Left 4 Dead

17. November 2008

Combined rating

User + critics

based on 755 ratings

Summary

Left 4 Dead is a cooperative first-person shooter set during a zombie outbreak on the East Coast of the United States. Four players control survivors who must fight through hordes of infected humans, creatures transformed by a rabies-like pathogen that causes extreme aggression and loss of higher brain function. Gameplay emphasizes teamwork, with colored outlines showing teammate positions through walls, shared healing items, and friendly fire creating consequences for careless shooting. An AI system called the Director dynamically adjusts enemy placement, item spawns, and pacing based on player performance. Beyond common infected, players face five special mutated types with unique abilities. Campaigns are divided into levels connected by safe houses, each culminating in a desperate last stand for rescue.

Storyline

An outbreak of a pathogen nicknamed the Green Flu sweeps across Pennsylvania, causing extreme aggression, loss of higher brain function, and rapid mutation in its victims. Two weeks after the first infection, four immune survivors find themselves stranded together in the city of Fairfield: Bill, a Vietnam veteran; Zoey, a college student; Louis, a district account manager; and Francis, an outlaw biker. As the group fights through city streets, subways, and countryside in search of evacuation, they discover that the military's containment efforts are failing and that the infection is producing increasingly dangerous mutations in some of its hosts. Each rescue attempt leads to another setback, pushing the survivors further from safety and forcing them to rely entirely on each other to stay alive.

Developers

Certain Affinity

Turtle Rock Studios

Publishers

Valve

IGDB user rating

80.2

748 ratings

Critic rating

84.9

7 ratings

Combined rating