Left 4 Dead 2: The Passing Message Board

I don’t know about you, but Nick in Left 4 Dead 2 just wasn’t bearded enough for me, the apocalypse certainly didn’t have enough disarmingly dressed schoolgirls, and why can’t I make my melee weapons pink? These are all concerns that have now been answered with the opening of the Left 4 Dead 2 Workshop, Valve’s integrated mod platform that makes adding picky little tweaks and full campaigns the easiest thing in the world. I’d say you could do it blindfolded, but I tried and put my fingers in my Crunchy Nut Cornflakes.(more…)

Valve's latest "mutation" gametype for the Left 4 Dead 2 "The Passing" DLC takes three survivors out of the equation. "Last Man on Earth" is a single-player mode in which the player is the only Survivor left in the world, and must face nothing but Special Infected without the help of other players or even bots. In other words, it might has well have been called "The Player is Murdered Immediately."

Instead of an opportunity to play with developers (since, you know, it's single-player), Valve is encouraging players to record sixty-second clips of gameplay and upload them to YouTube with the tag "L4D2LastSurvivor." If you want to see lots of footage of player characters being torn apart by Special Infected, now you know where to go.

In all out zombie war, not everyone gets out alive.

Left 4 Dead's eerie atmosphere was made exponentially more engrossing by the warnings scrawled on the walls of each safe house by other survivors. Left 4 Dead 2's downloadable chapter "The Passing," released earlier today, features the above note, apparently written by another down-on-his-luck Zombocalypse veteran. Located by the sharp-eyed bloggers of Destroyed Controller, It reads: "Otis, Out of film, no helicopter. Zombies are too fast. Not going to make it. - Frank West."

It's a real shame that West's had to suffer such misfortune. We doubt he'd be in such an unfavorable position if he possessed the ingenuity of his spiritual successor.

Move zombie-killing fun coming this Thursday.

More maps are coming for you zombie lovers, check out the new gameplay.

And news about more content for the first game.

Not content with unleashing a full-blown zombie apocalypse, Valve has come up with the second most socially awkward event imaginable: inviting characters from the original Left 4 Dead to hang out in the sequel's first DLC campaign. Bill, Louis, Zoey and Francis will meet with the stars of Left 4 Dead 2 in "The Passing," which Valve VP of marketing Doug Lombardi calls "the most important campaign in the Left 4 Dead story, as all the Survivors are being called together in one campaign." It's targeted for release in early 2010 on Xbox 360 and PC. In addition to a co-op campaign (set in rural Georgia) and a new "co-operative challenge mode of play," The Passing will offer new content for Survival, Versus and Scavenge modes. Playing as the L4D2 cast, you can also expect to encounter a new melee weapon, firearm and "uncommon common" zombie. We can't wait to meet up with last year's survivors again ... oh, assuming they really are still survivors.

Old meets new in the latetest downloadable campaign.