Left 4 Dead

Valve has announced that its upcoming squad-based survival shooter, Left 4 Dead, will be embarking on a worldwide tour in order to spread more info on the anticipated title.

"It sounds cliché, but in many ways you have to play this one to truly appreciate what we're attempting," said Valve president and co-founder Gabe Newell. "So, to give gamers a chance to sample this new type of experience first hand, we're taking Left 4 Dead on the road."

Each stop on the L4D tour will allow visiting members of the press, as well as the general public, to sample the zombie-heavy action title. Notable stops on the tour including the Leipzig Games Convention in Germany, Festival du jeu Video held in France, the United Kingdom-based PC Gamer Showdown, and the annual PAX event, which is based in Seattle.

Left 4 Dead will be available this November for PC and Xbox 360

In a recent interview with Gamasutra, Valve Software VP Doug Lombardi revealed that if talks of acquisition came about from industry giants such as Electronic Arts, he would be "happy to have that conversation."

Since the merger between Activision and Vivendi Games that resulted in Activision Blizzard, arguably the industry's greatest force in terms of publishing, the gaming world is one that is beginning to revolve around mergers and acquisitions. Electronic Arts, once the undisputed juggernaut of the publishing world, would certainly consider themselves blessed if they were to acquire Valve. In fact, given the relationship between Valve and EA, who will be publishing Left 4 Dead when it releases this November, such talks seem likely.

Describing the relationship between Valve and Electronic Arts as "really good," Lombardi praised EA for their understanding of Steam, perhaps Valve's greatest contribution to PC gaming. "EA was very progressive about saying, 'We understand who you guys are. We understand what Steam is. We don't want Steam to go away,'" said Lombardi.

Your daily wrap-up of the hottest stories in PC gaming in the last 24 hours.

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	Left 4 Dead box art revealed Valve Software VP of marketing Doug Lombardi has released the official box art for developer Turtle Rock Studios' upcoming Left 4 Dead, a squad-based shooter that will pit humans in a fight for survival against legions of zombies. Though we find the box art to be stylish yet simple, snazzy yet unassuming, we find ourselves hesitant to award the art a thumbs-up.
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Valve Software VP of marketing Doug Lombardi has released the official box art for developer Turtle Rock Studios' upcoming Left 4 Dead, a squad-based shooter that will pit humans in a fight for survival against legions of zombies. Though we find the box art to be stylish yet simple, snazzy yet unassuming, we find ourselves hesitant to award the art a thumbs-up.

A number of different characters will be available to hunt down the city's undead legions. Because Left 4 Dead will prominently feature undead gorging and head-popping, Valve has affirmed their hope to integrate movie recording and playback features into the game, certain that players will wan to relieve their glorious escapes -- and eviscerations.

Wielding guns, grenades, and a release date of November 4, 2008, Left 4 Dead will be released on PC and Xbox 360.

During an interview at E3, Valve's Doug Lombardi revealed that the company hopes to add a movie making function to Left 4 Dead at some point after the launch of the core game. He loosely described features that would allow players to record, edit, play back, and possibly share their virtual near-death experiences. Sadly, that functionality probably will not be available for a while; we didn't see it in our own hands-on experience with the game.

Lombardi also mentioned that Valve went to Microsoft, Yahoo!, and RealNetworks when it was first conceptualizing Steam, but was told by all that such a service would only exist "10, 15 years in the future." Of course, now Microsoft operates the separate and struggling Games for Windows Live service, which shares some features with Steam.

And yes, we know the above screenshot features the old, now-replaced Left 4 Dead characters. But how about a little nostalgia?

Your daily wrap-up of the hottest stories in PC gaming in the last 24 hours. And, of course, that means lots of E3 goodness.

	E3 08: Hands-on with Left 4 Dead Developer Turtle Rock Studios had been working for some time on Left 4 Dead before the company was bought out by Valve Software (Turtle Rock helped out on various Valve projects in the past and was using Valve's Source engine for Left 4 Dead). So that means that opportunities to play builds of the game have been fairly frequent in the past year or so. However, shooting zombies never really gets old and at E3 2008 today we got yet another chance to make a lot of blood go on the walls (virtually speaking of course).
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	E3 08: Left 4 Dead videos reveal new player characters Valve Software's Gabe Newell took the stage at EA's E3 press conference to present the cooperative horror game Left 4 Dead. We have the video of that presentation on the other side of the jump, but here are the Cliff's Notes.
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Developer Turtle Rock Studios had been working for some time on Left 4 Dead before the company was bought out by Valve Software (Turtle Rock helped out on various Valve projects in the past and was using Valve's Source engine for Left 4 Dead). So that means that opportunities to play builds of the game have been fairly frequent in the past year or so. However, shooting zombies never really gets old and at E3 2008 today we got yet another chance to make a lot of blood go on the walls (virtually speaking of course).

Along with some human teammates we got to play the first level of Left 4 Dead's first scenario (there are four such scenarios in all, each with five levels). Our goal was to get basically from one point to another without being taken by the zombie horde. After each of our characters loaded up with head, weapons and ammo we left via a rooftop and went down the stairs through the building. It didn't take long for the zombies to start swarming all over the place. They acted like they need a human fix. By the way, these zombies are of the Dawn of the Dead remake variety; they are fast, relentless and hungry for your brains.

Valve Software's Gabe Newell took the stage at EA's E3 press conference to present the cooperative horror game Left 4 Dead. We have the video of that presentation on the other side of the jump, but here are the Cliff's Notes.

All four current player character models will be replaced with the above-pictured folks. This was probably a good change; the old ones weren't very likable or varied. In addition to that bit of info, Newell talked about the game's AI director, which will adjust the gameplay to match players' playstyles, positions, and status.

He also said the game is coming out on November 4th, but that news ain't new. Anyway, the game seems to be coming along swimmingly. Be sure and check out the video after the break!

Time to revamp your zombie apocalypse plan. After numerous delays the highly anticipated shooter, Left 4 Dead, will release on November 4. From publisher Valve and newly acquired developer Turtle Rock, the announced date confirms earlier statements made by Valve Software's Doug Lombardi who promised the title within the month. Since being announced in the early days of 2007 and first showcasing its flood of zombie enemies, gamers have been clamoring to get their hands on the Source Engine powered title. Shipping on the PC and Xbox 360, Left 4 Dead also allows gamers the opportunity to play as various "boss" zombie characters-- each class with their own special deadly ability. Stockpile your nonperishables and pick your squad ASAP, Left 4 Dead is only a few months away.

During a recent visit to Valve's offices to experience more Left 4 Dead goodness, Shacknews came face-to-face with the witch, one of the game's unplayable boss characters.

Shacknews writer Aaron Linde detailed his initial encounter against the female boss infected, stating that "perhaps most unsettling is [her] quiet weeping; the witch is most often heard before she's seen." Upon requesting a confrontation, Valve writer Chet Faliszek cautioned that the witch is "entirely lethal. Whoever sets her off, she'll go after that one person and she will kill them. Other creatures, yeah, you can push them away, you can run, you can do all these different things, but she is single-track. She's going to kill you."

Undaunted, the squad readied their weapons as Faliszek lobbed a molotov cocktail at a nearby witch, who was huddled, weeping, on a sidewalk.

Did the Shack crew emerge victorious, or were they cut down to a man? Read their entire preview to find out.

Valve Software's Doug Lombardi revealed in the second half of a two part interview with Shacknews (in part one he declared PC gaming alive and well) that the studio hopes to ship its co-op, zombie-themed, survival horror FPS Left 4 Dead sometime in November of this year.

Left 4 Dead is Valve's big release this year, and the company hopes that it will do the same thing for co-op multi-player gaming that Counter Strike did for competitive play. The audience is clearly there; zombie-themed, user-created Half-Life 2 mods like Zombie Master and Zombie Panic are among the most popular on Steam.

Lombardi also suggested that gamers will get to play the full version of Left 4 Dead free for a whole weekend, and that a demo is probably coming as well. He wasn't able to confirm a time-frame for either of those, though.

It's always a good time to play games with your buddies, whether they are right next to you or if they are online thousands of miles away. Developers Turtle Rock Studios and Valve know this well. They also know that shooting through an army of zombies is fun, too. Thus was born the co-op oriented Left 4 Dead which Turtle Rock and Valve plan to spring on players sometime this fall.

Some new screenshots from the game just got released and they show a lot of folks who look like they need to take some baths going up against the flesh eating undead with a truckload of ordinance. Since this is Valve we are talking about here we are betting that even after the game is released there will be some extra content for the game that will find its way via its Steam client. In any case, we can't wait to get some hands-on time with Left 4 Dead very soon

Lets just admit it: We've got an obsession with zombies. Some people may not be so how on running from them, too, but then again they probably haven't played (or even heard of) Left 4 Dead yet. If that's the case, then would you kindly direct your attention over to this interview with Chet Faliszek about all things zombie-killing in the upcoming Steam and Xbox 360 title.

Because of the fact that Left 4 Dead is one of those games you really have to play for yourself, we're happy to find out that Valve plans to do some kind of demo when the game launches. Otherwise we'd be stuck trying to explain to people that L4D is a four-player co-op game played against AI controlled zombies, that's also a 4v4 team-based game where the other four players take control of specific super-zombies. Curious? Yeah, we thought you might be.