Former Valve author Chet Faliszek has a confession to make: Valve deliberately leaked its personal Left 4 Dead 2 trailer.
The Half-Life and Portal veteran spilled the beans on the studio’s previous unconventional advertising and marketing ways in a new video uploaded to his YouTube channel (through Ars Technica). Primarily based on his recounting of the Left 4 Dead 2 incident, Valve “leaked our trailer forward of time as a result of” the Leisure Software program Ranking Board (ESRB) “would not allow us to launch the trailer.”
So, why are we simply listening to about this now? Effectively, it has been a couple of years since any of this might have mattered.
“I feel we won’t get in hassle for that now. It was like 20 years in the past,” Faliszek stated. “It is humorous seeing leaked stuff now as a result of, yeah, I do not suppose you possibly can search for ‘leaked Left 4 Dead 2 trailer’ as a result of it is simply going to be misplaced.”
Leaks can occur for a wide range of causes. Generally firms are hacked and have their content material spilled out onto the web; generally somebody says one thing they should not, and generally supplies are mistakenly revealed early. Most builders and publishers have their very own course of to make sure leaks do not occur, however within the case of Left 4 Dead 2, Valve noticed alternative.
The leaked footage in query seems to be the Zombie Survival Guide cinematic trailer, which possibly not-so-mysteriously appeared on-line in October 2009, one month earlier than the launch of Left 4 Dead 2. It is a three-minute story video that lets survivors Coach, Ellis, Nick, and Rochelle free to tear by means of hordes of zombies with chainsaws, weapons, and extra. Though it is fairly violent, Faliszek did not say precisely what the ESRB had taken situation with. No matter it was, it did not appear to matter a lot to Valve.
“Yeah, it initially obtained leaked as a result of we had this with the ESRB, in order that’s why a number of the language needed to get toned down,” he continued.
All of it definitely appeared to work out for the very best – a minimum of for Valve. Left 4 Dead 2 went on to launch to rave critiques from critics and followers, together with a 9/10 overview from IGN. Though it by no means led to a 3rd recreation (due to course it did not), we discovered lots to like concerning the multiplayer zombie sequel, calling it “one of the vital distinctive co-operative titles on the market” on the time.
For extra on Valve, you possibly can try our listing of the highest 10 greatest video games the studio has made. You may as well find out about the latest leak that has followers digging by means of greater than a decade of recordsdata.
Michael Cripe is a contract author with IGN. He is greatest recognized for his work at websites like The Pitch, The Escapist, and OnlySP. Make sure you give him a observe on Bluesky (@mikecripe.bsky.social) and Twitter (@MikeCripe).