Left 4 Dead 2

Did the quick release of L4D 2 kill hopes for a third?

It appears rumors of a L4D Prequel have been dismissed, but that doesn’t mean we won’t see anything new from Valve in regards to this franchise.

I question if the release of Left 4 Dead 2 had killed or played a on role on releasing a third title.

How so, you ask?


Left 4 Dead was released in Fall 2008. Six months later Valve announces a sequel will be released one year after the original. This announced stirred up controversy among L4D fans because many felt the sequel should have been part of the original, or been given to fans as free Downloadable Content. Fans had every reason to upset about a sequel coming so soon. They buy the first Left 4 Dead and then find out a few months later their game will be quickly outdated. For some games, yearly releases are quite common, accepted, and anticipated – thank you Call of Duty and EA Sports. However, this is Valve we are talking about. They don’t have the best track record of pumping out sequels to their popular games in a timely manner, so when a quick release is announced, it is going to stir some feathers – or zombies in our case.

Could you imagine the uproar if Left 4 Dead 3 was released a year after the sequel? I wonder what that would have been like? At the time of L4D 2’s announcement, fans were already talking about boycotting the game. How crazy is that when we reflect upon it now? Boycotting a game from being released? Making us wait longer for Left 4 Dead 3 is the perfect way for Valve to give a big “F* YOU” back to us by making us wait for the next game. I wonder if we will ever see Left 4 Dead 3.

It’s almost as though Valve is “damned if you do, damned if you don’t”. A small few who enjoy playing both the original and sequel will be pissed off. Left 4 Dead 2 was supposed to bring us the DLC content promised to fans. Valve has delivered in this regards, with their DLC and mutations. These fans – mostly hardcore – are content with what they have. The majority of L4D fans have played the game to death and are ready for the next installment.

DLC was supposed to satisfy people’s craving for more zombie action and more content. Would you rather have more DLC being pumped out to give us new characters, game modes, and maps, or see a new title in the form of Left 4 Dead 3?

28 Comments

  • I personally find the idea of Valve releasing a new game (L4D3) more exciting. I think it’s been a long enough time. I have a feeling though that just like most of Valve’s other games, there won’t be a 3rd.

  • I think they should make a 3rd, 4th, 5th and so on. Who cares if the stories are different and don’t follow each other. The truth is if a zombie apocolypes actually happens worldwide everyone will have different experiences and different outcomes, and the chances of someone surviving in Maine ever getting to meet survivors in California or any other country are slim to none. So if they keep making the games with different characters in different cities that would be great.

  • Left 4 dead was groundbraking fore me in terms of multiplayer strategi. Never have a first person game made me feal like when I do when i play chess (I play in chess in the Highest leauges). The game realy made u co-op. I was skeptik to the fast realis of left4dead 2 but that game is the best game ever made (yeas it is!).

  • if they release a 3rd, hopefully it’ll be on source engine 2 like Half Life 3 would be.. add a lot of new infected/weapons/upgrades etc..

  • it would really suck is there isnt a 3rd..

    ive just about played 2 to death. new maps are cool, but it is basically still the same game..

    time for some new characters, weapons, zombies..

  • So what if some people complain about how close the dang realease dates are….the rest of us want to play. Ive played L4D 1&2 so many times I could do it in my sleep now. Been waiting and waiting for the next one. I say if people complain just let them…oh well guess what after they stop being dumb I bet you they go buy it and play it after all!!!! You cant make everyone happy so stop torturing the ones who are excited about a 3 rd and just realease the dang game already!!!!

  • My hope is on the release of the L4D3,,,,,,
    If the stop making this game it would be sad, this is one of the best co_op game ever made, and it’s actually the onlly one I keep play over and over and over and …………………………….
    I love the versus, and even there, this game offer the best competitive mode ever made, feels like actually going trough campain with the add of the score and you get to play infected.
    I been playing bouth the original and the second one, and I still do.
    I am hopping on a 3rd release, with new weapons, infected types, and even caracters if they like to.
    Please VALVE don’t SREW IT UP this time -_-

  • LFD 3 STORY LINE IDEA SECOND PAIR OF LINES —–
    ————————————————————————–
    L4D 3 should have infected animals that eat corpes so u cant use a defibulater,being in a building when it colapes and that part of the map changes to were your on the wall,a nazi zombie game mode (permision with the makers of call of duty of corse),being able to upgrade your character and weppons (zombie points?),a lot more weapons i dont want 2 be mean , but the last l4d didnt have much of weapons,you should be in the military for side missions (disc 2)and there needs to be more horror, there should be a boy and girl witch crying together or wondering together, zombies need to bite not punch and kick,and u should be able to sneak past them if u wanted to, and meet other survivers bad and you have a shoot out atraction the horde good survivers that might share supplies or they could be injered and if u help they can give the helper a rare gift,mabye an entire story line i’ll give 1 out
    STORY LINE FOR L4D3——————————————————–
    u were with your military friends and were sent to afganistan were u went to the base and the civillians were all getting sick, u and ur team were woken by gun shots and you gear up with only your choice of a pistol with only 5 clips,knife,2 gernades or muchine gun and adrenaline and knife, the citizens are attacking and they still look like normal people u and your team are going through tents shooting the zombies that still look like normal people trying to save people when your helicopter arives you and your team are about to get on when a smoker tounge gets your leg you grab your friends hand and both the players need to tap the A or X button, but that only keeps the bar on the screen from depleteing fast 3rd and 4th player needs to shoot the the smoker if the players do not complete this task 1st player dies then the helicopter gets shot down by bandits and each player gets up with 55 heatlth and you have a gun battle you walk into town thats infected you radio HQ to meet you on top of a 10 story building thats at the center of the town you go through levels when u get there its on fire you get 7 stories up the building and it colapses sideways thats alerts the horde now the sun is coming up at this time you make your way to the window and kick it then u throw a flare and dibre from the building makes it easyer to defend yourself on open ground helicopter comes and theres part 1 out of ?? how many they can fit in disc 1,

    msg me back VALVE if u want any more ideas and the story is yours to use in the game (it might take me a while to respond back sence i have a lot of emails from youtube

    • z3ke… that doesn’t make sense. if the zombies still look like normal people, then they haven’t become “zombies” in the regular form yet. so if the special infected “smokers ect” are mutations from zombies, how can the go from human looking zombies to special mutation when they haven’t even mutated normally yet. can’t jump steps. first human looking, then they get to regular zombies, then they mutate.

  • I think they should make left for dead 3. It should take the perspective of
    kids (ranging from 10 to 13 years of age) and how they are fighting the zombie virus.

  • A lot o people say valve can’t count to three that’s why there are never 3’s
    in any of their games!
    Thus if they make a new left for dead it will be like Left for dead Military operations or something

  • I believe Valve will release Half-life 3 next year, because it’s clear that Half-life is the franchise that needs a new sequel first, because the last one was in 2007. Since TF2 is being updated alot, it won’t need a new sequel. Portal 2 was released in 2011, and since there is going to be a new CS this year, the only game that I think that could be released in 2014. Maybe even 2013, because they are bringing 2 games this year, maybe they will bring 2 games next year too. Unless they are releasing TF3 next year or in 2014. So I think L4D3 will be released 2013-2015 depending if Valve publishes 2 games each year, and TF3. Although lots of people still play TF2.

  • Please make a left 4 dead 3. ShadowRusso brings up a good point whats the chance of meeting survivors that are from the other side of the country. So the stories dont have to follow each other. More weapons, more special infected. Maybe even create your own character give you charater a story line to follow. You can choose the diffenet paths that they want to go down. Either they go with survivor group A or group B. But when creating the charater they cant look obnoxious like with clowns hair and they cant be dressed like a football player. But make it serious as it seems that its you trying to survive this zombie apoclypse. Make some fun looking maps like dark carnival but serious mapes like blood harvest. I hope that valve makes a new left 4 dead. I will be waiting.

  • Valve will bring us a left 4 dead 3 you don’t just stop making your company’s best selling franchise, like what the writer above said there making us wait for all the whiny people complaining about l4d2. That being said Valve had prior priorities before l4D series there getting counter strike out of the way in Aug, there are also most likely going to do a TF3 and Half life 3 on top of that there are also upgrading their software engines on what they run everything off of so by theory l4d3 whenever it comes out should be greater than the other 2.

  • I don’t know about you guys, but I see the left 4 dead series as the walking dead series. I want to see left 4 dead 3 more like the walking dead and other games. I mean not so close where its clear copying but you know. Here, I’ll give Valve ideas that plenty of other game developers use. FIRST, allow people to create your character even including your person in cutscenes in the campaign if needed (like Halo Reach), SECOND, being able to create your own maps and save/edit film(like Halo Reach Forge and Theater) maybe, I mean hey it keeps people from getting bored on the game. Just look at Halo 3 now, tell me why there is still like 20,000 people on average still playing it. The freakin game has been out for like 4 years! Look at other games that have been out for the same time or even shorter amount time and compare how many people are playing it to Halo 3.

  • Well to start it off, if you make the black guy bald one more time, then I won’t buy lfd3 cuz I’m not bald(joking). So everyone knows the traditional lfd character set; two white guys, one girl, and one black guy. I recommend it stay that way if your not gunna let us create our own character, but you can have us HAVE to create our own person to play in the campaign and have him/her in cut scenes in the story(like halo reach except you don’t HAVE to).

    Character ideas: Your character(bio customization included), a lawyer in business suit(female), and two police officers who are partners(two white dudes).

  • i would rather have left 4 dead 3 come out.. i mean its been almost 3 years since it came out and ive gotten bored of playing the same maps with the same characters, shooting the same infected with the same guns and weapons. one thing they do need to add to the next left 4 dead is to be able to use the iron sights on the guns (aim down sights). that is the one thing i hate about left 4 dead. these are just my opinions though.

  • I think left four dead should have real zombies in the game this time. Not zombies that punch you and stomp you out like your about to get jumped in to a gang. they should bite you and eat you like real zombies do. this game should also have a way better story line like hunter the reconning and should take place in NY, VT, ME, and Cannada.

    • Ok look i can understand your argument but im ok with it but i do think ther should be a “gamemode” like single player. Maybe it will be called “real mode” or somthing 🙂

  • I personally just don’t get some people. Apple comes out with a new ipad/iphone/ipod almost every year and people are running to upgrade for hundreds of dollars and valve gives a fresh new game new people, new boards and only 60 dollars and everyone’s complaining. They really tried to boycott? Really? Why on earth would anyone complain about a game coming out to soon? You can play both games no big deal! I play both all the time and have no problems finding a match with random people to play with! Damn what a bunch of idiots, not we have to wait!! >(

  • I would love to see a new installment. Perhaps taking place in Cali heading up North. (read World War Z to figure out why to head North)
    New Characters as well..perhaps a Native American, so I’m a little bias being a Native an all but oh well. Perhaps even being able to travel from Location to Location on ATVs

  • I’ve a read a few other things about Left 4 Dead 3 on other websites, and what I read was that Valve was having trouble coming up with ideas for new infected and maps… I don’t know how true that is. I don’t tend to put a lot of stock in what I read on the internet.

    But I had an idea for L4D 3. The game could be centered around the rise and fall of CEDA, why their bases are over run, what happened to the Tank they captured, why the only CEDA members left alive are all infected. And then it would be interesting to see how the military is running CEDA and what happens to people who turn outto be carriers rather than immune….

    The characters could be scientists sent out to capture various special infected for testing and things could go on from there…. The scientists all die… and how the disease is transmitted, and how fast it takes people to change still don’t have be discovered. The scientists could totally screw up and all their data is wrong… this way Valve desn’t actually have to tell players how the disease is actualy transmitted, how fast people change, or the factors that determine what a person becomes. We don’t ever have to know.

    I could be wrong, ut I thought it would be intersting idea. And this way Valve wouldn’t have to create a large number of new special infected, or if they did it could be something that only exists in CEDA’s base of opperations…

    Regardless of the boycotts Valve really should create a third game…

  • i think they should have like opinions to mix the charaters but still have 4 survivors and have like an abandon animal shelter and like wild dogs attack and birds that live in swarms that attack and you have to shoot a huge eagle and kill it for the swarm to die and like a new phyco infected that is rare like if your in a cemtery a that zombie raises the dead

  • If there is a third, it should be more like a real life zombie survival, lose the special zombies and make it about avoiding getting bitten by the zombies. That would make it more panic like and it would be more about finding clever ways of avoid zombies. And tone down the amount of weapons, how big is the probability of finding heavy machine guns laying around in a random house? You have to be resourceful and smart not rushing into five hundred zombies just shooting your way through, that does not make sense…

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