Left 4 Dead 2’s Controversial Launch
When Left 4 Dead 2 hit the market in November 2009, it arrived just a year after the original Left 4 Dead, which had already set the stage for today’s massive cooperative shooter scene. The quick follow‑up, combined with the first game’s relatively brief length, led to< a data-analytics-id="inline-link" href="https://www.reddit.com/r/l4d2/comments/pmif3g/remember_the_l4d2_boycott_that_happened_when/" target="_blank" data-url="https://www.reddit.com/r/l4d2/comments/pmif3g/remember_the_l4d2_boycott_that_happened_when/" referrerpolicy="no-referrer-when-downgrade" data-hl-processed="none" data-article-category="games" data-mrf-recirculation="inline-link"> accusations that Valve was merely cashing in on the franchise’s success.
This is according to former Valve writer and Left 4 Dead designer Chet Faliszek, who revealed Valve’s deliberate leak in a YouTube video about cut Left 4 Dead voice lines (via Ars Technica). In the video, Faliszek explains why Left 4 Dead 2 had a large number of voice lines cut from the final game. One reason was that, at the time, Valve had run-ins with numerous countries and ratings boards over the series’ depictions of violence and use of profane language.
“You have to remember, especially during Left 4 Dead 1 and Left 4 Dead 2 time, Valve was in fights with the ESRB, with Australia, with Germany, with a bunch of countries about the profanity in the game, or the violence,” he explains. “One of [Valve’s] lawyers stepped in and said that us writers needed to be babysat on this. And so [the] first thing we did was, well, we made sure there was no profanity in there that crosses the line—basically F-bombs.”
