listen servers would speed up the game over time
• Removed convars related to melee fatigue
• Fixed a case where infected players would get a respawn time on their initial spawn into a map

Server Changes

• Made ms_force_dedicated_server not require cheats
• Add a message when queuing a heartbeat
• Simplified setting of game mode
• Removed convars director_no_human_zombies and director_holdout_mode
• Added mp_gamemode [coop,versus,survival]

General
Added lobby join and leave messages

We’re looking forward to playing with these modifications! Interestingly, Valve held back on making any real Versus balance tweaks. We are extremely pleased with the fixes that were made, namely the initial respawn timer. Read more…

Elunah Left 4 Dead 1, Patch DLC, Patch, Survival