Valve's Gabe Newell has affirmed they won't be ditching support of the original Left 4 Dead just because a sequel is on the way for this year.
Thanks to L4D's "insane popularity" the sequel should enjoy "super excited" customers who'd fight actual zombies to get it. A petition with over 20,000 fan doodlings suggests otherwise.
"From a customer’s perspective, we think that given the sort of insane popularity of Left 4 Dead, that people are going to be super excited about getting a sequel to that," Newell says to G4 in an interview.
"We’re going to continue to do Left 4 Dead updates and release more content for Left 4 Dead, and then also have Left 4 Dead 2 coming out as well."
"We’re continuing to do updates for Left 4 Dead even after Left 4 Dead 2 ships. So, that hasn’t changed. We’re just doing Left 4 Dead 2 - different settings, different characters, and continuing to push the technology forward."
The fan petition going around accuses the developer of abandoning their traditional principles, and that the Left 4 Dead community will fracture because of the sequel.
"If the AI director 2.0 and stuff like that makes more sense to do where you’ve got new geometries and can take advantage of that rather than trying to take advantage of that in pre-existing maps and build new monsters and take advantage of it as well," explains the Valve man.
"So, we’re going to continue to do DLC for Left 4 Dead and continue to support that product. And then, also do Left 4 Dead 2." Does team Valve break your heart with this move, or make you just wanna crack more zombie skulls?
