Left 4 Dead 2's iconic survivor line-up is embarking on another undead adventure, this time appearing as playable characters in developer Rebellion's Zombie Army 4: Dead War.

Coach, Ellis, Nick, and Rochelle - who debuted in Valve's seminal co-operative FPS sequel all the way back in 2009 (and who finally returned to action in 2020's official The Last Stand update) - come to Zombie Army 4 as part of Rebellion's free Left 4 Dead Character Pack 2, available now on all platforms. They follow the original Left 4 Dead's cast, who joined Zombie Army 4 as playable characters earlier this year.

The new group's arrival coincides with Zombie Army 4's Season 3 finale, which wraps up its current storyline in new campaign mission Return to Hell. "Our intrepid squad [are thrust] back into the underworld," teases Rebellion, "but this time it is a haunted manifestation of Schweiger's mind which they must survive in order to free him from Baron Umbra."

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The Left 4 Dead community has been left confused and amused by the appearance of a purple-coloured fifth protagonist to the game's fan-authored wiki.

"Purple Francis" was recently added to the encyclopaedic fan resource in quite some detail. While drive-by vandalism of wiki pages is common, the character was an unusually committed creation, spread across dozens of the site's pages. It was enough for the matter to quickly get noticed and blow up on Twitter:

Wiki entries detailed a fictional backstory and development history for the character - including his removal by Valve from retail copies of the game due to negative feedback, since Purple Francis was "just a recolouring of Francis" turned... purple.

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The irrepressible Left 4 Dead 2 gets its first major DLC in eight years today.

The Last Stand is an update for Left 4 Dead 2 "created by the community, for the community", that arrives eight years after the Cold Stream DLC came out in 2012.

It includes over 20 new survival arenas, four new scavenge arenas and a campaign based on The Lighthouse survival map. There are also 30 new achievements, melee weapons, animations, dialogue and competitive balance adjustments. Here's the official trailer:

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Valve will release a new update for Left 4 Dead 2, almost 11 years after its co-operative zombie shooter was first unleashed.

The Last Stand does not yet have a release date - the finer details are still on their way, Valve has said in an official blog post - but the update is very real.

It is, as Left 4 Dead 2 fans will likely know, a community-made effort (this isn't the first time Valve has approved community content for a long-dormant game and released it under an official guise).

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Rumours that Valve is currently working on a new Left 4 Dead game may have been gathering pace of late, but your hopes are about to be dashed; the company has now stepped forward to categorically state that it's "absolutely not" doing any such thing.

Whispers of a new Left 4 Dead title have been heard from several sources in recent times. Back in December, Valve News Network's well-connected Tyler McVicker told Twitter followers that "Left 4 Dead VR is real", while, earlier today, Chinese HTC president Alvin Wang Graylin shared slides from a recent VR presentation making mention of Left 4 Dead 3.

Following that revelation, Valve has finally spoken up, presumably in an attempt to prevent fans from frothing themselves into an irreversible frenzy. In a statement provided to IGN, the company said it's "absolutely not working on anything L4D related now, and haven't for years."

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When you get to the end of a hard-fought round in Left 4 Dead 2, you're usually crawling towards a rugged red door. Maybe there's only two of your zombie-slaying quartet left... your health bars stripped away by the horde, your eyesight drained of colour, signalling that one more knockdown equals permadeath. If you're lucky, you push through the pain and make it into the safe room on borrowed time, grab some ammo and shoot the charging zombies to carve a safe route for the rest of your team.

That's unless you're playing Funny Doors. Funny Doors dictates that if you get into the safe room before a fellow survivor, in spite of earning those precious 25 points for letting them live to see the next round, you must hammer the E button to open and close the safe room door as they approach, turning the final moments of each round into one hilarious test of strength.

Left 4 Dead 2's safe room doors have a serious heft to them, and as such, each swing animation creates a tiny window of opportunity for the survivor to get past your self-flagellating trap as they howl at you on comms. Usually, they'll get pummeled by a charger and you'll have to head out and save them. It's an evil habit. Barbaric, you could say, but it's one of many peculiar bits of communal context that have ensured this game has become a weekly inevitability where many modern titles have failed to hold our attention.

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Techland's four-and-a-half year-old zombie kill 'em-up Dying Light is getting a surprise crossover with Valve's 10 year-old zombie kill 'em-up Left 4 Dead 2.

The announcement was made over at the Dying Light Twitter page alongside an image showing Left 4 Dead 2-style weapons raised and ready for action.

It's a surprise crossover, but a welcome one - and it's worth remembering both games remain popular on Steam, where they're in the top 100 games by current player count.

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I popped into London's Barbican Centre last week to see the new exhibition about artificial intelligence - AI: More than Human, it's called. I considered myself peak target audience, not because I've read a couple of Isaac Asimov stories and not because I've seen Deus Ex: Machina, although that was a good film - Poe was great wasn't he? It's not because I'm a particular AI geek at all. It's because of video games.

We hear about AI in the games world all the time. Every year, it seems like we're being promised the most realistic villagers ever, or the cleverest footballing opponents, or the most aggressive baddies with guns. "They will learn and adapt to your style of play!" God, how many times have we heard that? So when I walked into the Barbican exhibition, I expected video games to be everywhere.

And I looked. And I looked. But I couldn't find them.

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Valve veteran Jay Pinkerton has returned to the developer a year after he left the company.

Pinkerton left last June, following other high profile departures from Erik Wolpaw, Chet Faliszek, and DOTA 2 writer Marc Laidlaw.

Now, thanks to eagle-eyed Redditor OWLverlord (via PC Gamer), it seems Pinkerton is back on Valve's staff page, listed under the "Other Experts" category.

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Valve has stepped up its anti-cheat measures and issued almost 95,000 bans in the last week alone.

In July 2017, we reported that on 6th July Valve banned over 40K Steam accounts for cheating, making it the single largest banhammer the company had ever deployed.

Emphasis on "had", though.

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