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Valve's Chet Faliszek (known almost universally in the industry as just Chet) told us that when they finished production of Left 4 Dead last year many of the developers had ideas they wanted to pursue for a sequel. And since Valve employees get to choose their next project, it quickly paved the way for Left 4 Dead 2.

On a similar note, Chet noted that they were discussing including the original four Left 4 Dead campaigns with Left 4 Dead 2. The thinking is that this would make things easier for consumers. After all, if you and your buddies are playing Left 4 Dead 2 and you all want to play a campaign from the original game, it's an incredibly annoying and disruptive hassle to have everyone quit Left 4 Dead 2 and start Left 4 Dead if you're on a PC, or swap out the Left 4 Dead 2 disc for the Left 4 Dead disc if you're on an Xbox 360. User feedback would probably help sway Valve, so make sure to let the company know what you think. And despite the fact that Left 4 Dead 2 is a reality, Chet said that the company isn't abandoning the first game and that it has plans to support it in the future with new updates, like four-versus-four matchmaking.

Grev wrote:This however, looks like a totally different ball game, more of a "how much blood can I get out of a zombie", rather than "how can I survive?". However, it's only a trailer, and they can be misleading.

Moving_Target wrote:The reason, I think it's not an expansion, is because of the 360. It'd be too large of a DLC for it. Atleast I think, I could be wrong, but most DLC I've heard about (I don't own a 360) are usually 25% the size of the actual game.

They also said they're thinking of adding the 4 previous campaigns in to two for smoother gameplay. I just hope you play as Zoey, Bill, Francis, and Louis. And that this narrative will lead to all 8 meeting up.

L4D2 Boycotte wrote:The few people here who defend the decision to make L4D2 seem to not understand what everyone is upset about. I've tried to summarize the most common issues I've heard people having in hopes that it clears things up:

* Significant content for L4D1 was promised, and never delivered
* Valve put little faith in L4D1 since they almost certainly started working on L4D2 right after release
* The fact that L4D2 is nearly identical to L4D1 will decimate the community for both games
* The announced date is not nearly enough time to polish content or make significant gameplay changes
* The new character designs seem bland and unappealing so far
* L4D2 is too bright to fit in with L4D1's visual aesthetic
* The fiddle-based horde music is extremely disliked, though the differently orchestrated music is otherwise welcome
* L4D2's release will result in a drop in quality and frequency for L4D1 content, even compared to before
* The community has lost faith in Valve's former reputation for commitment to their games post-release

Doug Lombardi wrote:(...)we plan to continue updating Left 4 Dead. We’re not done with that title, it’s not over. The SDK stuff just came out. I think we mentioned to RPS that if you’re using the SDK and making maps for it, those will work for L4D2 as well. We are trying to keep the community together – we’re going to be doing more stuff about keeping the community together as we get closer to launch.

I think the short answer is: trust us a little bit. We’ve been pretty good over the years, even with L4D going back just a few months, about supporting games post-launch. Gabe’s always talking about providing entertainment as a service – it’s not about making a game any more. That’s one point of it.(...)

(...)One of the biggest pieces of feedback we got after the game came out, and even after the Survival Pack, was: this is all really great, I loved it, but I want a bunch more campaigns, I want more content. In a sense, L4D2 is a response to what players were asking for after the first one shipped. That’s really how it came about. I think if folks spot us a bit more time, they may see where we’re going with all this. The more they learn about how much there is in L4D2… I mean, twenty new weapons isn’t DLC! Three new Specials, and twenty weapons, and five new campaigns: that starts to feel like a sequel. I think as more gets unveiled as we go from E3 to Comic Con and PAX, and show the game in places where the public can play, and then when the demo comes out a couple of weeks before launch, I think people will get where we’re going, and hopefully don’t think that we’ve turned into some sort of opportunist cow milkers.

(...)people may have felt differently about it had it taken longer to produce it.