According to the official Left 4 Dead blog, a two new downloads for the PC version of Left 4 Dead are dropping next week. The move is curious considering Valve hates their fans (and their mothers) and apparently officially abandoned Left 4 Dead the second its successor was announced at E3 2009. Oh well.
The first download is an update. It’s is a two-head monster of sorts, geared towards making custom map sharing easier on users via tweaks and additions to the game’s UI and matchmaking system. Content creators will be able to package their stuff into a lone .VPK package, allowing potential players to easily access the content by double-clicking on a file. In this vein, players will also be able to access the created content in the “Extras” drop down menu in the game. Matchmaking will get a new “Add-on campaign” option, allowing potential players who have downloaded something awesome like the Racoon City mod to find each other for a game.
Valve will also officially release the “Authoring tools slash SDK” next week with some improvements thanks to beta feedback.
If you need more details about the downloads, feel free to visit the Left 4 Dead blog. It’s not full of lies and pictures of Stephen Baldwin, as we were led to believe. But before you adventure elsewhere, tell us what you think about all of this in the comments section. Valve is obviously looking to make custom maps a big part of the Left 4 Dead experience, and even better, making them accessible to people who otherwise wouldn’t have known. Pretty hip, we think.
