Sometimes it's better to be left for dead.
With the recent release of Counter Strike on Source 2, there have been wishes for Left 4 Dead 2 to get the same treatment.
As someone who’s dedicated a lot of hours (and word documents) to the game, I say to you: no, you do NOT want a Left 4 Dead remaster. And here’s why…
Not a money maker like DOTA/CSGO
It should not surprise you. Valve is a soulless corporation, not one that strives to be the best like we saw a decade ago. Their interests lie in the statistics, not the gamer, and Left 4 Dead is not a money maker by any means.
It has no economy, no case gambling, no market. On sale, the game can go as low as a dollar, which leads us to the next point…
There won’t be care or commitment
If the stars align and Valve somehow remasters Left 4 Dead, the lack of financial incentive means they aren’t gonna put care in it like they did with their precious CSGO.
They still aren’t going to fix glaring issues like the broken matchmaker, or Versus being a toxic cesspool.
We've already seen with Portal RTX (or most remasters in general) that carelessly adding shine and glamour to a game, when it is deliberately stale and muted to harmonize with the storyline, is simply desecration. Do you think nu-Valve would respect such things if they ever dug this fossil out the ground to remaster it⸮ I think not.
Valve never really cared for Left 4 Dead to begin with
Gabe has (seemingly) always hated Left 4 Dead. He never liked the idea of zombies. If not Gabe, then Valve as a whole.
When the community boycotted, Valve got salty. Consequently, they left Left 4 Dead left for dead, for almost a decade. I have already done a whole article on this.
The game was ripe with bugs for a majority of its life until some fellow at Valve woke up one morning and decided to give the community a small hand in patching up some things. No fixing the glaring issues though, as mentioned before.
In conclusion…
It’s clear to me, if Valve were by any chance possessed to remaster Left 4 Dead 2, it would not be with passion or care. The most they would do is slap on all the algorithms from Counter-Strike’s new engine and call it a day. Not unlike Rockstar’s lazy attempt to remaster Grand Theft Auto. Perhaps not outsourced, but still without soul.
