There's nothing more satisfying that sitting down after Thanksgiving turkey and playing video games until you pass out. This year, that game might be Left 4 Dead. In a recent interview with Shacknews, Valve's marketing director, Doug Lombardi mentioned that Valve was looking to do a simultaneous worldwide release for Left 4 Dead some time in November, several months after the initial summer release date. This isn't particularly surprising, given Valve's history of long delays (hey there, Half-Life).
While some delays are signs of a game sinking in development quicksand, Left 4 Dead is almost complete, says Lombardi:
So the game is pretty much playable all the way through right now. And as we've done with most of our games, we get to a point where, it's playable all the way through, there are some [minor] issues that we need to work on, and we try to add more time to the schedule to have as many people as possible play the game, to make sure that it's approachable to players of all skills.
Well, that's good to hear, especially since the entire hook of the game is that the AI director manipulates the difficulty during each playthrough. In an interview with GameTrailers at the EA Spring Break 08 event last week, Lombardi hinted at the possibility of a later release date, saying, "A game is only late until it's shipped and a game that's bad is bad forever," subscribing to the oft-quoted Miyamoto school of development.
I would do terrible, terrible things to play Left 4 Dead. Unspeakable things. To children. And not just poor children in orphanages. Rich children, with promising futures and their whole lives in front of them. I would butcher them like lambs to the slaughter to play this game, and if Valve wants to take a few months to make those innocent lives worth the wait, that's fine by me.
[Via Shacknews]
Contest:
12:54 PM on 05.24.2008
| 
The story better be 20+ hours to make up for this.
I mean, is allways the same with valve, they dont give specific release dates since the half life 2 thingie...
Also is there any paticular reason the first part of the interview wasn't reported? If this was a Cliffy B interview it certainly would have.
Cliffy's had several interviews of late, I believe. I don't recall them being covered here. I hardly think that's necessary, though. An interview's an interview. This part just happened to have a big piece of news in it.
Also, this is Valve. Is anyone surprised? You shouldn't be. At least we know it'll be quality.
But once a delayed game is out you all suddenly stop crying about it like it's the greatest atrocity mankind has ever faced.
@Mozgus
Understaffed and poor work ethic? Have you ever played a Valve game?
Well, at least we know what some ppl are gonna play in November.
Now if only they stopped announcing games and starting the hype so early in the development cycle things would be peachy.
For those complaining about Valve, don't forget they didn't initiate this project, Turtle Rock became a subsidiary in Jan 08, it was all them before that and it isn't a big studio - they only did stuff like CS: Condition Zero and some maps before this.
@TheHunter
why is that kid...so..shiny?
GIVE ME A DAMN DEMO AT LEAST!
only in my dreams....
Did you read part 1? That part of the interview is entirely about the negative perception of the pc platform and how it's entirely unfounded persisting only through biased media. Destructiod is only contributing to this perception by not reporting that part of the interview but placing every negative article about pc's on the frontpage.
I read a lot of articles of developers continuing to support the PC as a primary platform on other sites. I don't give it a second thought usually as I assume that the destructoid contributers don't read these interviews. On this occasion however I know that a destructoid contributer read the interview and deliberately chose not to report it despite interviews to the contrary being regularily reported here.
Don't believe there is a bias? well then consider this; Left4Dead is being developed primarly for PC while the xbox version is a port yet destructoid puts it in what section of the site?
Destructoid is also a predominantly console-oriented community. This is pretty well-known around here. Aaron Linde mentioned it a few Podtoids ago. He finds that Shacknews is largely PC-friendly, while Destructoid is largely console-friendly. That's just how the community rolls. I'm sure if we had more PC fanboys on staff, that'd change. I mean, Dtoid rarely covered sports until Samit came onboard, for example.
Either way, so what? Some stories slip through the cracks, especially on a site like Destructoid where they don't make a million posts a day, like Kotaku. I've never expected to get all my news from just one site. That's why I read, like, ten gaming blogs on a regular basis. They don't always cover the same stories. I'm just saying, it's a pretty small complaint.