Gabe Newell Almost Removed Zombies From Left 4 Dead
To many, the Left 4 Dead games make up some of the most iconic zombie titles in gaming. Valve's co-op experience that sees players team up to fight off hordes of undead has become influential within video games, inspiring recent titles like Anacrusis and Back 4 Blood, with the latter even borrowing the 4 from Left 4 Dead's naming. However, recent reports suggest that Valve president Gabe Newell wasn't initially onboard with zombies being the primary enemies of the games.
In a recent interview, former writer at Valve Chet Faliszek told of how when he was beginning work on the first Left 4 Dead game, Gabe Newell tried to steer the direction away from zombies. Left 4 Dead launched in 2008, before the first season of things like The Walking Dead TV series and game that sought to redefine the zombie genre. This meant that films like Night of the Living Dead and Dawn of the Dead were major influences in people's ideas of zombie media.
The Walking Dead Game Was Very Nearly Set in The Left 4 Dead Universe
To Newell, this meant that a zombie game would come off as «cheesy.» Even as Faliszek explained that Left 4 Dead would be about the team working together, making the themes of the game separate from other zombie media, Newell still believed that the undead were «cheesy.» As Faliszek explains, this led to him having to include zombies in the game while understanding the «cheesiness» of them. This resulted in a couple of characters in Left 4 Dead like Zoe and Lewis who understand their scenario is like a movie and play it seriously from there. Faliszek speaks on this at 9:27 below.
Faliszek admits that even while he wanted zombies to be in Left 4 Dead, at the time they were «cheesy» monsters. However, in the early to mid-2010s,
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