14 DAY TRIAL // Left 4 Dead has been one of the most talked about games in recent weeks as, during the E3 conference, Valve unveiled that its sequel, Left 4 Dead 2, would be released only a year after the original title. This sparked a lot of controversy and many gamers formed a boycott group on the company's Steam online service in order to draw its attention and make it promise that it would support the first game.
As we have seen, many of the executives from Valve came out to reassure fans that new content would arrive for the first game and that when it would be launched, they would see that Left 4 Dead 2 couldn't have been released as a piece of downloadable content for the original title.
Now, the company's Doug Lombardi reveals that a DLC announcement for Left 4 Dead 1 will arrive by the time the summer ends. Further pressed, he confirms that it will be for both the PC and Xbox 360. “We plan to keep supporting Left 4 Dead 1. There will be some announcements coming before summer's out about what's coming there, and then we haven't shown everything that's in Left 4 Dead 2 yet.”
The Valve executive also reveals that, after the controversy slows down and the two titles are released, fans will have more positive feelings about the company. “I think 8, 9 months from now once everything's been out for a while and everyone's had time to see the complete product of Left 4 Dead 2 and see continued support for Left 4 Dead 1, they may sort of see what we were up to and what the method of our madness was there.”
Lombardi ends with a glimpse of the strategy that the company will have in mind when the second game will be launched, as it will come with a multiplayer demo and a free weekend in which people can convince themselves of the product: “With Left 4 Dead in particular we've found that word of mouth really is the strongest thing. With Left 4 Dead 2 we plan [to] do a demo before the game comes out that'll have multiplayer in it and hopefully we can continue the free weekends with the full game post-launch.”