Correction: November 18th and 21st - 8/25/08
Left 4 Dead 411 has received official word from Doug Lombardi that Left 4 Dead will release on November 18th in the U.S. and November 21st in Europe. Doug Lombardi responded to our request for confirmation on Gabe Newell's recent statement on a Nov 20th release:
Nov 18 in the states. Nov 21 in Europe (US retailers do "new release Tues" and the EU does that on Friday).
Lombardi also mentioned that the timing coincides with the 10th anniversary of Half-Life 1's release, which was originally released November 19, 1998.
Good news for those in the U.S., sorry to those in Europe.
Left 4 Dead Delayed, November 20th - 8/24/08
During a video interview with Gamekings.tv Gabe Newell confirmed that Left 4 Dead will release on November 20th, 2008. The actual quote that takes place at 12:26 in the video:
Left 4 Dead is going to be released on the tenth anniversary of Half-Life, our first game, so that will be on November 20th, the third week in November.
Two week delay isn't much, we hope this one sticks.
We can't know for sure why Left 4 Dead was pushed back half a month, but when they first announced November 4th, the Gears of War 2 release date was not yet set. Life is tough for original IPs no matter what the company, so it doesn't come as too much of a surprise. The 20th it is!
The rest of the video is good to watch, lots of new footage including the introductory cinematic to the Hospital campaign that has never been seen before.
Warheart's L4D Impressions - 8/24/08
Left 4 Dead 411 community member Warheart has come back from GC 2008 with impressions, screenshots, and video of Left 4 Dead.
No developers or folks from Valve were present, but the following information came in:
When my first session was finished, the guys that watched over the booth said, that the games release was november 20th. I told them that the official date I heard was nov 4th for the U.S. and the 7th for europe, but they kept saying that they where told it would release on the 20th.
This follows the change in release dates from November 4th to the 17th at Amazon.com, GameStop, IGN, and GameSpot almost a month ago. We e-mailed Mike Booth at the beginning of the month asking about this delay, but have not received word back yet. This almost certainly confirms that Left 4 Dead has been delayed half a month to November 17th in the U.S. and the 20th in Europe.
We will post it as soon as we get official word.
Thanks again to Warheart, find his post on our forums here. GameSpy has posted a strange interview with Gabe Newell if you're looking for more on L4D.
New Screenshots and Old Trailer - 8/22/08
Four new HD screenshots of Left 4 Dead are available as well as the new L4D trailer we saw at E3 2008. The screenshots show off the new Survivors on the farm level, Infected on the streets of Hospital, and the one below showing a hopefully deep-under-construction new generic Zoey face and some pretty weird shadow effects.
If you click on the image to see it in its entirety, you'll also notice the world's largest bottle of pills attached to Zoey's waist. Remember you can find all screenshots of Left 4 Dead in our screenshots section and all the videos you could ever hope for in our L4D videos section.
Direct-feed HD L4D Footage - 8/21/08
IGN has posted over 10 minutes of HD Left 4 Dead footage with Gabe Newell narrating. The video covers the first couple of maps in the Hospital campaign.
The game is looking really good, from shadows to the particle effects to the UI. They have modified the glowy outline of characters behind objects, making it sharper. The video is labeled on IGN as Xbox 360 commentary but the video is actually from the PC version.
If you didn't get enough of Gabe, you can hear more from him in his interview with Videogaming247 talking a little bit about Left 4 Dead.
GameStar.de has posted a two minute video from GC 2008. This footage features German commentary telling you all the deep secrets of Left 4 Dead that you've always wondered about, if only you could understand it.
Finally, IGN has posted a very short preview of Left 4 Dead stating that "Left 4 Dead releases this November on Xbox 360 and PC and will have playable demos available on both platforms so that you can try before you buy." Whether demos will release before or after release is still unknown.
Achtung Deutsche! Spielt L4D! - 8/16/08
PC Games magazine in Germany, one of the largest gaming magazines in the country, has annnounced a chance to fly with them to Valve headquarters and play Left 4 Dead for a day, all expenses paid. The only requirements are that you are 18 years of age, have a valid passport, and are a registered member of PCGames.de. All you have to do is send your information and write why you should be picked to left4dead@pcgames.de by Friday, August 29.
The other opportunity for Germans to get their hands on Left 4 Dead takes place from Thursday through Sunday in Leipzig. Valve announced recently that Left 4 Dead will be playable at Games Convention 2008. If you have the opportunity to attend, please take pictures and tell us how it goes on our forums.
While we're on the topic of Germany, there's a German Left 4 Dead fansite at http://www.left4dead.de/ which has been doing a good job at providing German-language news for L4D. To all those that are trying for the PC Games opportunity, Viel Glück!
Left 4 Dead Almost Famous - 8/12/08
Left 4 Dead will be shown at the Leipzig Games Convention in Germany, Festival du Jeu Video in France, PC Gamer Showdown in the UK, and the Xbox 360 version will debut at Penny Arcade Expo in Seattle, Washington.
Valve posted a press release with the following quote from Gabe Newell:
The shared experience of Left 4 Dead is unlike that of any other action game. That's what we've experienced playing the game, and from showing the game to the press and our partners. It sounds cliche, but in many ways you have to play this one to truly appreciate what we're attempting. So, to give gamers a chance to sample this new type of experience first hand, we're taking Left 4 Dead on the road.
The Penny Arcade Expo takes place August 29-31st and will be the first-ever public showing of the Xbox 360 version. As of today, nobody outside of Valve has ever been able to touch and write about the Xbox 360 version, so we can take it as a very positive sign of the state of that version of the game. If you plan on visiting this year's PAX and are able to get your hands on L4D 360, please let us know how it plays!
Finally, Gamereactor TV posted their video interview with Mike Booth from E3.
New Screenshots, Awards, Commentary - 8/5/08
The official L4D website has been updated with a new look and three new screenshots. The screenshots include a new up-close shot of the Boomer (see below), a single infected, and a high resolution of the new Louis model's face from Gabe's E3 presentation.
The news page has been updated with all of the awards Left 4 Dead gathered at the expo, including Best Multiplayer Experience from IGN, Best PC Game from 1UP, Best PC Game and Best Multiplayer Game from UGO.com, Best of Show from TQcast, and of course the most coveted and previously posted about Best Online Multiplayer Game from the Game Critics Awards.
The information page has been updated and it seems they are now officially calling the campaigns "movies", which is a little cheesy (needing to be in quotes every time it is mentioned) but might help get the point across to new players. The page also lists the following feature:
Developer's Commentary mode allows gamers to go "behind the scenes" of the game
We had been hoping for this feature in Left 4 Dead, as it has been in all of Valve's recent releases. In past titles this feature has offered interesting insight into design decisions and processes and should do the same for L4D.
That's it for now, congratulations once again to Valve for all of the awards and praise Left 4 Dead received at this year's E3!
L4D Wins Best Online Multiplayer Game - 8/5/08
The winners of this year's Game Critics Awards have been announced, and Left 4 Dead has won Best Online Multiplayer Game! Check out the rest of the winners here.
The Game Critics Awards is an independent group of journalists from 36 leading North American media outlets that cover the videogame industry, including IGN, GameSpot, PCGamer, WIRED, the 1UP Network, Kotaku, and more.
The critics have voted, and if you are looking for the best online multiplayer experience of the year, check out Left 4 Dead this November for PC and Xbox 360. Congratulations to all of the people at Valve that have worked so hard to bring Left 4 Dead to life.
L4D Slides, Impressions, Interview - 8/4/08
In our last news post, we linked to some stories explaining a presentation done on Left 4 Dead graphics technology by Valve employees Randy Lundeen and Moby Francke. Valve has now published the slides from the presentation on their website [warning: PDF, 6.61MB] The slides are in the form of a 63 page PDF file. The first half of the slides, 1-31, detail their work on Team Fortress 2. Left 4 Dead starts on page 32 with a brief overview and then gets right into the graphics talk.
Thankfully the slides are all labeled. Screenshots start on slide 36 and allow you to compare and see specifically what each filmic effect the developers have been talking about actually does. The filmic effects include color correction, grain, vignette, local contrast enhancement as well as changes depending on stress level and gameplay. Slides 43 and 44 provide screenshots with all filmic effects on and off for comparison, which you can see a part of below:
The presentation goes on to show headlights, fog, particles, shadowing and puddles and is worth looking at.
We found a thread on the 1UP message boards from a lucky soul living in Bellevue, WA (where Valve is headquartered) that got some hands-on time with Left 4 Dead. We know there are a lot more people out there that have gotten the chance, so if you're one of them and haven't shared your story please post on our forums.
Gamasutra has released an interview with Doug Lombardi talking in part about Valve's acquisition of Turtle Rock Studios, and finally Kotaku has revealed their picks for the Game Critics Awards for Best of E3 2008. The games up for nomination are located here, where L4D tied for second-most nominations of any game, with four. Kotaku chose Left 4 Dead as Best PC Game, Best Action Game, and Best Online Multiplayer Game. The Game Critics Awards tallies the votes of 36 media outlets, so hopefully the other 35 were given the same chance to play Left 4 Dead! For more information on the awards, the process and the judges, head to their website here. Winners to be announced tomorrow, August 5th.
New L4D Graphics Tech Explained - 7/29/08
Two articles have come out explaining new graphics technology seen in action on Left 4 Dead during E3 2008. The first comes from CVG when they talked with Valve employee Jason Mitchell. Besides the graphics talk, it mentions that Steam Cloud will precede the release of Left 4 Dead which "means your campaigns can be saved and resumed from anywhere at any time, even if the friends you were playing with have gone on a holiday." We're not sure how exactly this will work, likely just saved checkpoints.
The second article, In-Depth: How Valve Makes Art To Enhance Gameplay, brings to the masses a presentation from Microsoft's recent Gamefest by Valve employees Randy Lundeen, on the L4D team, and Moby Francke, art director on TF2. One particularly interesting point on Left 4 Dead:
The AI Director's omniscient knowledge of the game state allows the game's visual tone to change even before events take place. Said Lundeen, "We take the local contrast and crank it up. Everything gets sharper, like there's an adrenaline rush, and things start to feel more clear, like people get in near-death experiences. What the Director is subtly saying to you is, 'I am going to spawn 100 zombies around the corner.'"
All the new effects that we were able to see from the many E3 videos released have looked great, although the red color and vignetting when being mauled by a Hunter seem a bit too extreme.
E3Coverage.com has posted a video interview with Chet Faliszek, with Chet looking particularly distracted inbetween answering questions. The video offers nothing breaking, going over Versus mode, the Director, Survivor bots and Xbox 360 co-op, the campaigns and weapons. If you don't watch it for the L4D content, watch it for the 80's intro.
RockPaperShotgun posted an article The Joy of Co-Op which covers L4D and lists some 'co-op classics'. Lastly, QuakeCon starts on the 31st of July. Left 4 Dead was shown at least year's event but from what information we have now, it looks like Left 4 Dead will not make it. Probably something to do with needing to finish the game for this November.
20 Minute Lombardi L4D Interview - 7/27/08
WhatIfGaming has posted a 20 minute interview with Valve's marketing man Doug Lombardi on Left 4 Dead. This video puts the shaky into shakycam, and we must warn you that by the end of the 20 minutes you might just go insane from the haunting elevator music in the background. The interview covers Mike Booth, art, the story, Versus mode and mods, hardware requirements, what Valve is doing to combat cheating, and a question concerning a PS3 version.
1UP and EGM have named Left 4 Dead Best E3 PC Game, "thanks to a winning combination of kickass graphics, scary and challenging monster A.I, and innovative co-op gameplay. The zombies are coming to kill us, people....and we can't wait."
MPOGD.com has a L4D preview. Finally, it has been announced that Left 4 Dead will be at this year's PCGamer Showdown LAN in the UK which takes place on September 27th and 28th.
L4D Contest, Screenshot, Video - 7/24/08
Shacknews has launched a contest to win Left 4 Dead shirts. All you have to do is grab a microphone and record your best zombie impression. They have also released a new L4D screenshot which you can see below:
They also posted the new screenshots from Maximum PC, except higher resolution which you can find here.
Tom's Games have a shakycam of Left 4 Dead from E3 2008, containing footage from the first map of Hospital. They also show people playing the game quite a bit, just to upset you further. It seems that the flood of news from E3 is unfortunately dying off. As always, the new screenshot can be found in our screenshots section and the video can be found along with the rest in our Left 4 Dead videos section.
L4D Videos, Podcasts, and Mints - 7/23/08
GameSpot has released their interview with Doug Lombardi about Left 4 Dead taken during E3 2008. It is over 12 minutes long and you can find it here or just watch it embedded below. You should watch it because it has footage of the first map of the Farmhouse level. You also have to watch console commands being typed in to show off the pipe bomb at 4:35, but eventually it gets to more gameplay footage of the Hospital. Doug is asked about the new character models and also refers to the scenarios/campaigns as 'movies' many times. The best news from the interview is that when explaining how many maps there will be, he explains that Versus mode maps will be "remixes" of the 20 co-op maps (4 scenarios, 5 maps each).
Thanks to community member Dead Fish for the following information: two podcasts have come out that both speak of Left 4 Dead. The first is from Giant Bombcast and takes place between 41:26 and 46:04. They talk about the new characters and the difficulty of the game: at the time they played Left 4 Dead, at the end of day 3 at E3, no press had beaten the Hospital scenario. This is really great to hear, and one of the guys even said it was tougher than it was the last time he had played. Another guy on the podcast said he didn't think the dynamic difficulty was working correctly, and it's unfortunate but it seems like the impression that people got from Gabe Newell's E3 presentation was that the AI Director is for making the game easier for people who are doing worse. Mike set the record straight in the recent Maximum PC interview, and we hope the point continues to be driven that the Director isn't just to make the game easier when you're doing worse.
The second podcast that Dead Fish told us about is from Sarcastic Gamer and takes place between 27:49 and 29:50. They mention that Gears of War 2 and Left 4 Dead are releasing on practically the same day, which is unfortunate. They liked the game, and also said that there's an option when setting up the game to have all-chat on. The last bit of the podcast pertaining to Left 4 Dead deals with L4D mints pictured here:
You can read their story here, but basically Valve brought too many mints to E3 and gave them a bunch of them. One guy that did get them at E3 is selling his on eBay, but Sarcastic Gamer is choosing to include them in any purchase of a Sarcastic Gamer t-shirt ($16) or mousepad ($6). Needless to say, I have a mousepad incoming and will let you know if they deliver the goods. Finally, MTV Multiplayer says that Left 4 Dead was good and felt finished.
New Left 4 Dead Screenshots - 7/23/08
Maximum PC has received four exclusive new screenshots from Left 4 Dead, showing off some of the new engine additions and characters. Two of them show off the new Louis model in action, one shows off the three Survivors besides Zoey (featuring Francis), and the fourth is pictured below with some great looking infected and some new screen effects:
In some of the Survivor screenshots it is raining and you are able to see rainbows around lights. Maximum PC also listed some details of the Left 4 Dead source engine:
- The infected hoard in Left4Dead are realistically animated so they anticipate and lean into turns based on the curvature of their AI navigation paths.
- The physics are simulated with a blending of traditional animation and ragdoll physics. In addition to location-specific damage, shoves and gunshots are physics interactions, based on the location of impact and what the infected hits afterward.
- Even if zombies are brain dead, the AI driving them is smart. The infected will climb and path-find over objects, not just around them. They'll even break down walls and doors to get to you.
- Filmic effects: Color correction allows the developers to maintain a specific palette while controlling saturation and visual elements based on their importance to the player and the scene.
- Film grain is enhanced in dark areas, and contrast is ramped up to sharpen areas with high visual detail. Subtle reduction of brightness at the top and sides of the screen draws your attention toward the action and increases the tension.
- Self-shadowed Normal Mapping locally alters surface orientation to cause detailed lighting effects. This feature incorporates local self-shadowing information to add greater surface richness. Surfaces will react to lighting from radiosity as well as dynamic lights in the scene, like your flashlight (which cast dynamic soft-shadows in the level).
Thanks again to Maximum PC, who conducted one of the best L4D interviews recently and now has brought us these screenshots and details. AtomicGamer has posted their impressions of Left 4 Dead from E3 2008. As always, if you want to check out the new screenshots along with every other L4D screenshot released, go to our Left 4 Dead screenshot section.
