14 DAY TRIAL // One of the big changes developers at Valve attached to The Passing downloadable content for Left 4 Dead 2 has been the introduction of Mutations, game mode variants that would be offered on a weekly basis in order to introduce fresh challenges to those who have been playing the zombie shooter for a long time. And now, Valve is saying that one of those Mutations, called Realism Vs., will be introduced to the game on a permanent basis in the coming weeks.
Realism Vs. was voted by fans, with 68% of them saying that the mode should stay, while 21% were opposed and the rest had no preference. Realism Vs. is the normal Versus mode but with zombies themselves taking more damage before going down and with less visual aids, like glowing objects, for the team of survivors. It's not clear how much time Valve needs to update Left 4 Dead 2 in order to make Realism Vs. playable forever.
The next playable Mutation is called Follow the Liter and is linked with the Scavenger mode. The twist is that just one group of gas cans will be spawning in a small area, meaning that both survivors who need them for their generator and the zombies who need to stop them know exactly where on the map they need to go and can plan ambushes and other nasty surprises.
Those who are not satisfied with Follow the Liter and the changes it introduces can look forward to the coming week when Valve will be launching the Last Gnome on Earth Mutation, which will star Half Life: Episode 2 character Gnome Chompski.
Valve is also working on a new piece of downloadable content for the original Left 4 Dead set to show how one of the original survivors succumbs to the zombie horde. A comic book is also planned tackling the same subject.