A plethora of Counter-Strike maps have recently leaked onto the internet, including a mod that was the predecessor of the survival co-op game left 4 Dead. The mod is even fully playableas long as you know how to setup your own server.
According to Gaming Leaks Streamer Tyler McVickerthe prototype was created as a game mode in Counter-Strike: Condition zero. Players would gather in groups of up to four people and play as terrorists. The goal was to plant a bomb while defending against waves of endlessly reappearing hordes of counter-terrorists. These enemies only used melee attacks, making them the perfect predecessor of L4D
Turtle Rock Studios developers clearly thought the mode had a lot of potential. They continued to refine it during the development of Counter Strike Source, where it was renamed Terror Strike. L4D director and Turtle Rock co-founder Mike Booth confirmed the existence of the mod via twitter. “It was our lunchtime game,” he wrote. “We wanted Valve to put it out, but for some reason we never succeeded.” Turtle Rock was known as “Valve South” after Valve acquired it in 2008. They had already started developing the Survival Co-op, but they had no advocate within the parent company.
Former Valve writer Chet Faliszek narrated my city on which Turtle Rock had already started work L4D before he got involved. The game caught his attention and he became its “champion”. “I was one of the people who checked it out and told Gabe about it over lunch,” he said. “I talked about it so much that he said to just work on it.” Through his commitment, he was able to expand the scope of production. Faliszek recruited over a hundred Valve developers for L4D
In 2008, Valve released zombie survival co-op. A sequel followed the next year, and finally Turtle Rock separated from the publisher and became an independent studio in 2011.
It’s quite nice that such a prolific game emerged as a mod that its creators were personally passionate about, rather than a carefully planned product. if you want to see something L4D as it looked in the idea phase, you can download the mod here.
