Valve On L4D2, L4D, & The Boycott

Valve hit up Eurogamer and CVG in London yesterday with a slew of interviews and answered some questions regarding plans for the Left 4 Dead franchise as well as the community boycott for the series sequel. Yesterday we reported that Valve has no plans of just dropping L4D in the water with the release of L4D2. In an interview with Valve’s Marketing go to go Doug Lombardi in regards to more content coming out for L4D to expect an announcement “at the end of summer.”

Unlike rumors among the boycotting community members of Valve’s community who jumped to conclusions regarding the quick development of L4D2, it seems that L4D2′s release is more in Valve’s control and not at the control of any major publisher. When Lombardi was asked by Eurogamer behind the decision for developing a full out sequel instead of straight DLC content here is what he had to say:

In Left 4 Dead’s case, there was a bunch of stuff we wanted to do: get the other versus campaign modes out – some people were tinkering with survivor mode, that kind of stuff, and that just made a load of sense for DLC. But then there was other stuff: we want to change the way finales work, we want melee weapons, we want to do more with the story. Okay, that side of the whiteboard is feeling like a different game. That’s really the process it went through, and then timing is just looking at all the things you want to do, and then you make your best guess on scheduling.

Valve is known for the careful crafting of their titles and taking what their community and fanbase has to says into consideration. The backlash regarding L4D2′s boycott not only caught the interwebz by storm but caught Valve completely off-guard. Yet, the boycott did not stop any plans for the sequel. In regards the boycott Lombardi had this to say to Eurogamer:

So I think there was a little bit of confusion that we created unintentionally, by announcing a sequel and not having the complete story ready: announcing it and not saying, there’s still a lot of stuff being worked on for Left 4 Dead 1, and the mod tools will work with both games. I think that, over time, folks will see what we’re up to, and there’s more of this story to be told in terms of what’s to come for both games.

It also seems that even with the boycott, it’s not stopping sales any time soon. CVG is claiming that L4D2 pre-sale orders are double that of its predecessor. Looks like Valve has things in complete control and we can expect to see more zombie killing action set in the south on November 17th, 2009. Here are some new screens courtesy of CVG to tide you over.

2 Responses to “Valve On L4D2, L4D, & The Boycott”

1. hunter lemley says:

   July 28, 2009 at 7:19 pm

   i really would like it if valve gave us a demo of l4d2, btw, like tf classic, we should start calling l4d 1 l4d classic
2. Modern Warfare 2 Is The New Left 4 Dead 2 - The Nerdiest Kids says:

   October 20, 2009 at 6:09 am

   [...] 2 was announced. Fans got together and started an online boycott and then Valve told the fans to know their roles and shut their mouths because they are awesome (which they are) and they will be supporting both games. Now it seems [...]