Zoey, Bill, Francis and Louis have become iconic characters since they first appeared in Left 4 Dead, becoming the subject of articles, memes, and videos across the Internet. A huge part of what made L4D popular was the banter between these excellently realized characters. We wondered how tough it was to step away from them, and put the question to L4D writer Chet Faliszek, who revealed that it was quite scary to introduce a brand new cast.
“So, leaving them behind was a weird case of us wanting to expand the world and not saying we’re done with them yet,” he explains. ” They’re not dead, but we wanted to have this kind of other track, and we talked about going to the South, and it doesn’t make sense that, like, Zoey’s in her jumpsuit down South and she’s mysteriously living in Savannah as well.
“It’s scary making new characters, it’s a terrifying process because you look back at Zoey and Louis and Bill and Francis and you see people’s excitement over them, and your own excitement for them, your own love for them, and it’s really scary, I’m like, ‘Oh my God are we going to go through that again?’ But you know, we’ve done GLaDOS, we’ve done Alyx, we’ve done other characters that I think people remember and I think every time we do it it’s this scary thing.
“I’d say the characters took the absolute most time [to develop]. From January 1, until you saw them at E3, was just non-stop working on them.”
From what I’ve played of Left 4 Dead 2, the new characters have potential to be as memorable as the original four. They have very distinct personalities and, so far, seem quite likable. Whether they will prove ample replacement for the characters we’ve come to associate with the game, however, remains to be seen.
