Overview

Left 4 Dead 2 is a first-person shooter developed and published by Valve for the PC and Xbox 360 on November 17, 2009. This sequel to 2008's Left 4 Dead is based around 4 new survivors: Ellis, Coach, Nick, and Rochelle. All previous game modes return, and two new ones are added: Scavenge and Realism (The Passing DLC adds a third with Mutation). There are three new special infected: the Charger, Jockey, and Spitter; five uncommon common infected are also introduced. In addition, Left 4 Dead 2 more than doubles the arsenal of firearms to wield and introduces a variety of melee weapons, as well as special limited-use weapons in the chainsaw and grenade launcher. Left 4 Dead 2 also retains the series' trademark humor with each Campaign receiving a B-movie style poster viewable during loading screens.

The Basics

Throughout their journeys, players traverse different environments as they cross the southern United States, looking for refuge from the zombie apocalypse. The four players must work cooperatively level by level to advance to a safe house, and eventually, a rescue vehicle. Players must fight off hordes of zombies in order to reach their objective, including advanced mutated zombies with special abilities known as Special Infected. At the beginning of each level, players are equipped with a health pack, pistol, and primary weapon. They must fight their way through the zombies to reach the next safe room, and on their way they will encounter new equipment and challenges. If a player's health bar ever reaches zero, he or she becomes incapacitated, leaving the player extremely vulnerable to further damage. While incapacitated, players lay on the ground with their pistol(s) out as the new temporary health bar slowly runs down, leading to death. Teammates have to ability to revive incapacitated allies by helping them up, and the revived player will gain back a small amount of health. Players can only be incapacitated a certain amount of times before their vision becomes blurry and they die, without any chance of revival. Players also have the option to heal teammates by giving their own health packs or other medical equipment, such as pain pills or adrenaline shots.

AI Director 2.0

An improved AI Director is featured in Left 4 Dead 2 that dynamically alters the game experience more so than Left 4 Dead's Director. In addition to changing the spawn points of zombies and objects throughout the game, AI Director 2.0 has the ability to alter the layout of certain areas of levels, making each play through more unpredictable, as well as being able to change weather patterns. For example, AID 2.0 can rearrange crypts and tombs in a cemetery, making it impossible to know in advance the exact route that the survivors must follow. AID 2 can also change the weather to create flash thunderstorms, dramatically reducing visibility and muffling voice chat, forcing survivors to hunker down and wait it out.

Crescendo Events

As in Left 4 Dead, survivors will periodically come upon "crescendo events," in which they must activate an object, causing some sort of event to happen (such as calling an elevator), which in turn summons hordes of zombies that the players must fend off for a period of time before they are allowed to move forward. In Left 4 Dead 2, crescendo events come in greater variety than just the old "hole-up and defend" type. So-called, "rolling crescendos" require the players to activate the event and then run a gauntlet while being assaulted by zombies to reach an end point where they can deactivate the event (such as turning off an alarm). Another type of new crescendo is the optional one, such as navigating an impound yard full of alarmed cars, which, if touched or shot, will go off and draw hordes of zombies (possibly causing the survivors to set off even more car alarms, creating a spiraling chaotic chain reaction). These new and more dynamic types of crescendo events were motivated by Valve's desire to reduce the effectiveness of popular and very effective Left 4 Dead 1 tactics like closet camping and corner stacking, in which players crowd into a small defensible space and wait out the event, easily killing all of the infected funneled toward them. Some of the new special infected, as described below, such as the Spitter and Charger further counter these types of cheap survivor tactics.

Campaigns

Set three weeks after the initial infection and one week after the events of Left 4 Dead 1, Left 4 Dead 2 features five all-new campaigns set in the American deep south. Locations such as New Orleans, Louisiana and Savannah, Georgia, feature prominently with some recognizable landmarks making appearances. Some of the new campaigns now feature daytime environments, which Left 4 Dead 1 did not. Also in contrast to Left 4 Dead 1, Left 4 Dead 2's campaigns have a clear official ordering, as outlined below:

• No Mercy - The campaign from Left 4 Dead 1 is now playable in Left 4 Dead 2. Here, players take control of the original survivors.
• Dead Center - Finding themselves left for dead in Savannah, the survivors band together and head for the mall, hoping to find an evacuation center. Finding nothing but more zombies at the mall, the survivors evacuate themselves by appropriating a vehicle and heading out of town.
• The Sacrifice (added via DLC) - Takes place from the first Left 4 Dead Survivors' perspective, as they head south. An interesting choice must be made by one of the survivors at the end of the campaign.

• The Passing (added via DLC) - Takes place when the survivors run into a blockaded city on their way to New Orleans. Several interesting events take place here, including a meet-up with the survivors from the first Left 4 Dead game.
• Dark Carnival - When they come across a permanent traffic jam, the survivors are forced to abandon their car and travel on foot, cutting through Whispering Oaks Amusement Park to find a concert stage they can use to signal a passing helicopter.
• Swamp Fever - After Nick shoots the pilot, which he claims was justified as the pilot had turned into a zombie, the survivors find themselves crash-landed in the swamplands with little choice but to trudge through in hope of a way out. They finally find a plantation house on the river, from which they radio a boat and catch a ride.
• Hard Rain - When tasked with bringing Virgil (the boat captain) gas, the survivors travel through a small town and a sugar mill to reach a gas station that still has fuel stockpiled. They then must retrace their steps through a pouring thunderstorm back to the river and signal Virgil to pick them up.

• The Parish - Having finally reached New Orleans, the survivors fight through the city looking for an evac site but finding nothing but dead civilians, raining bombs, and of course, plenty of zombies. They finally locate an evac chopper and make a harrow sprint to safety across a massive bridge right before it's destroyed by the military to stem the pursuing infected hordes.

Dead Center and Swamp Fever are comprised of 4 maps apiece, The Passing has 3, and the other campaigns all have 5.

The Cold Stream DLC added the the titular community created map, as well as the remaining Left 4 Dead 1 maps. New dialogue was recorded by the original voice actors for enemies, items and weapons that didn't exist in the first game.

• Crash Course - After the rescue on the Mercy Hospital rooftop, the pilot becomes infected and is killed by Francis. They make their way through the alleyways until they reach a barricade and must fire a howitzer cannon to proceed. They continue through the alleys, to find an electric generator which lowers their escape vehicle, an armored RV.
• Death Toll - The survivors make their way through the town of Riverside, looking for the military support. They travel down a turnpike, following tunnels and sewers. The reach a church but are unable to gain the trust of the person who has barricaded himself inside, Summoning a horde. They then travel through a town ending up at a boathouse, and are finally rescued by a couple on a boat.
• Dead Air - A greenhouse, and dangerous rooftops start off this campaign. The survivors must activate a crane, which summons a large horde, and continue over the rooftops the a construction site. The construction site features a large barrier that must be burnt down, summoning another zombie horde. The survivors eventually end up at the deserted terminal, find an aircraft in need of fuel, and refuel it in exchange for passage.
• Blood Harvest - The survivors start on the borders of the Allegheny National Forest, and follow train tracks looking for military assistance. They make their way through a large tunnel, over a bridge, through a train yard, and a cornfield ending up at an abandoned farm house. The survivors call for military evacuation, which arrives in the form of an armored personell carrier.

• • Cold Stream - The Left 4 Dead 2 survivors travel down a stream and through an underground military bunker in the woods. They travel further down the stream and destroy a demolition charge setup to protect a CEDA outpost, and cross the almost completely destroyed Memorial Bridge. The finale is a nonstop gauntlet where the zombies never stop coming until you make it through the maze of barricades, and reach the escape helicopter at the top of a large wooden tower.

Crash Course is comprised of 2 maps, Cold Stream has 4 maps, and the remaining original maps have 5 maps each.

Gameplay Modes

Campaign

Players play as the four survivors and attempt to make it through all chapters of a campaign. Each chapter ends when the survivors make it to a safe room, which contain ammo, weapons, and health kits, so that the survivors can get reorganized before heading out back into the fight for their lives. If any players die before finishing the level, they can be rescued by being found locked in a room at certain points in the level, bringing them back to life with half health and minimal equipment. In the fifth (fourth for Swamp Fever and Dead Center) and final chapter of a campaign, survivors will reach a finale in which they must fight off several hordes of zombies while they wait for a rescue vehicle to reach them, which they can signal when they're ready by using a radio.

Versus

Versus mode allows up to eight players in a game, and pits two teams of four against each other. One team plays as the survivors, and the other as Special Infected. Players advance through a campaign, playing each chapter twice (once as the survivors, once as the infected). The goal of the survivors is no different than that of Campaign mode, and the infected team must simply try to kill off all survivors. Unlike campaign mode, however, once survivors are dead they cannot be rescued from a spawn room. Points are awarded to a team based on how well they perform on a chapter.

Survival

The four survivors must vie against an endless swarm of zombies for as long as they can. Survival matches take place in any area of a campaign that has a "crescendo event," where players must activate and wait for something to happen before they can advance, during which time they are swarmed by hordes of zombies. In Survival, however, the hordes never end and the players cannot advance, so instead they must hold out for as long as possible. The hordes of zombies are not alerted until the players activate the event, and until then they have as much time as they like to prepare. Throughout the area, there are supplies and weapons, so that survivors can sufficiently arm themselves for the coming attack. As time progresses, the players face an increasing number of Special Infected, eventually even multiple Tanks at once. Players are judged based on how long they are able to survive, and their times are compared to those of their friends via leaderboards.

Scavenge

Scavenge is a 4 vs 4 competitive mode in which teams compete to collect gas cans scattered around a map in order to fuel up a centrally-located generator. Games are round-based, with each team playing once as the survivors (collecting the gas cans) and once as the infected (attacking the survivors) per round. There are always 16 possible gas cans to collect, and the team that collects more in a round wins that round. Games may be chosen to last a single round, best 2 out of 3, or best 3 out of 5.

Playing as the survivors, a team must race against the clock, which starts at one minute and 30 seconds, and is extended by 20 seconds for each of the 16 gas cans they successfully retrieve and deposit in the generator. If the clock reaches zero and none of the survivors is holding a gas can, or if the entire survivor team is incapacitated, play stops and the team playing survivors is scored by how many cans they managed to deposit that round. If the clock reaches zero and at least one survivor is still holding onto a gas can, overtime is triggered and play continues until either the survivors deposit a can into the generator (raising the clock back to 20 seconds) or all survivors holding gas cans drop them.

To win a round, a team only has to collect more gas cans than the other team--they don't necessarily need to collect all 16. In fact, in the second half of a round, once the survivors collect 1 can more than the other team did in that round, play stops, and the team that collected more gas cans wins it outright. For example, if the first team to play survivors in a round collects 3 gas cans before running out of time or getting incapacitated, then the second team only needs to collect 4 gas cans to win that round. If both teams collect the same number of gas cans, then the winner of the round is determined by how fast each team was in getting those cans, with the faster team winning.

The team to play survivors first in a new round is the team that lost the previous round. After a game has been won by a team, both teams are prompted to vote if they would like to play a rematch. If majorities of both teams vote "yes", then a new game is begun with the same teams, map, server, and settings. If either team does not vote "yes" by majority, then everyone is returned to the game lobby.

Realism

Realism puts a new twist on the classic campaign mode, playing more like a variant on campaign mode than an entirely distinct mode of its own. Realism mode is identical to campaign mode except for the following changes:

• Common infected take far less damage from bullets except when shot in the head, making it very important to go for headshots
• The glowing outlines around fellow survivors are completely eliminated, forcing players to actively and regularly communicate their positions, since they can no longer see each others' outlines through walls
• The glow around items has dramatically reduced proximity, so the glow doesn't appear until the player is in close proximity to the item, requiring survivors to be more observant to spot useful supplies lying around
• There are no rescue closets, meaning that if a survivor dies, the only way to come back to life (aside from respawning at the start of the next map) is to be revived by another survivor using a defibrillator
• The witch will instantly kill any player that she attacks

Like campaign mode, Realism may be played on any of the game's four standard difficulty settings: Easy, Normal, Advanced, and Expert.

Mutations (added via "The Passing" DLC)

Mutations are variants of the game modes listed above. Mutations were introduced with the Passing downloadable content and were originally changed bi-weekly until the introduction of the Cold Stream downloadable content. With this update all mutations are available all the time. Xbox players will need to own both The Passing and Cold Stream to gain access to permanent mutations .

• Realism Versus (introduced in week 1) - Versus mode with Realism rules added. Special infected can still see glowing outlines of the survivors and of other special infected. This mode was made permanent for owners of the DLC starting from week 5.
• Bleed Out (introduced in week 2) - Campaign mode with temporary health (i.e. the health gained from pills) ONLY. There are no health kits--pills and adrenaline replace them. Hordes are continuously summoned roughly every 30 seconds. Pills are the only items that reverse the "blue tint" mode. Being rescued from a closet or revived with a defibrillator gives players 50% temporary health.
• Follow the Liter (introduced in week 3) - Scavenge mode, but with only one random group of (one or two) gas cans spawning at a time. To compensate for the fewer cans, each gas can the survivors pour into the generator adds 40 seconds to the clock rather than the normal 20 seconds.
• Last Gnome on Earth (introduced in week 4) - Campaign mode, with Gnome Chompski always spawning with the survivors at the start of every map. The Survivors must carry the gnome to the end of every map. All infected will prioritize their attacks against the player in possession of the gnome.
• Last Man on Earth (introduced in week 6) - Single-player mode. There is only one survivor. There are no common infected or Boomers. (But watch out for the other special infected bots) If the survivor get incapacitated from being charged, pounced (by either Hunter or Jockey), or smoked, the survivor immediately rises in "blue tint" mode, where the next incapacitation is death. (Health kits are scattered around more, reversing that effect)
• Chainsaw Massacre (introduced in week 7) - Campaign mode. Survivors only have access to their default pistol (or doubled with a pistol dropped by another survivor) or a chainsaw with unlimited fuel.
• Room for One (introduced in week 8) - Campaign mode. Instead of starting at the beginning of the campaign, it starts in the finale chapter. First person to reach the rescue vehicle (once it's active) wins! As the blog post states: "You need to work together only long enough until you can survive on your own."
• Headshot! (introduced in week 9) - Campaign mode. Only shots and blows to the head count towards killing the Infected.
• Versus Survival (introduced in week 11) - Survival mode with Versus rules added. Round-based matches. First team to not let the other team beat their time wins.
• Four Swordsmen (introduced in week 12) - Campaign mode. Survivors only have access to katanas (and their default pistol when they're incapped). There are no common infected, though normal special infected will spawn at a larger rate. Boomers and the boomer bile item still spawn, but the bile will not attract any common infected.
• Hard Eight (introduced in week 13) - Campaign mode. Survivors must deal with eight spawning Special Infected instead of the normal four. The spawn rate of Special Infected is dramatically increased in this mode.
• Healthpackalypse (introduced in week 14) - Versus mode with no health kits, pills, or adrenaline.
• Gib Fest! (introduced in week 16) - Campaign mode. Survivors only have access to both magnums and M-60 machine guns with unlimited ammo.
• Iron Man (introduced in week 17) - Realism mode. Once a survivor dies, they're permanently dead for the rest of the campaign. If all the human survivors die, the campaign restarts from the opening cinematic. Ammo is nowhere to be found.
• Taaannnkk! (introduced in week 26) - Versus mode. The Special Infected team will always spawn as Tanks. Survivors get a 15-second head start, and first aid kits are converted into pills.
• Hunting Party (introduced in week 27) - Campaign mode. Hunters, Tanks, and Witches are the only Special Infected that spawn.
• Lone Gunman (introduced in week 28) - Single-player mode. There is only one survivor. Only the Horde, Boomers, Tanks, and Witches spawn. The survivor carries a magnum and there are no other weapons (except grenades). Common and uncommon Infected hit harder.
• Bleed Out Versus (introduced in week 29) - Versus mode with Bleed Out rules added.
• Healing Gnome (introduced in week 30) - Campaign mode. All survivors start with temporary health. There are no healing items, but holding Gnome Chompski will regenerate health for that survivor.
• Special Delivery (introduced in week 36) - Campaign mode. The game can spawn up to 10 special infected at a time, and there's no respawn timer for the special infected. To balance this out, no common or uncommon infected will spawn.
• Flu Season (introduced in week 38) - Campaign mode. The only special infected that spawn are Boomers and Spitters, who appear more often (up to 10 at one time). Both Boomers and Spitters are faster and can use their projectile attacks more often. (Specially scripted Tanks and Witches still appear) Common infected only spawn due to being hit by Boomer bile or during Crescendo events.
• Riding My Survivor (introduced in week 40) - Versus mode. The Special Infected team will always spawn as Jockeys and have increased speed, health, and damage.
• Nightmare (introduced in week 42) - Survival mode with stronger infected and increased fog. The glowing outlines around items and other survivors are eliminated.
• Death's Door (introduced in week 44) - Campaign mode. Incapacitation is disabled (similar to "blue tint" mode, losing all health means instant death). First aid kits are replaced with pills.
• Confogl- Versus Mode. Strongly favors the infected. Pills are the only health. No tier 2 weapons, no defibs, no fire ammo, no chainsaw, no grenade launchers. Tanks spawn on every map. Many other special modifications.

Survivors

The cast of survivors in Left 4 Dead 2 features four new people:

• Coach - Local high school football coach, and a big man with a big heart.
• Rochelle - A low-level news producer who came down from the midwest to find herself in the biggest scoop of her life.
• Ellis - A fun-loving mechanic who loves to talk about his buddy Keith's misadventures.
• Nick - A riverboat gambler and conman who's always looking out for number one.

Equipment

Guns

Left 4 Dead 2 features all of the weapons from the first Left 4 Dead, and adds many more. There is a similar tiering system as the original Left 4 Dead, but it is enforced less strictly, so lower tier weapons may still be found in later maps and higher tier weapons tend to be found earlier. A complete listing of new weapons in Left 4 Dead 2 follows, with the real-world weapon inspiration and its in-game nickname:

Melee Weapons

A completely new addition to the series are melee weapons, found scattered about the maps. In campaign and versus modes, not every melee weapon can be found in every campaign (e.g. tonfas are only found in The Parish, dropped by riot police infected). Melee weapons are interchangeable with pistols as secondary weapons (i.e., you can carry either pistols or one of these melee weapons).

• Fire Axe
• Frying Pan
• Baseball Bat (formerly a pre-order bonus item, since The Passing, available to everyone)
• Cricket Bat
• Chainsaw (comes with limited fuel that cannot be replenished)
• Katana
• Guitar
• Crowbar
• Machete
• Tonfa (Police Baton/Nightstick/Truncheon)
• Golf Club (exclusive to The Passing DLC)

All melee weapons inflict the same amount of damage (instantly killing common infected, killing all special infected except the charger in 1 hit, the witch in 4 hits, and the tank in 20 hits). Aside from look and sound, melee weapons vary in attack speed and arc of effect.

Ammo Types

Also new to Left 4 Dead 2 is different types of ammo that can be picked up by survivors to load into their primary guns. There are new ammo stashes throughout campaigns that give the player a full clip of that type of ammunition, but they can only be used once. These new ammunition types have the following effects:

• Incendiary Ammunition - Any zombies shot with this ammo will catch on fire, excluding Hazmat infected. Common infected are always killed instantly, while special infected will take continuous burning damage for 5 seconds.
• Explosive Ammunition - Explodes on impact, dealing extra damage to the target hit as well as splash damage to anything nearby. Common infected are always instantly killed, while special infected (except for the tank) are stunned momentarily, disrupting their attacks and making them easier to finish off with quick follow-up gunfire.

Supplies

Along with all of the original supplies (i.e. health kits, pain pills, pipe bombs, Molotov cocktails, propane/ gasoline tanks), there are new items that the survivors can use to help them make it through their journey, including:

• Adrenaline - Increases the user's health by 25 temporary hit points, let's them use their melee attack with no fatigue limit, eliminates the slowdown effect from being hit by common infected, enables players to run faster than normal, and halves all activation timers (picking up a downed survivor, using a medkit/defib, etc.). Once used, the player's screen is blurred on the edges and the game removes the bass from all sounds. Players can choose to either carry pain pills or adrenaline, however not both at one time, and adrenaline appears as a small syringe-like device.

• Defibrillator - Revives dead survivors if used on the corpse. This can serve as a quicker alternative to rescuing a fallen teammate from a closet in campaign mode, and is the only way to revive dead survivors in realism mode, versus mode, and survival mode.

• Boomer Bile - A small canister filled with boomer bile that shatters when thrown, diverting zombies' attention from the survivors to the affected area. If some zombies are hit by the bile bomb when it shatters, they will get covered in the bile, and be attacked by all other zombies. Beware that the bile effect wears off after a time, and any zombies left alive will then turn their attention back on the survivors!

• Laser Sights - When picked up, these are attached to a survivor's primary weapon and significantly decrease bullet spread, effectively making a gun more accurate. Weapons with significant bullet spread (like shotguns or automatic weapons) benefit more from this upgrade than weapons that are already highly accurate (like sniper rifles).
• Foot Lockers (added via DLC) - The Passing introduces a foot locker that carries an infinite supply of pills, adrenaline shots, pipe bombs, or molotov cocktails. These lockers only appear in The Passing, not in any other location.

Infected

Uncommon Common Infected

Left 4 Dead 2 features new common zombies that have unique characteristics, called uncommon common infected. Each uncommon common is exclusive to one campaign.

• Hazmat Infected (Dead Center) - Wear hazardous material suits, making them immune to all fire, such as molotovs and incendiary ammo.

• Clown Infected (Dark Carnival) - Behaves like other infected except that as he runs toward survivors, his squeaky shoes rally all nearby infect around him, creating a zombie mob rush in the clown's wake.

• Mudmen (Swamp Fever) - Drenched in muck, these zombies crawl around on all fours, making them difficult to spot, especially in low-standing water. When struck by one, a survivor's screen will be splattered with a partially-blinding muddy effect, similar to the effect that the Boomer's bile has on a player.

• Infected Workers (Hard Rain) - They wear hard hats and ear muffs, making them immune to the allure of pipe bombs, which rely on high-pitched beeping to draw zombies to them.

• Riot Infected (The Parish) - Decked out in full bulletproof riot gear, these zombies are immune to all bullet and melee damage except to their backs.

• Fallen Survivors (The Passing) - Like the main cast survivors, except it turns out these guys weren't immune to the infection after all. Fallen Survivors initially attack like common infected, but after taking damage, they attempt to flee. If killed, they have a chance of dropping supplies, including grenades and temporary health items. They have notably more health than common infected, requiring a concentrated effort to take them down.

Special Infected

All of the original special infected ( The Hunter, The Smoker, The Boomer, The Tank, and The Witch) return in Left 4 Dead 2 with spruced up character models. Additionally, the following playable new special infected are added:

In addition to the all-new Special Infected and uncommon common infected, variants of some existing special infected have been added. The boomer now comes in both male and female varieties, both functionally identical. More significantly, the Witch now has new behavior whenever she is encountered in a daytime environment. She will stand and wander around slowly, while sobbing. On the one hand, she is more dangerous in her wandering form because she is much easier to mistake for a common infected and shoot, plus she can be easy to accidentally bump into in cramped confines. On the other hand, a wandering Witch is less dangerous because she is much slower to anger when survivors get close to her, making deliberately sneaking past her much safer. During nighttime levels, Witches behave as they did in Left 4 Dead 1, sitting and sobbing, and very sensitive to disturbances.

A unique variant of the Witch appears only in The Passing (added in via DLC), wearing a bridal dress. This is just a cosmetic change, like the female Boomers.

Avatar Awards

The Xbox 360 version was one of the first retail games to feature avatar awards. Through the game you can earn the following awards.

• Med Kit (prop) - Complete all 5 campaigns.
• Bull Shifters T-shirt - Ellis's T-shirt. Win 10 games of Versus.
• Left 4 Dead 2 T-shirt - Win 10 games of Scavenge.
• Zombie Hand T-shirt - Kill 10,000 Infected.
• Depeche Mode T-shirt - (Achievement: GUARDIN' GNOME) Rochelle's T-shirt. Rescue Gnome Chompski from Dark Carnival.
• Left 4 Dead Hat - Play the campaign "The Passing". (requires The Passing DLC)
• Gnome (prop) - (Achievement: MUTANT OVERLORD) Play six mutations. (requires The Passing DLC)

Regional Censorship

Left 4 Dead 2 is censored in certain countries for its graphic violence. In Australia, the original version of the game was effectively banned when the Office of Film and Literature Classification (OLFC) refusing a rating for the unmodified version stating:

"The game contains violence that is high in impact and is therefore unsuitable for persons aged under 18 to play ".

Valve tried to appeal the ban but was rejected because, in OLFC's judgment, the game contains images of:

"decapitation, dismemberment, wound detail or piles of dead bodies... & delineation between the depiction of zombie characters and the human figures".

A modified version of Left 4 Dead 2 (similar to the modified German version of Left 4 Dead with green blood and zombies that fade away a few seconds after being killed) was later approved for release in Australia with an MA15 rating. The edits were quite extreme, to the point the game could probably be rated T for teen. The edits to the Australian and German version included the following:

• No zombie corpses when they are killed, instead they fade and disappear before they hit the ground.
• Blood does not splatter on the screen.
• Blood particle effects are all reduced, some removed entirely.
• No visual damage appears on zombie models at all. Including basic wounds inflicted by melee weapons, all gaping wounds and severed limbs and decapitated heads.
• Shooting a zombie in the head does not explode their heads.
• Zombies upon walking through fire go in to the 'on fire' animation but don't actually catch on fire.
• The riot cop zombie has a reduced spawn rate. Initially it was suppose to be removed entirely but it was not.
• Incendiary ammo does not light zombies on fire

In the March 2010 elections Gamers4Croyden ran against Michael Atkinson and while they did not win he resigned afterwords for reasons he claims were personal. The issue of finally getting an 18 rating for games in Australia is confirmed to be part of political discussions happening in May 2010. Left4Dead2 marked a turning point in this crucial issue to all Australian gamers.

In the UK, the original box art was censored as the depiction of the back of two extended fingers is considered vulgar and an insult.

Heya Tom, it's Bob...

Found throughout all of the campaigns except No Mercy are jukeboxes with several songs, two of which being the very popular 'RE: Your Brains', and a "hidden" song, 'Still Alive' (originally featured in the game Portal), both by written by singer/songwriter Jonathan Coulton.

The Sacrifice Update

The Sacrifice is a significant DLC patch released October 5th 2010. The Sacrifice added two campaigns that are played from the perspective of the original game's survivors. A 178 page digital comic has been released as a story companion to the new campaign. The comic briefly flashes back to the start of the infection showing the survivors before they meet up. The Sacrifice is a prequel to the previous DLC campaign The Passing, which the original Left 4 Dead survivors play a part in.

PC System Requirements

Mac System Requirements

• OS: OS X 10.6.4 or higher (Snow Leopard Graphics Update required)
• Processor: Dual core Intel processor, 2GHz or better
• Video Card (graphics): ATI Radeon 2400 or higher, NVIDIA 8600M or higher

Not supported: OS X 10.5.x, ATI X1600 or X1900 graphics, NVIDIA GeForce 7 graphics or Intel graphics.

Xbox 360 Game Installation

Left 4 Dead 2 requires 4.4 GB of space to install on an Xbox 360 HDD.