Left 4 Dead Hands-on Preview - Infected Side
THE WITCH
The Witch is the only boss that is almost guaranteed to give someone a bad day. Players cannot control the Witch so this one is AI only. She spends her time writhing on the floor, whimpering in pain until a Survivor gets too close or makes too much noise. In most respects, she looks like a regular Infected, female of course. You won't miss her though, because of her strange, tortured behavior. So no, she doesn't have a pointed hat, magic, or broomstick but she does look like a hag that you may find in some of your darker fairy tales.
When you encounter her, you'll hear her shrieks and moans first. At this point, everyone should shut off their flashlights, start walking and be quiet. If everyone is careful, and you're fortunate enough to avoid any other Infected, you may be able to sneak past the Witch without any trouble. These moments are very intense, as you and your team try to control any zombie threat in the area without alerting the Witch. If you get too close to her, move too quickly, fire your gun, or shine a flashlight on her, you're going to get her attention.
This is very bad. The Witch's primary attack seems to be a melee attack that will drop any Survivor in one hit. She's very quick, so you can bet that she's going to land this on someone. I think that we only managed to destroy the Witch once without losing anybody. Fortunately, she appeared to have a reuse timer on this, like all boss Infected. Her melee still hurts quite a bit and she's packing some serious hit points as well (less than the Tank, it seemed).
I'm not sure what it is about the Witch and Tank, but it seemed that everyone liked to toss their Moltovs at these guys, which lit them on fire, and consequently I was suddenly faced with a great, flaming bad, bad Infected. Awesome.
All in all, it's best to avoid the Witch. If you do have to fight her, you can bet the players on the Infected side will try to capitalize and get involved too. Our worst situation involved a Witch and a Tank and it wasn't pretty. The Witch only shows up on normal difficulty and above, so you won't have to worry about her playing on easy (most of our play time was spent on normal).
So that's it for the Witch, a mystery no more! She moves quick, has a lot of health, and can drop you in one hit. Battling the Witch will be one of the most dangerous encounters in the game, even though a player cannot control her. I still have nightmares.
INFECTED WRAP-UP
It was a great time playing as the Infected. It's innovative and fresh - feeling like a complete game in itself. The multiplayer head-to-head feeling gives so much to a primarily cooperative experience and it'll keep you coming back again and again. The down side to the Infected is the occasional frustration, as you can die so easily, which forces you to sit and wait until you get a respawn. I can easily see many players who will be playing this game just for the Infected. All in all, I just want to get back to killing some Survivors.
