Is It Too Soon For Left 4 Dead 2? Yes.

As you have probably heard by now, Valve has announced and plans to release a sequel to Left 4 Dead this year. I for one love Left 4 Dead however will probably not buy this game. Details are scarce for this game, but it will be set during the same outbreak as the original game. Only now you will play as Uncle Phil from The Fresh Prince of Bel Air, or other sundry characters. The biggest new addition is different melee weapons such as a chainsaw, a baseball bat and a frying pan. There are also new special infected, an improved AI director and a more story-driven plot. Enough to merit a sequel and not just DLC? Some fans, and I agree, say no. (Other people, like Brandon, say yes)

My biggest issue with a sequel coming out a year after the first game is simply that it is clearly going to negatively impact the original. This isn’t an issue in normal annual games like Call of Duty or Madden. Those games are expected regularly, and not expected to be (relatively) well supported for their lifetime.

Left 4 Dead on the other hand was made by Valve, the same company behind Team Fortress 2. TF2 is a title that seems to be getting new, awesome updates every month. Last September, at the Leipzig Games Convention, Gabe Newell said some things that seem to have come back to haunt him;

One of the things that we’re doing is we seem to be in a transition between games as a package product and games more of a service ['¦] So we’ll do the same thing with Left 4 Dead where we’ll have the initial release and then we’ll release more movies, more characters, more weapons, unlockables, achievements, because that’s the way you continue to grow a community over time.

Today, RPS directly referenced the above quote when talking to Valve’s VP of marketing, Doug Lombardi, who had this to say:

So we put a lot of those [post launch L4D ideas] on the board and said, ‘œWhat can we do quickly? What’s going to take more time? What’s the best way to get stuff out to customers?’ And part of that plan ended up with L4D2, with things like changing the way the finales worked, introducing some new Survivors, giving new dialogue, telling more about the story, introducing new Specials. We said, ‘œWow, that makes for a nice sequel.’

He also asked the gaming community to ‘œtrust us a little bit.’ Something that I’m sure the disappointed console owners who wanted to play TF2 properly sniggered at. But why should we have to ‘œtrust’ a game company to do the right thing anyway? If anything, time has proved you can’t trust these companies to do anything but screw over the gamer for more money.

Even Gabe Newell wasn’t sure about having a sequel. According to an interview Ars Technica did with one of the Project Leads of the original game, Chet Faliszek, Newell claimed that the “move was against the character of the company”.

For me the biggest problem is simply that if there is enough content to warrant a new title, then there is too much content to be polished in time for a release this soon. Left 4 Dead had several game breaking glitches and this seemingly rushed release just seems like it’s asking for more of the same.

There is also the fact that many of the ideas they put into Left 4 Dead 2 are taken directly from the ideas originally designed to be added into the first game via DLC or patches. Taking something out of a free update and putting it into a (potentially) full priced retail game, after saying you promise not to be dicks, just doesn’t sit well with me.

One of the few reasons I have kept my copy of L4D this long is because of the promise of a “service” rather than just a game. I want my copy of L4D to stir back into action every now and again when something gets updated. As somebody who plays L4D on a console (another topic) I don’t have the privilege of downloading all the fan made add-ons and am at the mercy of Valve for my extra content, making this new announcement even more of a kick in the balls.

Although further add-ons to the original title haven’t been ruled out, from what they have said it appears any update they do issue will have ideas that will be in the sequel. Something that in my mind would cause the two to sort of blend together. Resulting in the sequel being more of a Left 4 Dead 1.5. And if they want to charge full price for that, they have another thing coming.

However, I still find some of the L4D2 Boycott (NO-L4D2) group’s complaints to be utterly dumb. Complaining about it now being daytime, and the “fiddle-based horde music”? Come on, you have enough valid reasons. No need to make some up.