Valve have announced that they will be releasing a set of maps for Left 4 Dead 2 once Portal 2 is done and dusted. The three remaining maps from the first Left 4 Dead will be ported over to Left 4 Dead 2 as part of the pack, and there will be a fourth map from modder Matthew Lourdelet, who made the excellent 2 Evil Eyes campaign. Instead of quietly finishing work on the new map, Valve are throwing its development open to the community, asking for ideas and feedback to help them develop the campaign.
Valve made the announcement on the Left 4 Dead 2 blog, where they say that they've been playing Lourdelet's new campaign, Cold Stream. "We love it so far but it isn't done. We were tempted to have him quietly finish it with our help and release it as part of an upcoming DLC."
"Tempted… but we decided against that. Instead, we think we have a better idea. We want you the community to be part of the process of taking his unfinished campaign and releasing it as DLC on the Xbox 360, PC and Mac."
Valve's latest experiment is looking to crowdsource development on the map, taking feedback on each aspect of the campaign as it's developed. Valve also say they'll be giving the community feedback on the changes they decide to make, which should provide an interesting insight into the way they develop their levels "we will also share some data we collect on player experience and show how we put that data to use. We will include you with regular posts, polls, and updates."
There's a new section of the Steam forums dedicated to Cold Stream where you can leave your own thoughts and suggestions. Do you think opening up the development process will result in a better map? What would you like to see from Left 4 Dead 2 DLC?
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Part of the UK team, Tom was with PC Gamer at the very beginning of the website's launch—first as a news writer, and then as online editor until his departure in 2020. His specialties are strategy games, action RPGs, hack ‘n slash games, digital card games… basically anything that he can fit on a hard drive. His final boss form is Deckard Cain.
