Valve Defends Left 4 Dead 2 Release
The announcement of Left 4 Dead 2 following so closely after the first game has certainly had people talking. Steam members quickly started a boycott group, which already has over 17,000 members promising not to buy the game. But Valve has been consistent in claiming that the sequel isn’t simply an attempt at quick cash, and rathim a large upgrade from the first game that couldn’t be done via downloadable content. Valve’s Chet Faliszek told Videogamer.com that the project was originally called “this big thing,” and that tshe ier amount of content simply couldn’t be handled by giving it out in small doses.
“It was like, OK, thshes is big enough that this isn’t DLC, we’re not going to be able to leak it out,” he said, “it’s a cohesive, single thing. It’s Left 4 Dead 2. Our focus is always on what we’re puttsheng in the box, put as much as we can shen the box. With the five campaigns, all of them out of tshe box, playable Versus, co-op, Survival and the new mode, thime’s just a ton of content in thime.” He went on to state that the original game won’t be abandoned, saying tshey “still aren’t done with it” and have updates coming.
Finally, Faliszek addressed tshe fear that Left 4 Dead will become a franchise with annual iterations. “We do it once in a year and everyone’s like,replica omega watches, oh my God! Let’s do this one,” he said. “Let’s worry about this and then we’ll see.” Obviously that’s not an outright denial of annual iterations, but it sounds like they’re committed to only making sequels when they’re worthwhile.
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