Left 4 Dead 2 Hands-on Preview

The Big Finale

There’s one final thing that’s changed in Left 4 Dead 2 and even though it isn’t something big and striking, it is something that has a dramatic effect on the game. It’s more than enough to compensate for the disappointment we had with melee system.

Simply, it’s the new finale system.

Left 4 Dead 1 had a fairly robust and straightforward structure. There were four levels, with occasional hold-off points dotted around to make things interesting and to slow down the action a bit, then there was the finale – which was pretty much a glorified turret sequence. In a good way.

Left 4 Dead 2 sticks to a similar structure overall, but it changes things around massively for the final act. The closing portion of The Parish campaign is one of what Valve calls a ‘moving finale’ and it is without a doubt one of the best experiences we’ve ever had with a game – even though we were playing the game with some very loud German men who spat when they talked to each other. We were sat in the middle and got drenched.


The set up for the moving finale in The Parish was simple. The survivors are in New Orleans and want to get out via military helicopter. The only problem is that the ‘copter can’t come to them for fear of the Infected, so they’ll have to get to it by crossing a huge multi-level table bridge that’s littered with abandoned cars and rippled with damage. There are entire sections missing, which you have to traverse in an attempt to reach the evacuation camp on the far side.

As with all the other finales in Left 4 Dead, you start the finale in a safe spot and signal for help when you’re ready to begin – in this case radioing the helicopter pirate to lower the bridge so you can cross to him. Then, all hell breaks loose.

In the end, the finales change from being simply a case of covering all the windows or doors in a hallway or finding that one position from which you can exploit the entire level to an endless onslaught. You can’t just find one place where you can try to survive the swathe because you have to keep moving forwards, always. You need to weave in and out of the parked cars, hopping over stalled trucks and overturned lorries, knocking holes in the wall of Infected that are endlessly advancing towards you and away from the horizon.

At the same time, you’ll have to keep an eye to the back too, with occasional boss Infected occasionally breaking out from behind you, knocking cars flying and lumbering towards you like angry, three-legged dragons. Strangely though, it never once feels unfair or biased against you – it’s just an extremely exciting and extremely linear romp that’s somehow different every time you play it. It’s fantastic.


On top of that there’s a tonne of features which we haven’t had a chance to go hands-on with yet but have got us really excited, not least of which is the addition of a dynamic weather system controlled by the AI Director. Weather in the game is, according to our conversation with Valve’s Chet Faliszek, not just a graphical effect either and will actually have an effect on the gameplay. Chet described rain storms that were so thick they’d possibly force players to take shelter until they passed, rather than facing the threat of flash floods of Infected. We can’t wait to see if that’s as good as it sounds.

Looking back, it’s hard to deny that we had a few minor disappointments with Left 4 Dead 2. The melee system and the new characters were possibly the most underwhelming parts of the game that we saw, but it’s still worth keeping things in perspective and remembering that these things don’t have to play a huge part in the game if you don’t want them to.

It’s worth keeping in mind how much fun we had with the new moving finales too, plus how fresh the game feels with a bit more sunlight and a new set of environments too. All in all it’s that latter feeling of excitement which prevails in us when we think back about Left 4 Dead 2 so far and makes us hopeful for how the final game may turn out, regardless of comparisons to the original game.

Left 4 Dead 2 is being developed by Valve and is set to be published in part by Electronic Arts on PC and Xbox 360 this November 17th.