October 9, 2009

Valve’s Chet Faliszek Discusses Left 4 Dead 2
By Adam Dodd

“We’ve worked on a lot of things that are going to surprise people.”

Left 4 Dead was a bloody thrill-ride through lands rife with zombies. When it came to a sequel, the dev team had its work cut out for it. So what was brought to the table for Left 4 Dead 2?

According to the publisher's press release:

"Left 4 Dead 2 adds melee combat to enable deeper co-operative gameplay, with items such as a chainsaw, frying pan, axe, baseball bat, and more.

"Introducing the AI Director 2.0, L4D's dynamic gameplay is taken to the next level by giving the Director the ability to procedurally change weather effects, world objects, and pathways in addition to tailoring the enemy population, effects, and sounds to match the players' performance. The result is a unique game session custom fitted to provide a satisfying and uniquely challenging experience each time the game is played.

"Featuring new Survivors, boss zombies, weapons, and items, Left 4 Dead 2 offers a much larger game than the original with more co-operative campaigns, more Versus campaigns, and maps for Survival mode available at launch."

Intrigued, we wish to know much more and at a recent media event I had the chance to get a brief interview with Valve’s Chet Faliszek about the upcoming game Left 4 Dead 2.  During my chat with Chet I got him to shed some light on the new and improved AI Director, zombie clowns, and of course, the Left 4 Dead 2 boycott.

Q: Are there any plans to connect to two games in some way so the audience isn’t divided?  Maybe some sort of backwards compatibility?

Chet: Well, the story definitely is all the same world.  But for how they actually combine the two games - they’re two entirely separate games, separate DLLs, and executables so they aren’t cross compatible that way.  But there will be some way to interact between players on both (titles) and there is some final stuff being worked out on that with Microsoft.  We’ll be talking more about that later so I can sound less stupid about that.

Q: Ok, who thought of the zombie clowns because clowns are already enough without the added undead factor.

Chet: We started off with the Hazmat suit-wearing uncommon common because we wanted something that was fire-proof and after that was the Mud Men because it just seemed like a natural fit.  Then playing in that kind of carnival setting the clown really was the obvious choice.

Q: Because of games like Counter Strike and Half-Life Valve, which have had a loyal audience for awhile, what did you think of your fans turning on you so quickly with the boycott?

Chet: I think people just had a knee-jerk reaction to what we announced at E3, and I think looking back on that we could’ve done some things differently. Really the bigger response has been way more positive. It’s more like it’s a family argument, if you check the boycott now you’ll see a lot of people talking about Left 4 Dead 2 and pre-ordering it.  There’s always different groups that buy our games, there’s competitive players, more casual players, and they’re another group that represented themselves really clearly.  I never mind feedback, and Gabe’s out protesting them in Australia this week. 

Q: The AI Director has really evolved since the original, what are some specific changes to it?

Chet: Before things in the maps interacted on their own, they didn’t check with the Director, and now everything does. So in one of the maps we see the weather change that’s the map checking in, and when you see the reconfiguring of maps that’s them checking in seeing how the players are playing and what they need to do so it’s all been elevated.

Q: In the original the story took a backseat to the gameplay, is Left 4 Dead 2 more story driven?

Chet: Gameplay should always reign first because a good game with a bad story is still a good game. A bad game with a good story is still a bad game. We’ve done some more for people who want more of a story and we’ve definitely worked on a lot of things that are going to surprise people so hopefully players will really dig that. So there is something more for players who want it. 

Left 4 Dead 2 releases on the Xbox 360 and PC November 17^th.

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