Left 4 Dead Cold Stream DLC enters beta

By Fred Dutton Published 23 March, 2011

Valve demands your feedback.

Left 4 Dead 2's forthcoming Cold Stream DLC expansion is open for PC and Mac beta testing now, publisher Valve has announced.

Next time you boot the game up you should notice the new addition to the campaign list. Valve wants you to take a look and then offer feedback and bug reports via the add-on's official forum. The finale in particular demands your attention as that is set to "change massively" following the beta.

First announced last month, Cold Stream started life as a community campaign created by modder Matthew Lourdelet. It caught the eye of the folks at Valve who then decided to jump in, buff it up and give it a full release.

"Matthew has been hard at work on the map and the initial release looks a little more polished than you may have expected," read a post on the Left 4 Dead Blog.

"The reason for that is the difference between how we work on a campaign compared to modders. When we work on a campaign, we normally work in a rougher state without textures for a long period. Level design artists come in later and give the game its finished look with textures.

"Modders often texture early as they have to create the structures based on the available artwork. They don't have a team of artists coming in after them. So don't let the level of texturing fool you. The campaign is still in flux."

There's no console beta planned but, as previously announced, the finished campaign will be released for Xbox 360 along with the three remaining Left 4 Dead 1 missions. No official date has been set, but it's not expected until after Portal 2 ships.

Picture of Fred.

About Fred Dutton

Fred Dutton is Eurogamer's US news editor, based in Washington DC.

Read more articles from Fred by visiting the Fred Dutton archive page.

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Comments (9) Latest comment 1 year ago

Comments for this article are now closed, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • Mister-Wario #1 1 year ago

    So this DLC will essentially render L4D1 worthless? Unless you prefer the original gameplay style? What are our thoughts on this?

  • Der_tolle_Emil #2 1 year ago

    My thoughts are: Finally. I prefer the L4D1 campaigns but almost everyone has switched over to L4D2 so it's almost impossible to get a L4D1 campaign game going. It should be much easier now if they are available in L4D2 as well. I also don't mind having the special infected in those campaigns because I already played them extensively anyway and they should make for a nice little diversion.

  • Whitster #3 1 year ago

    @Mister-Wario

    In all fairness L4D1 is 3 years old at this point. These arguments held weight when L4D2 was out a year after the first one, but at this point, no.
    Edited by Whitster at 23/03/11 @ 21:41

  • GarciaHotspur #4 1 year ago

    I traded L4D when 2 came out. It'll be nice to have the old campaigns back. Always got the Steam version if I want to go 'old school'. The traditional 560MS price point would be a pretty sweet deal too.

  • DAN.E.B #5 1 year ago

    I have to say the original L4D campaqin was better, but on VS the new special infected makes the second game better balanced so when they release all the original maps with new infected its win win!.(As long as it works properly)
    Im really hoppping this DLC is leading up to to the announcement of L4D3

  • BlinkeredAxis #6 1 year ago

    It all sounds sensible to me, and any new L4D DLC should be great. Even if it's a fan mod, which, after all, was sort of how Portal came about.

    bring it on!

  • uknortherner2000 #7 1 year ago

    @DAN:SOLO: "Im really hoppping this DLC is leading up to to the announcement of L4D3"

    Can't see it happening. Valve seem to have an aversion to anything with "3" in the title. Like Episode 3 for instance...

  • TheTingler #8 1 year ago

    It's definitely an unpolished fan campaign at this point, needs heavily playtesting and polishing before it's Valve-standard - but then that's what the beta's for!

  • Ryboy #9 1 year ago

    'There's no console beta planned...'

    Because quite frankly you can't be trusted.