left-4-dead-2-the-passing posts

With just one more week before the release of The Sacrifice DLC for both Left 4 Dead games, Valve has now posted up the third part of its massive online comic book prequel for the upcoming free mini-expansion. The comic, drawn by Michael Avon Fleming, shows what happens to the cast of the first Left 4 Dead game before the events of the previously released DLC The Passing.

There's just one more online "issue" of The Sacrifice online comic left to go. It will be released on Tuesday, October 5 which is the same day The Sacrifice DLC will be released via Steam for free for PC owners of both games.

Valve revealed some time ago its plans to release an online comic book that would tell the prequel story behind the upcoming Left 4 Dead/Left 4 Dead 2 DLC expansion The Sacrifice. Tonight Valve announced that the first part of the four comic will be made available on Tuesday, September 14.

The comic, drawn by Michael Avon Oeming, will tell the story of how one of Left 4 Dead's main characters, Bill, died just before the rest of the cast encounters the Left 4 Dead 2 characters in the previously released DLC The Passing. The Sacrifice DLC will be released for both games in early October.

If you have played the games in Valve's Left 4 Dead series you know that the zombie themed co-op shooter has messages written on the walls that are made by fictional survivors. Well, in the new expansion Left 4 Dead 2 The Passing it seems that a couple of those message have come from some alternate parallel game universes.

One of them, as spotted by Destroyed Controller, comes from Frank West, the photo-taking hero of Capcom's first Dead Rising game. Kotaku also reports another message left by "Crazy Dave" who is your neighbor and armorer in PopCap's fun casual game Plants Vs Zombies. It sound like both have found their way into Valve's zombieverse.

The Passing, the first DLC expansion for Left 4 Dead 2 where characters from the original game meet the new ones, releases today. It looks like the band extended band of survivors will have to find ways to work with each other.

Download HD Left 4 Dead 2: The Passing DLC Trailer (83 MB)
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Later today, Valve will release Left 4 Dead 2: The Passing. As we have reported earlier this week one of the new additions that will be included in this mini-expansion for the zombie co-op shooter is the Mutation feature. The game's official blog site now has more info on how this new gameplay feature will work.

Each week Valve will activate a new gameplay mode for Left 4 Dead 2 that will only be active for that week before it's replaced by a new Mutation gameplay mode. For this first week, the Mutation mode will be Realism Versus, a variation on Versus mode where the Survivors team have all of the Realism features working against them while the Infected have the opposite. Sometime in the future the Mutation mode for the week will be Chainsaw Massacre where Survivors in Campaign mode are armed just with a chainsaw which has unlimited gasoline. Each week the blog will reveal which Mutation mode will be active.

Valve has officially announced that the first big expansion for their zombie co-op shooter Left 4 Dead 2, titled The Passing, will be released via Steam on Thursday. Like previous downloadable expansions for Valve's PC game releases, The Passing will be a free download for Left 4 Dead 2 PC owners.

Valve has also revealed more details on what will be contained in The Passing, including the addition of Mutations. These will be new gameplay modes that Valve plans to cycle in and out of the multiplayer servers on a weekly basis. More that 20 Mutation gameplay modes are planned. One of the modes is Chainsaw Massacre where the survivors are all armed with chainsaws and they have an unlimited amount of gas. All of the Mutation modes can be played on any of Left 4 Dead 2's levels.

In addition to the Mutation gameplay modes, The Passing will have a new co-op challenge mode, bot support for infected bosses in Versus mode, the new M-60 weapon, the new golf club melee weapon, the new fallen survivor "uncommon common" zombie.

After missing its planned March release, Valve has now announced that their first major Left 4 Dead 2 downloadable expansion, The Passing, will finally be made available sometime next week via Steam. Just a reminder; this is the episode that will bring the cast of both of Valve's zombie shooter games together for the first time.

In addition to that big crossover The Passing will have some new gameplay modes, none of which have been revealed yet, along with a couple of new weapons, a new "uncommon" common zombie and a bridal version of the Witch boss. There's also some major story elements that, while they have been revealed completely by other sites, we have chosen to put under spoiler alerts. There's still no word if PC players will have to pay to download The Passing, although Valve usually makes this kind of content free to download for the PC port.

While we still have a few more days in March to go it's looking like Valve's original plans to release their first major Left 4 Dead 2 content expansion, The Passing, won't make out by the end of the month. Instead The Passing now has a more vague "Spring" release date, at least according to the UK Inside Xbox video feature. No reason for the delay was revealed.

The Passing, as we have reported before, will feature the casts of both of Valve's zombie co-op shooters meeting for the first time along with some more content and extra gameplay modes. The Xbox 360 version will cost 560 Microsoft points (about $7) but Valve has been unusually silent about if the PC version will be free to download or if it will cost money to get The Passing.

[Via Kotaku]

There's going to be something kind of big coming up in the next Left 4 Dead 2 mini-expansion The Passing, due out in the near future. GameTrailers TV revealed the info earlier this morning about the Valve created expansion where the Left 4 Dead 2 cast meets up with the four folks from the original zombie co-op shooter.

It's so major, in fact, that we feel that we need a BIG SPOILER ALERT so as to not ruin things for people who want to play the expansion cold. So if you want to find out about the big plot development read after the jump. If you don't STOP RIGHT NOW!