Left 4 Dead 2: The Passing in March

By Tom Bramwell Published 12 February, 2010

Plus L4D1 add-on the following month.

Valve has said that Left 4 Dead 2 add-on The Passing is due out in March.

The news came from Microsoft's X10 event in San Francisco last night where Valve's Chet Faliszek also told Kotaku that Left 4 Dead 1 would get an add-on about a month later.

That chunk will tell the story of how the original survivors ended up getting to where they are when you encounter them in The Passing.

According to Faliszek, The Passing itself will see the two groups - you as the L4D2 cast and the originals as NPCs - joining forces to deal with one of its chapters.

There's also a new uncommon common infected, the Fallen Survivor, who occasionally drops items like health kits when dispatched.

Pricing for The Passing will be announced closer to the launch.

Elsewhere, Valve has revealed that gamers dispatched 28,981,249,043 zombies in the first two months of L4D2's existence, and produced some funky stats to contextualise the figure, like how tall the zombie tower would be if you stacked the bodies head to toe.

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.

You may also like...

Comments (29) Latest comment 2 years ago

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

  • charming_fox #1 2 years ago

    yummy.... "Elsewhere, Valve has revealed that gamers dispatched 28,981,249,043 zombies in the first two months of L4D2's existence"

    Coincidentally, 28,981,249,043 is what the next installment of COD will RRP for in £s.
    Edited by 1 at 12/02/10 @ 09:28

  • bad09 #2 2 years ago

    Nice. I've been neglecting the old L4D's (off the boil on MP), so this will give 2 a dust off.....which in turn always make me wanna play the first as I like it a little better. Shhh don't tell Valve :)

    Oh, and pricing? just checking, it is still free on PC isn't it?

  • Ignatius_Cheese #3 2 years ago

    That's nearly 4 and a half times the population of Earth! An impressive zombie massacre!!

    Must get back into playing more L4D...

  • ignatiusjreilly #4 2 years ago

    The original characters are non-playable? That's a bit disappointing.

  • melch #5 2 years ago

    i was a little under whelmed by L4D2 if im honest, had more fun playing the first one

  • asphaltcowboy #6 2 years ago

    Despite all the gameplay improvements, L4D2 just doesn't have as good campaigns as L4D1...

  • PrivateFloyd #7 2 years ago

    this news pleases privatefloyd

  • StooMonster #8 2 years ago

    Awesome.

    Now if only L4D2 would stop crashing on my PC. :'(

    Still not resolved. :''(

    The only PC games I have that crashes. :'''(

    Edit: should be working, but just tested L4D2 as I'd seen quite a few updates recently. Low and behold, no crashes ... I managed to get all the way through Campaign #1. Hurrah! I'll be able to play with my L4D buddies again (assuming it really is fixed this time).
    Edited by 1 at 12/02/10 @ 12:55

  • sfp_noodle #9 2 years ago

    i think im in the minority here tht disagrees tht the original was better. admitedly, i only bought it after i had played the sequel which i recieved for christmas but whilst the original is still excellent there are many improvements. first of all the characters have mre personality with ellis' comments in particular a highlight. there are more weapons, and even tho there arent any stats tht cover their strengths it is always better to have variety than to have nothing at all.

    there are loads of mellee weapons including a frying pan and a baseball bat. it felt like a nice little homage to shaun of the dead with those additions! weapons can be attatched with laser sights and not only does it make them look bastard cool, but they actually do make ur weapons much mre accurate.

    there are 3 more special infected. the original l4d got boring in versus coz almost always u spwned as the hunter. now u almost always spwn as another one of the more interesting infected like the jockey or the charger.

    there are more campaingns on the disc and the chapters genuinely feel longer. also, i didnt think the first games constant night time setting made anything scary. if anythhhing, it got in the way a bit during corridoor sections where being surrounded by zmbies proved frustrating. the day and night time settings provided a welcome change of scenery aswell as a little bit mre realism if such an apocalypse ever occured.

    the campaigns actually played out like a story this time and were linked, unlike the original where u seemed to pop up in a random location and start off with no idea hw u got there. i know thts a minor complaint, but it makes u feel a little more involved if u knnow more about what ur doing and hw u ended up doing it.

    the graphics were improved and the interface was better. everything seemed to work alot smoother for me. i have to say tht even tho i got the sequel first i have managed to rack up 695G in the original l4d and only 540G in the sequel. apart from the expert achievements, i found tht the original was a bit of an achievement 'gimme' with many of the campaigns achievements popping up without me actually going for them. again, minor complaint but id rather have as many different ways of playing a game like this as possible.

    in the end tho, i love them both, and have friends on both sides tht enjoy both. if i were to keep only one however, i wud opt for the sequel simplly because it is improved for all the reasons mentioned above and probably mre tht i cnt think of this early in the morning :D

  • TSYNDMonkfish #10 2 years ago

    Good news, still loving L4D & L4D2

    I much prefer the new one, but Id love to play the old maps with new infected.

  • Jay-ITFC #11 2 years ago

    If the planets population is somewhere around 6-7 billion then surely Coach, Rochelle, Ellis & Nick have single-handedly ended the zombie apocalypse? In that case we can all sit around and drink tea in L4D3.

  • MikeN #12 2 years ago

    Disappointed to read that the original survivors are only NPCs in the Passing. For all the gameplay improvements of L4D2 the new characters just aren't as interesting as the originals. Apart from Ellis though, I fully expected to hate him yet I couldn't stop chuckling at his stories of "One time me and my buddy Keef..."

  • Madafunkola #13 2 years ago

    Dear Valve,
    Could we please have either:
    a) A patch/DLC for L4D2 where we can play the first game levels with new Special Infected?
    or:
    b) A patch/DLC for L4D1 to use the new Special Infected?
    Thanks

  • ChthonicEcho #14 2 years ago

    The originals will be NPCs? So, they will either be the victims of horrendous AI which makes them behave like brain-damaged monkeys on MDMA, or they will be heavily scripted and offer minimal support with such gimmicky gameplay twists as crescendos where you have to protect the L4D1 cast.

    I want to hope they will announce an eight-player multiplayer mode. I really want to like Left 4 Dead 2, but after spending hundreds of hours in the first, the sequel simply doesn't offer enough variety or novelty.

  • BillyBrush #15 2 years ago

    Negativity is rife today (on a friday of all days)

    But...they've just announced upcoming DLC for both the first and second game in the series.

    This puts them in a crowd of... 1 developers to do such a thing.

    Which is surely a nice thing, the one bright spot in an otherwise constant tirade ever since L4D2 was announced.

  • Invisible_Cow #16 2 years ago

    I'm not buying any more L4D1 DLC until they fix the achievement bugs with Crash Course.

  • ChthonicEcho #17 2 years ago

    @BillyBrush

    Quality of downloadable content matters. Just because developers decide to release additional content, be it free or even if it comes with a pint of beer, does not suddenly elevate them to godly status.

    Poorly made downloadable content can hurt longevity of a game. Survival added a game mode most abandoned one month after its release, and Crash Course did little to save L4D1 due to poor level design, bugs and abysmal size.

    Did it ever occur to you that negativity might stem from reason? Or is it a trend now to be blindly optimistic?

  • gintoki #18 2 years ago

    I'd rather have played as the original survivors and had the new survivors as NPCs. The new cast just aren't as fun

  • BillyBrush #19 2 years ago

    @Echo

    Well, it's fairly unlikely that there will be any downloadable content announced for uncharted 1, modern warfare, or forza 2

    So...yes, i think it's Ok to be positive that they're still supporting both the games in this series, rather than just focussing everything on the latest one.

    And to be honest, being blindly optimistic is also a lot more fun than grouching about announcements of more content :o)

    You don't have any clue as to the quality of these peices of DLC (they've just announced them) so you're being blindly pessemistic...we're blindly sucking at the same straw here, only my end is covered in sugar, and yours has been dipped in shit
    Edited by 1 at 12/02/10 @ 14:32

  • vegard #20 2 years ago

    i'm not even going to bother screaming for a half-life ep 3 or hl3

  • ChthonicEcho #21 2 years ago

    @BillyBrush

    These are not announcements. The Passing had been announced over a month ago, and more content for Left 4 Dead 1 is promised at every PR opportunity they get.

    I base my negativity on solid details announced (both in this article and the latest gameplay video). Your optimism is based on... the fact it's new content? You don't find that naive?

    I was (cautiously) excited when The Passing was announced, because they had announced the return of the original cast. There was a detail that caught my interest, and I was intrigued. Not because it was a new trinket, but because it had potential.

  • PuppyFiddler #22 2 years ago

    Valve is still trying to save face by releasing crap levels for the first game. The extra level they threw in right at the release of L4D2 was clearly a last minute decision that looked like it was knocked up in a few days and I'm sure the next one will be the same.

    Gabe Newell -"Hey Timmey throw together any old level you want for L4D1, we need to make sure we look like we planned it all along so the petition to boycot L4D2 wasn't justified."

  • BillyBrush #23 2 years ago

    Lighten up a bit chaps

    it's like a Victor Meldrew convention in here.

  • tuff #24 2 years ago

    Oh the negativity.

    This is great news for both games; we xbox owners are also glad that Valve are sticking to their word of not ditching the original.

    PC gamers obviously have a great community for mods, maps and the like, so extra campaigns to stop the games getting stale is very welcome.

  • penhalion #25 2 years ago

    I have to ask the bloody obvious really. L4D is all well and good but, where the frak is Half Life Chapter 3. You know, the game that was supposed to come out 6 months after chapter 2. The game that Valve seem to be pretending never existed.....

  • kwesleyb #26 2 years ago

    Last time i heard Half Life Chapter 3 was being built to only work on the next Windows OS release....

    Anyway on a more serious topical note; DLC for L4D on PC? Lovely, it is probably the game i have played the most on, ever. And long may that continue... im obsessed with it!

    Im up for a game if anyone's offering... :D

  • hahayou #27 2 years ago

    @TSYNDMonkfish

    You can play the old maps in L4D2, there's a fan project to import them. Not easy to find a public game but you can talk your friends into playing.

    [link url=http:/ /nekoarcnetwork.com/l4donl4d2/index.html
    ]http://ne koarcnetwork.com/l4donl4d2/inde...[/link]

    @ChthonicEcho

    You can play with 8 survivors on some modded servers. It's not very good: the game just isn't balanced for it, and co-ordination goes out of the window. A gimmick is the only way it could work.

  • ChthonicEcho #28 2 years ago

    @hahayou

    Stop comparing clunky server-side mods with potential game modes. Left 4 Dead itself started out as a server-side mod that was hardly popular or even liked.

    Objective-based Versus with two Survivor teams advancing side-by-side (e.g. one team on the rooftops, the other in the alleys below), their progress reliant on each other's performance, and Infected (the number of which could be raised) forced to prioritise who to attack? It would work and would work as more than a gimmick.

    And even a gimmick can evolve into a worthwhile element if enough thought is put into it. The return of the original cast as NPCs that appear only at the start and the end, however, now that sounds like a gimmick.

    I'll gladly be proven wrong, though. I want to be. I simply feel wary after being disappointed with Turtle Rock (the Left 4 Dead team) numerous times.
    Edited by 1 at 14/02/10 @ 13:43

  • hahayou #29 2 years ago

    @ChthonicEcho

    If you can cover each other then the infected can't do anything: hunters etc always get instantly sniped off by the other team and the typical ambush point based infected tactics fail when there's cover fire - getting stuck alone when everyone else has dropped down a manhole doesn't matter if a sniper will save you from a smoker.

    If you can't cover each other then you're in the un-fun situation of your team losing because the other guys suck. Allowing infected to choose which team to attack would make that scenario even worse, there's a reason that you're never allowed more than 3 infected that can instantly prevent survivors shooting, that's an instant win for a properly co-ordinated team.

    I like the idea but I really don't think it can work. More is not always better.
    Edited by 2 at 14/02/10 @ 22:59