Pre-order L4D2, get early demo

By Robert Purchese Published 7 July, 2009

That's a brainy idea.

Valve will reward people who pre-order Left 4 Dead 2 with early access to a multiplayer demo.

Pre-orders can be registered via Steam for PC or at "participating retailers", Valve spokesperson Doug Lombardi told OXM.

There's no specific date for the multiplayer demo, but it will arrive before L4D2's launch on 17th November. That's a Tuesday, incidentally, which means UK retailers are likely to stock the game from 20th November - a Friday.

All other PC and Xbox 360 owners will be able to play the multiplayer demo at a later date.

Valve recently told Eurogamer that pre-orders for Left 4 Dead 2 are twice that of the original game over the same period of time, despite threats of boycott by angry fans who thought Valve would forego promised DLC in favour a quick sequel.

Head over to our freshly-minted hands-on impressions of Left 4 Dead 2 to see how the sequel is shaping up.

Picture of Robert.

About Robert Purchese

Bertie is Eurogamer's Senior Staff Writer. When he's not hunting down news stories he's often found playing with his kids or gabbling about fantasy games and strange online worlds. @Clert on Twitter.

Read more articles from Robert by visiting the Robert Purchese archive page.

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Comments (14) Latest comment 3 years ago

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

  • DFawkes #1 3 years ago

    I'm not pre-ordering the 360 on until I know which retailers are participating in this. I want to play it quite a lot.

    Though the Americans getting that lead on us in unfair, but to be honest I can't see me playing with any of them anyway when the EG lot are so good :) I'm sure any games shop worth their salt will have it out on Tuesday anyway.

  • Chufty #2 3 years ago

    So much to do in November...

  • thenastypasty #3 3 years ago

    Just tell me which shop it is and I'm there.

  • Headache #4 3 years ago

    There was little point pre-ordering L4D as well all got to play the first part quite early and those who did pre-order got bitten on price. I think I paid around £23 for L4D from play compared to my mate who pre-ordered, got to play for an extra week beforehand and paid £35 for the privilage. Not worth it in my opinion.

    Much as I like buying my games on Steam I'll only do it if the price is competative and aside from their odd weekend special offers it's still generally cheaper to get your games from play or amazon.

  • Eraysor #5 3 years ago

    I have no idea why publishers think you should order something before you get the demo, it should always be the other way round.

  • kangarootoo #6 3 years ago

    I hate this sort of thing. I really want to play the demo as I'm a big L4D fan, but I'm not going to commit to buying something IN ORDER to then get to demo it. That makes no sense.

    I can wait.

  • the_dudefather #7 3 years ago

    This is like taking a test drive after you bought the car (then they keep the car in a lock up garage for a month or so until you're allowed to drive it again)

  • Red_Bool #8 3 years ago

    Slightly O/T, but every time I see the 'word' L4D2, I think they mean an astromech droid...
    Edited by Red_Bool at 07/07/09 @ 09:59

  • skillian #9 3 years ago

    If it's coming close to the release date, why not just do a free weekend like they've done with so many other games?

    Takes no real extra programming like a demo does, everyone gets to play it and means people have the whole game on their hard disk ready to buy with a couple of clicks.

    Then again, that they're doing a demo at all is something at least - most PC games don't seem to even go that far these days.

  • Rirekon #10 3 years ago

    Seriously though, I've not managed to find anywhere on Steam to pre-order it... how can you have so many pre-orders when you can't pre-order it?!

  • sneetch #11 3 years ago

    @Rirekon
    Seriously though, I've not managed to find anywhere on Steam to pre-order it... how can you have so many pre-orders when you can't pre-order it?!

    I know, they're not even accepting pre-orders in the stores near me yet (I got blank looks, followed by frantic leafing through the "big book of games";), I reckon they must mean pre-orders from the distributors/big chains rather than end-user.

    I reckon I'll buy it from a "participating retailer" for about €35 rather than pay €50 on Steam, dunno if I'll even pre-order as Headache pointed out the extra cost isn't really worth what you get.

  • Spence1115 #12 3 years ago

    It's not always more expensive to preorder. I preordered the first from Amazon and got it for £19.99. Or £17.99, one of the two. Still, fairly cheap and a good price. I'd preorder this at the same price, but I can wait otherwise, it'll be in a sale on Amazon/Play/Steam soon enough.

  • hahayou #13 3 years ago

    They did this last time too - that's why you could get the demo early on piratebay etc.

  • metalangel #14 3 years ago

    Heh, the irony is I was rather interested by the first UNTIL I played the demo and decided it didn't click with me in the slightest.