How Valve's Left 4 Dead almost didn't have zombies because of Gaben

sportskeeda.com:

Publisher Valve is synonymous not just with its Steam digital platform but also with its catalog of great games. While entries in the Half-Life and Portal series have revitalized the single-player aspect of the first-person genre, Left 4 Dead (L4D) did the same for co-op games. Valve's zombie-themed series is renowned for delivering atmospheric and tense 4-player-co-op romps against hordes of undead.

But did you know that Valve's head honcho, Gabe Newell (AKA Gaben), was against L4D being a zombie shooter, to begin with? That's according to series writer Chet Faliszek.

In a recent interview on the YouTube channel KIWI TALKZ, the ex-Valve writer reminisced about his past as an employee under Gabe, where he detailed how the president did not want a zombie game due to associated cliches.

Chet narrated that the vision of the game boiled down to wanting to deliver something original that also carries a message. Additionally, the zombie setting was seen as "cheesy" and "campy" at the time due to the lack of serious representation in the media. To quote Faliszek in a nutshell:

He essentially points out that those movies use the zombie exterior as a medium to talk about those abstract concepts. To answer Newell's question, Faliszek responded:

However, Faliszek wanted to retain the humorous tone of those "campy" B-horror movies while maintaining a realistic and serious tone and presentation, and thus Left 4 Dead was born.

He continues:

That seems to have been enough of a reason for Lord Gaben to give the team the green light and look at how it turned out. Today, Valve's both Left 4 Dead games are some of the most acclaimed horror games in video game history.

The last update for the latest entry, Left 4 Dead 2, was a community-developed