E3: Left 4 Dead PS3, Xbox 360 on Nov 4; New Screenshots

July 15, 2008

Valve's Left 4 Dead made an appearance at Electronic Arts' E3 Media Briefing today and left a promising impression in an otherwise over represented genre.

Left 4 Dead looks like a typical horror survival game on the surface. A band of humans are under attack by swarms of mutated beings and must blast them to hell to survive. You've all been there and done that countless times over.

Where Valve aims to set Left 4 Dead apart from the pack is in its user experience, or how the game adjusts on the fly based on the user's skill level.

The example used to demonstrate this new "Director" technology saw a group of four humans go up against a couple mutants at a gas station. This particular band of humans had played extremely poorly together as a team up until this point.

The second example replayed the same scenario only the band of humans were controlled by, shall we say, more coordinated and capable players. The game's Director feature detected the band was capable of laying a smack down on its own AI, so it automatically change the scenario to exponentially beef up the number of enemies. As a reward for the experienced players, the gas station ignites into a fireball where it stayed intact for the "newbs."

Left 4 Dead is now confirmed to be coming to Playstation 3 and Xbox 360 on November 11.