Left 4 Dead has almost done without zombies

Gaming News Left 4 Dead has almost done without zombies

Published on 05/10/2022 at 12:21 p.m

When asked what the game Left 4 Dead immediately evokes in your mind, most of you will probably think of zombies. And yet this concept that gives this FPS all the horror aspect has almost not been adopted.

Too cheesy zombies

For those unfamiliar with Left 4 Dead, it’s a cooperative horror FPS released in 2008 in which four characters must survive in a world infested by hordes of zombies. Zombies that couldn’t have been part of it if we believe Gabe Newell’s words on the subject. At the time, Valve’s president and co-founder openly criticized the choice, saying the concept was too old-fashioned.

According to VG247, it was a former Valve editor, Chet Faliszek, who confided in these remarks during an interview on Kiwi Talkz’s You Tube channel about his experience at Valve.

While the game was in development, Chet Faliszek went to dinner with Gabe Newell. The latter bases his opinion on classic American horror films, in which the plot mainly revolves around hordes of zombies.

If you watch zombie movies, Night of the Living Dead is about racism…Army of the Dead is about consumerism.

The good idea?

What is the game about? Chet Faliszek answers this question:

Well, you know, it’s about working together. It’s about the game itself, it’s a reflection of the game. Do you know what will you do in a zombie apocalypse?

Left 4 Dead has almost done without zombies

But Gabe Newell sticks to his ideas and remains convinced that zombies ” are just really cheesy “. Chet Faliszek agrees, back in the day, long before The Walking Dead changed the game, zombies weren’t very popular on screen.

As a compromise, it was then agreed that the characters should be aware of their surroundings and, for example, let film-related expressions flow into the dialogues.

Why don’t we just take the characters and the world and make some of the characters in the world aware that they’re basically in a zombie movie.

Zoey and Lewis take it as, “Oh my god, this is movie stuff,” but they play it seriously

Therefore, given the success of Left 4 Dead, the second opus of the same name, the decision to stick with Zombies has largely paid off.