Valve announced today at E3 that Left 4 Dead 2 would be released this fall. Coming to PC and Xbox 360 L4D2 will feature new weapons including melee weapons such as a chainsaw, axe, baseball bat, and frying pan, 5 new campaigns, a new game mode, 4 new Survivors and a new Special Infected, along with updates to the AI Director and more.

L4D is one of my favorite games, and it definitely needs more content, but I’m not sure I would pay $50 for what seems to be nothing more than an expansion pack at most. The thing that worries me the most is that this just might divide the L4D community if the sequel is not compatible with the original for online play. It’s also surprising that Valve would release this as a new game instead of updates like they have done with TF2, especially considering that TF2 sales increase after every update. TF2 has added 14 new maps, plus modified some for new game modes, 18 new weapons, new hats, and still more to come. Going off what has been revealed about L4D2 it just doesn’t seem to measure up.

Below is the press release from Valve announcing Left 4 Dead 2

June 1, 2009 – Valve, creators of best-selling game franchises (such as Half-Life and Counter-Strike) and leading technologies (such as Steam and Source), today announced Left 4 Dead 2 (L4D2), the sequel to the best-selling and critically-acclaimed co-operative multiplayer thriller.

Coming exclusively to Xbox 360 and PC, L4D2 promises to set a new benchmark for co-operative action games and become one of 2009′s marquee titles.

“A large part of how Left 4 Dead became 2008′s top-selling new IP on Xbox 360 and the PC was the custom-tailored gameplay made possible by the AI Director,” said Gabe Newell, president and co-founder of Valve. “With the knowledge gained from creating the original, new technology, and a passionate team, L4D2 will set a new benchmark for cooperative action games.”

Set for release on November 17, the title adds melee combat to enable deeper co-operative gameplay, with items such as a chainsaw, frying pan, axe, baseball bat, and more.

Introducing the AI Director 2.0, L4D’s dynamic gameplay is taken to the next level by giving the Director the ability to procedurally change weather effects, world objects, and pathways in addition to tailoring the enemy population, effects, and sounds to match the players’ performance. The result is a unique game session custom fitted to provide a satisfying and uniquely challenging experience each time the game is played.

Featuring new Survivors, boss zombies, weapons, and items, Left 4 Dead 2 offers a much larger game than the original with more co-operative campaigns, more Versus campaigns, and maps for Survival mode available at launch.

Supported by a $10+ million marketing campaign, Left 4 Dead has sold over 2.5 million retail copies since it was released in November of 2008. Left 4 Dead 2 is targeted for release on Xbox 360 and the PC on November 17, 2009, and will be launched worldwide with a multi-million dollar marketing campaign across TV, Outdoor, and Online.

“Left 4 Dead was backed by our most aggressive advertising campaign to date, and resulted in a top 5 showing on two platforms during holiday 2008,” said Doug Lombardi, VP of marketing at Valve. “Left 4 Dead 2 is a larger game and will be supported with even more consumer and retail advertising programs than the original.”

Left 4 Dead 2 will be featured as the cover story on PC Gamer and Official Xbox Magazines this month.

Every competitive L4D player will be looking forward to this since CAL died. Since CAL stopped after Week 1 there has only been the Infected Cup, TWL, and GameBattles, so CEVO picking up L4D should give the game a boost, along with the upcoming update with Death Toll and Dead Air.

Read more for the full announcement from CEVO.

CEVO LLC (CYBER EVOLUTION) is excited to announce the CEVO Left 4 Dead Tournament, featuring prizes courtesy of CEVO (www.cevo.com).

“It is a pleasure to host our first Left 4 Dead event here at CEVO. Many of the staff have been playing the game religiously since its release and have had nothing but good things to say about the game.” said Charlie Plitt, CEO / President for CEVO LLC. “With the conclusion of this event, we will be looking to launch league based play with multiple divisions.”

The CEVO Left 4 Dead Tournament is a double-elimination online event for gamers in the Left 4 Dead community. The format of the tournament will be 4 vs. 4. Registration is open starting Thursday, April 16th until Thursday, May 14th with Round 1 matches beginning on Monday, May 18th.

Prize Distribution:

• 1st – OCZ PC2 8500 2G Pack, OCZ Vendeta CPU Coolers, Razer Goliathus Mouse Pads, and FREE Entry into ANY paid CEVO Event ($443.00 value)
• 2nd – FREE Entry into ANY paid CEVO Event ($80.00 value)
• 3rd – FREE Entry into ANY paid CEVO Event ($80.00 value)
• 4th – FREE Entry into ANY paid CEVO Event ($80.00 value)

Matches will be played twice per week on Monday and Thursday evenings. Teams will be permitted to dispute a maximum of two players per team. The CMN3 will be enabled for all matches.

Campaigns and Scoring:

Blood Harvest – Teams will play maps 1-5 and the team with the most points when finished will win the match.

No Mercy – Teams will play maps 1-5 and the team with the most points when finished will win the match.

General Rules and Configs:

The official CEVO L4D server configs will be released in the downloads section of our website. We’ll also be using an updated version of Smirnov’s Ready Up Mod. Both files will be available later this week.

• Friendly Fire: ON
• Format: 4 vs. 4.
• Matches will be played on Mondays and Thursdays.
• The CMN3 must be used for all matches.
• POV demos are required for all players, in all matches.
• Teams will play matches on their own private servers.
• ALL disputes must be filed within an hour of the conclusion of the match.

How To Register:

All players will need to a personal CEVO user account to participate in CEVO events. If you do not already have one, click “register now” under the CEVO Members section of the website and follow the instructions.

Team Captains:

The Team Captain or Manager is responsible for registering their team for the event. Captains who have already created a team for another CEVO Left 4 Dead event do not need to create a new team – you can simply join this event with your current team. To sign your current team up for this event, login to your personal user account then go to “teams”->”view my teams” (or click “Manage My Teams” on the main account page). Click on the “manage” link corresponding to your team and then click “Sign Team Up for a CEVO Event”.

If you are a Team Captain needing to create a team, login to your personal user account then go to “teams”->”create a team” (or click “Create a Team” on the main account page).

Once the team is created/registered for the event, each team member may join the roster by logging into their personal user account on the website and clicking “Join A Roster”.

Team Players:

In order to join a roster, your team captain must have already registered your team for this event. Once that is done, to join the roster, login to your personal user account and click “teams”->”Join a Roster” (or simply click “Join a Roster” on the main account page).

On the Join Roster page, choose this event from the drop-down menu, then type all or part of the team name and click “Find Team”. When the search finishes, click the “join” button corresponding to your team.

Feedback:

As this will be one of the first competitive Left 4 Dead events, we NEED your feedback. We would love to hear what you think of the format, rules, configs, class restrictions, etc…

After our first event is over we’ll sit down, and with the communities input, make any necessary changes to our current format and rule set.

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CEVO would like to thank Layered Technologies (enterprise server solutions), NationVoice Communications (top quality ventrilo servers and service), and NuclearFallout Enterprises, Inc. (premium competition game servers) for their support of CEVO’s inaugural L4D Tournament.

Source: CEVO

The latest entry in the Official Left 4 Dead blog is about how they decided on the box art and shows some examples of what they had before they decided on the current art. Read the whole story for more about the design and the some examples of what they had before they decided on the current art. Below is a snippet of the article and one of the previous designs.

Hello. My name is Jeremy Bennett, and I’m an artist at Valve. Most gamers only ever get to see the finished product of a game cover, so we thought some of you might find it interesting to hear the process that led to Left 4 Dead’s final art. As you’ll see, there were quite a few attempts along the way, all of them eventually abandoned.Our first designs focused on Bill, Louis, Francis and Zoey, the four lead characters that players would be guiding through Left 4 Dead’s post-apocalyptic zombie wasteland. Right away this presented problems.Typically, for a video game (or DVD or book) cover to be eye-catching, there’ll be a single prominent element front and center—our “hero” character, for example, with ancillary characters standing around in the background:

strafeRight takes on Get Raped in the 2nd round later tonight.

The intro movie for Left 4 Dead, Valve’s upcoming zombie thriller, is now available on Steam in five different languages: English, French, German, Spanish and Russian.

In addition, iPod versions and iPhone versions of the English intro sequence are available here.

Valve, creators of best-selling game franchises (such as Half-Life, Portal, Team Fortress and Counter-Strike) and leading technologies (such as Steam and Source), today announced the PC version of its highly anticipated new survival co-op game, Left 4 Dead, is available for pre-purchase worldwide via Steam, a leading online platform for the distribution and management of PC games with over 15 million accounts worldwide.

Left 4 Dead is a new franchise from Valve, and has earned numerous awards as it marches to launch this holiday, including “Best of E3″ Awards from Game Informer and Maximum PC magazines. Like the pre-purchase promotions happening at retail for the PC and Xbox 360 versions, those who pre-purchase via Steam will save 10% off the regular price. The pre-order promotions are part of a $10 million marketing campaign that includes television, outdoor, online and print advertising.

“With just over four weeks until launch, Left 4 Dead is showing every sign of topping The Orange Box on both the PC and Xbox 360, at retail as well as on Steam,” said Doug Lombardi, VP of marketing at Valve. “Our pre-sell numbers at retail have jumped to over 65% greater than Orange Box at the same proximity to launch, and we’re seeing tremendous enthusiasm for the product in what promises to be another great year for gaming on both platforms.”

Set in the immediate aftermath of the highly-anticipated zombie apocalypse, Left 4 Dead features single player, multiplayer and co-operative gameplay modes. Next-generation artificial intelligence tailors the pacing and difficulty ensuring a different experience every time the game is played.

Left 4 Dead is due for release on PC and Xbox 360 on November 18 in North America and November 21 in Europe. The worldwide Steam release will happen November 18. For more information, please visit the Steam website.