Valve working on Left 4 Dead 1/2 cross-play @ Gaming Target

Written by John Scalzo on July 07, 2009

News: Possibly in response to the L4D2 'boycott' group.

Valve's Vice President of Marketing, Doug Lombardi, recently sat down for an interview with Total Video Games concerning the progress of Left 4 Dead 2. In the interview, he mentioned that one of Valve's goals for the game is cross-play compatibility between Left 4 Dead 2 and its predecessor, Left 4 Dead:

TVG: One of the things that has been floating around is the idea of cross-gameplay with the original Left 4 Dead; is this likely?

Lombardi: That's something that we're trying to work out right now, the details of it. So nothing specific to say today, but we understand that it's a very valid thing to be working on and looking at. With the MOD stuff, if you're making stuff for Left 4 Dead it will work in Left 4 Dead 2 with very minor amounts of work to bring it over. So we feel we've made good steps on that side and now we're looking at how we manage that for folks who buy the first game and sequel.

It should be noted that, according to Lombardi, this feature is only being "worked on" right now, so there's no guarantee cross game-play will make it into Left 4 Dead 2.

It's possible that Valve is pursuing this feature as a response to the Steam Commmunity's Left 4 Dead 2 boycott, that is nearly 40,000 members strong. Because the sequel is arriving so soon after the first game, the boycott has demanded cross game-play between the two must be included in Left 4 Dead 2.

Left 4 Dead 2 will be released on the PC and Xbox 360 on November 17.

We'll have more soon.