The prequel released in 2008 was called a masterpiece by itself, and just a year later, on the same day, Left 4 Dead 2 was released. The additions that were added in the sequel were heavy, they added new weaponry, new characters, new maps, and new zombies to fight against. It was safe to say that Left 4 Dead 2 was really the next game in the franchise with essentially the same storyline just with a new set of survivors, but the question is, if these 2 games of the franchise are so called masterpieces, why did Valve just leave the games in the dust?

A Quick Rundown and Recap

For a quick run down of the game, at face value is a bit hard to understand, but as you progress it’s easier to get the hang of it. A squad of survivors find themselves stranded in an area where zombies had spread like crazy by the ‘Green Flu’, the survivors find weapons and medical substances to help them traverse themselves to an evacuation center, though it’s not as simple as it sounds. As the survivors or players progress through the map, they are met with new challenges and obstacles at every turn and every map. Each new location the player moves to there will always be a horde of zombies that’ll rush to you and try to take you down, these are just the common infected, these are the zombies that will appear naturally and all over the place. As for the special infected, these do spawn naturally, though they are more rare than the commonly found infected. Each special infected have their own unique ability to use in a way to take down the players, there are a total of 8 special infected as listed; Charger, Jockey, Hunter, Spitter, Smoker, Boomer, The Witch, and The Tank. 7 of which are playable by the character in another gamemode, and with the tank and the witch being the most uncommon special infected to encounter. 

The Mechanics and Unique-ness

The things that separate Left 4 Dead 1 & 2 from any other zombie type game, are the things they put it in. The game is meant to be played with a group of people and played as a team which is also followed by the youtuber TheActMan saying “Games like to boost your ego by festish-sizing your need for power and not having teamwork.”, which states that with enough points or meeting a quota you are rewarded with a destructive weapon that can clear hordes of zombies almost instantaneously. This is appealing to the player since they get a power surge and feel like they’re on top, but games like this can easily get outclassed if another game has a better destructive weapon or better reward system. What makes Left 4 Dead different is that there is no reward or power boosting system, it all relies on teamwork as “Your work as an individual is far less important.” said TheActMan. Yes, maybe a very highly skilled person can traverse the map on their own, but for you to become someone like that it could take thousands of hours to master and remember spawn locations as the infected can spawn differently every time and there is no set spawn location for the infected. The reason why Left 4 Dead’s version of teamwork is different is because of the capabilities of the special infected they can do to an individual survivor. There are the main special infected called the ‘pinning infected’ which include the; Charger, Jockey, Hunter, and Smoker, that will not let go of their target until their target has died, and there are the support infected like the; Spitter and Boomer, who help their pinning infected kill their target faster and prevent other survivors from helping those who are pinned. In this game it’s really an all or nothing game as one mistake can cause a loss for the team and “Players are met with tough decisions, deciding whether to fall back and help teammates risking a loss, or sprint forwards to get more points.” It truly pumps adrenaline because a incapacitated teammate can only do so much to protect you while you pick them up.

Different Game modes & Difficulties

Like most games, Left 4 Dead has its own separate forms of entertainment; with different game modes, and difficulties, you can’t go wrong there. The first and most basic game mode is campaign. A group of players or a few players and the rest are bot controlled, work together to traverse and progress through each of the 6 campaigns, Dead Center, The Passing, Dark Carnival, Swamp Fever, Hard Rain, and The Parrish, fighting against hordes of common infected and special infected. The next and most popular game mode is versus, a group of 8 players get together and then split into teams of 4, 2 teams of 4, 4 vs 4. Each round each team of 4 take turns playing either the survivors or the infected. As the game suggests beforehand, both teams must work together in order to win, and “The best game is played when both sides have a sense of winning.”, said TheActMan. What this means is that when both teams are actually playing skillfully and to the best of their abilities, it gives both sides a sense of competition because then one side won’t dominate the match, and when one side dominates it doesn’t make it fun because there’s no competition. When both sides are competitive, it’s fun because you have to play very well and stay on high alert at all times to win the game. The next most popular game mode is realism; this game mode is about how it sounds. It’s harder and you can’t see your teammates and items as easily anymore. The other unpopular game modes are; mutation, survival, and survival versus. The difficulties come in every game and in their own unique way. As every game has, each difficulty gets progressively harder, in this game there are 4 difficulties; easy, normal, advanced, and expert. Easy, normal, and advanced have a pretty easy progression as each difficulty makes it really feel like it’s the next level, although for expert, it’s a whole ‘nother story, “This game is Brutal on expert difficulty, but it is the true intended gameplay experience that really pumps adrenaline right into you.” On Reddit, by BritishCO, on r/patientgamers. The damage scale goes up easy, from 1, 2, 5, from easy to advanced (from common infected), but the game does not prepare you for expert mode. Each attack from common infected deals 20 damage, capable of downing you in 5 hits, expert mode does not play around and will not give you a second chance. To put expert mode into perspective, I can finish campaigns on easy and normal difficulty in  under half an hour, for advanced difficulty roughly 30-45 minutes, but for expert mode I am unable to get past the first chapter of any campaign. The second a swarm of infected gets remotely close to you, it’s game over, 5 hits is all it takes to end your run. Keep in mind throughout my total lifetime of playing Left 4 Dead 1&2, I have at least 1500+ hours on the game.

Extra’s this game has & others should

Most games have extras like left 4 dead, but won’t be on the level as left 4 dead. The reason why Left 4 Dead is still alive by the community is the amount of modding and free will the players have. The steam workshop allows players to add anything they want to games, including fan made maps, custom skins for weapons and characters. These additions to the game give a new sense of fun or fear as there are so many modifications you add from scary to funny. It’d be awesome if other games like Left 4 Dead had some sort of workshop to modify gameplay that make it more fun and more intriguing to the player. One super big thing this game has that other games don’t really do anymore are; panic events (also called crescendo events). Panic events are exactly how they sound, as the players progress through a map, there are bigger obstacles like panic events that summon hordes of both special infected and common infected. I asked my coworker Ze who has played all types of video games and is basically an expert when it comes to games about panic events and he replies: “Yeah they do affect the gameplay because it forces the player to actually strategize how they want to play it and what they need to do to actually survive or to pass the timed test, I feel without scary pumping events the game lacks a sense of teamwork.”. These panic events can range from car alarms which last roughly 15-20 seconds, or larger scale events like mall alarms which last forever until the player has successfully turned off the alarm. Many older games have events like these, but you will rarely see them in newer games of today.

The aspects of Left 4 Dead 1 & 2 are unrivaled, which makes the game so unique, and is the reason the game is alive and is still being played, but the creators of the game just ditched it for no reason. As old as Left 4 Dead 2 is, the game in my opinion is a masterpiece, and is widely called a masterpiece by many others. The concepts of this game and each mechanic has its own unique way of operating like no other game, with its team-like efforts and its way of forcing people to work together is something you won’t find elsewhere. Left 4 Dead 2 was left for dead by Valve, but this game will go down in history as one of the greatest zombie games to never be recognized in the Hall of Fame.