Crash Course L4D2 support uncertain

By Tom Bramwell Published 6 August, 2009

Valve considering how it would work.

Valve hasn't figured out yet whether the new Crash Course campaign will work with both Left 4 Dead and the upcoming Left 4 Dead 2.

"We're still struggling with how interoperability is going to work, right now," Faliszek told Edge. "When we talk about L4D, the story stuff - there's actually a lot of character dialogue that's based in each map."

Faliszek's concern is that the new Left 4 Dead 2 cast would not be anywhere near the locations from Left 4 Dead 1 - including Crash Course, which was the subject of discussion - which would make things a little awkward.

"We have a world sketched out and we have an understanding of where everything is and what's going on, you know, so story-wise it wouldn't make much sense," he explained. "But equally there's a whole group of the fans who don't care."

One option, he said, was to bring the original cast of characters along to the second game. "That's one of the routes we've talked about going, and maybe adding the new creatures, or whatever," he said. But the point is that it's not fixed, even with Crash Course out next month and Left 4 Dead 2 hitting in mid-November.

As for what is confirmed about Crash Course, Faliszek explained that the Versus focus was a reaction to feedback and statistics, and particularly the desire to reduce Versus sessions from two hours down to a sharp 20 or 30 minutes.

Crash Course is described as "a two-map campaign with a finale", and as discussed earlier this week it's set between the No Mercy and Death Toll campaigns, with Survival maps and the traditional option to play it as a co-op campaign.

The other big talking point around Crash Course was the decision to release it for free on PC while Xbox 360 owners are expected to pay 560 Microsoft Points (£4.76 / €6.72). We've asked about that but haven't heard back yet.

Picture of Tom.

About Tom Bramwell

Tom is Operations director of Eurogamer Network and Editor-at-Large of Eurogamer.net. He joined the company in February 2000.

Read more articles from Tom by visiting the Tom Bramwell archive page.

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Comments (18) Latest comment 3 years ago

Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • Chufty #1 3 years ago

    /awaits sensational L4D2 boycotter comments

  • Buztafen #2 3 years ago

    The shorter Versus map style is a great idea, can fit a game of crash course in just before everyone goes to bed.

  • Sunyavadin #3 3 years ago

    Which would have been good last night as we managed 2 chapters of a campaign in the time we had. And in one the other team kept teleporting inside us and killing us.....

  • Doctor_What #4 3 years ago

    There was a story? Great game, yes, but what was the story?

  • Optimaximal #5 3 years ago

    As much as I'm not a L4D2 boycotter (why bother boycotting a game ffs - don't agree with it then don't buy it! It's your loss), Valve really have dropped the ball with the handling of this cluster-fuck...

    For every 'trust us, we'll get it working', we get another backhand 'we're not sure we can get this working without compromising one of the versions'.

  • hiddenranbir #6 3 years ago

    They haven't figured it out yet? I guess that shows they've really been playing this off the... I forget the phrase, but seems like they're winging their decisions as they go.

  • Skandalle #7 3 years ago

    If its just incorporating it into the story thats the big issue...then dont. Have the Crash Course map as an Unlockable extra when you complete all 5 of the L4D2 campaigns.

  • ZuluHero #8 3 years ago

    I guess i'm in the camp that doesn't care about the geography of it all. It wouldn't bother me at all if Rochelle was voiced by Zoey for just one map.

    The more support for both games the better.

  • Ninja_Tino #9 3 years ago

    Whoa whoa. The 560point campaign is only 2 maps? With one of them being a finale level? Seems a bit pricey now.

  • viper_h #10 3 years ago

    Nearly 600 points for 2 maps. lol.

    That's why I play PC!
    Edited by 1 at 06/08/09 @ 10:06

  • HermitUK #11 3 years ago

    @Doctor

    There was a plot, though Valve dropped the idea of putting in cutscenes to link all the campaigns together.
    This Steam Forums thread is pretty much the best stop for all the information in one place: http://fo rums.steampowered.com/forums/sh... - The Story in Left 4 Dead

  • Baronen #12 3 years ago

    Apparently the original four campaigns are all supposed to link together, but with no cut-scenes or really any indication that they actually do, I don't really the see the problem with ignoring the 'story' if it means more levels playable in L4D2.

  • yupyup #13 3 years ago

    Would have been kind of cool to have the DLC set (geographically) inbetween L4D 1 and 2.

  • BadDevotions #14 3 years ago

    i think skandalle has hit the nail on the head there. Don't include crash course in l4d2 but allow it to be unlocked after the game has been completed (what ever completed means).

  • Doctor_What #15 3 years ago

    @ Hermit: Cheers for the link :)

  • Derblington #16 3 years ago

    I assume they're looking into this already but it would be cool if they can pull off the same trick that RB/RB2 did. Pay a small fee to install L4D to the hdd, and have L4D2 recognize and run it via the front end. Obviously free would be nice, but MS wouldn't allow it I'd imagine.

  • sneetch #17 3 years ago

    "But equally there's a whole group of the fans who don't care."

    I'm in that group, I couldn't care less if Bill and the gang turn up next to some of those southern guys (don't know their names) how people get so caught up on the "story" here is beyond me, what, people from Louisiana can't travel north?

  • monkeywithnoeyes #18 3 years ago

    That's one of the routes we've talked about going, and maybe adding the new creatures, or whatever," I thought one of their arguements why L4D2 wouldnt of been possible as dlc was because of the new creatures and their AI?