Left 4 Dead puts players in the role of one of four survivors during a zombie apocalypse. Survivors will depend on co-operation to get from one safe house to another, while facing hordes of "Infected", four of which can be controlled by human players in certain game modes.
I don't really think these are spoilers, but the No Mercy campaign, if I'm not mistaken, takes place in Fairfield, OH, where there actually is a Mercy Medical partnership today. Death Toll is from Riverside, OH. Dead Air starts from the business districts of Newburg into the Metro International Airport in Detroit, MI. And finally, Blood Harvest gives probably the biggest hint on location of it being in Allegheny National Forest, maybe a few hours away from the Pennsylvania-Ohio border, residing in PA.
Now the story.
1. How did the infection start - there are hints that it might have been with livestock but where did the strain come from? In the 'ScrewFly Solution' which was a Masters of Horror Episode, the short story had the premise that a pesticide was created to kill pests infecting crops to find it had a very negative impact on behavior of the human male species (i.e. it lowered the line between sexual behavior and violence). And so of course males across the globe became psychos... what a scenario Anyway slightly off point but in Left 4 Dead, the source is completely in the dark at the moment.
2. What is causing the strain to mutate? At the start of the cut scene, Bill says 'they are changing'. The walls indicate the time taken to change is drastically decreasing. This sort of quick mutation is surely unusual...
3. Missing information between the stories is not essential. However to help the flow, they could add it to extras (the cut out speech bits) or add it to the start of the next story. For example:
- No Mercy is the chopper escape, Death Toll starts off outside a car. No explanation at all, and we know that the chopper went down due to the pilot being infected from the cut speech. But they survived the chopper 'crash' or abrupt landing. We can assume then they picked up a car and supplies somewhere along the way and we don't 'need' to know this. But we do need that speech bit in the chopper going down somewhere otherwise its way too jarring/
- The boat from Death toll stopping is far more vague. The infected can't swim so how was it ever possible that the boat was ever in danger while in the waters? I can't even imagine any situation of sabotage of boat/fuel etc as the zombies are not intelligent enough to do that. Yet it stopped and is visible at the start of Dead Air? This needs some explanation as unlike the one above, there is little except some info on how the couple on the boat wanted more 'protection'. They may have needed protection when they needed to refuel on shores but not when they were ferrying the survivors? The only scenario I can think of is that the couple on the boat had different plans than going towards Echo and the survivors wanted to push that way. So the couple dropped them off at the nearest point available to them depending on fuel etc?
- The Dead Air plane situation can be pieced together logically by the fact that the plane would not have been able to fly to Echo so it would have dropped them off requiring to make the way on foot to Echo for the last bit. How about a sound piece at the start of Blood Harvest:
Zoey: 'Right the pilot said he couldn't take us in further through the nofly zone but that we should follow the tracks to Echo. Lets go guys'.
You're looking to deep for story and plot points, this isn't Resident Evil. The game is just about "hey we're in this location let's go here and in the meanwhile kill some damn zombies" and I think Valve intended it to be so where there's no difinitive answer to anything. The jarred scribblings on a wall isn't a plot point.
Left 4 Dead's all about small personal stories that are actualy pretty touching like when you read people's messages to loved ones on the walls and you make up the story of what happened to that family in your head, sometimes you'll see a body just outside the saferoom with a blanket over them, prehaps that was one of the people who wrote a message on one of the walls and when they succumbed to the infection their buddies covered their body. There's not some amazingly complex story arc that shows itself to you in small bits like Half-Life. The difference between L4D and RE is in RE the characters are always trying to find the reasons and the source to the infection, in L4D there's normal people that couldn't give a shit about where or how it happened because they are under more pressure from the zombies then in RE so they wouldn't have time to think about any of that.
Dude, I gotta say something here. Trust me, if Valve wanted L4D to have a fleshed out story, it would, and you would know exactly how everything happened. Its purposely designed so it doesn't. It gives you the only information you need: Zombie apocalypse happened, 4 people survived, and are immune, kill the zombies and get to safety. That's all that you need to know.
With the design of the survivors, you can already kind of see of how their background may of been before this. The writing all over the walls also has plenty to say about other people and how they were living in this as well. Just trying to make it clear this wasn't some design flaw of not telling the story right, but it was completely intentional. Honestly, Valve are very well at how they tell their stories in their game, and in L4D they give you enough of what you need to know, because adding more would make it pointless. There's fast zombies coming to kill you, shoot them! Trying to explain an actual 'story' well for something just as a zombie game wouldn't turn out interesting at all...zombies need killing, that's all there is to know.
Lastly I just wanted to say, for your comments on how the campaign starts and there's no explanation, as I said above there doesn't need to be one, but they felt like doing that one opening video to just set up the game for you, and it does that fine..questions don't need to be asked from that. There's no need to go into explanation of the other levels at all after that, because there will be more maps coming , and they would have to do one for every official map they make...and its not not needed.
Finally, just going to add: L4D is a game you get for playing with your friends, hands down, nothing else. If its something someone is going to play solo they definitely won't enjoy it nearly as much because its not designed around that. It's also,(as I said above) not a game anyone is going to get a real story from. Like I said with the writing on the walls, and just the way the characters are, that's all they were going for. People can interpret the story the way they feel like with the information given. If anyone is going into L4D to find out the story, its not the game for you.
(sorry for the rant, just pointing some stuff out)
Correct me if I am wrong, that is telling you to send your workers there. (I think that is what I am reading.)
Also to Pause422 and Scooper, if you guys listened to the I think it was Kotaku/Jotistiq podcast with the writers who made the game, they have said they wanted to make a game from a survivor point of view where the story is not told by characters. To quote them they said, they didn't want a military dude like in 28days later to tell you the entire in and outs of the game. Furthermore they went onto say the story is there, it is just only for people looking for it. There is a map in blood harvest of the areas in the game, Here it is:
I'm pretty sure the four different levels or "movies" aren't supposed to be linked at all. I think they're supposed to be standalone films that the survivors make their way through. That way you decide which of the films is the most true to your idea of what would happen in a zombie movie and go with that one as the main "story".
I'm stuck between No Mercy (my favorite campaign to play) and Blood Harvest (defending the house at the finale is both fun and really spooky).
Correct me if I am wrong, that is telling you to send your workers there. (I think that is what I am reading.)
Also to Pause422 and Scooper, if you guys listened to the I think it was Kotaku/Jotistiq podcast with the writers who made the game, they have said they wanted to make a game from a survivor point of view where the story is not told by characters. To quote them they said, they didn't want a military dude like in 28days later to tell you the entire in and outs of the game. Furthermore they went onto say the story is there, it is just only for people looking for it. There is a map in blood harvest of the areas in the game, Here it is:
"
Oh come on! There isn't a story if there isn't a link between the episodes!
Correct me if I am wrong, that is telling you to send your workers there. (I think that is what I am reading.)
Also to Pause422 and Scooper, if you guys listened to the I think it was Kotaku/Jotistiq podcast with the writers who made the game, they have said they wanted to make a game from a survivor point of view where the story is not told by characters. To quote them they said, they didn't want a military dude like in 28days later to tell you the entire in and outs of the game. Furthermore they went onto say the story is there, it is just only for people looking for it. There is a map in blood harvest of the areas in the game, Here it is:
"
Oh come on! There isn't a story if there isn't a link between the episodes!"
If you look at the pilot in No Mercy Campaign, he is showing signs of being infected with white skin and scars, and also says he is going in for a last run and has run into complications.
If you own the PC version you can find some of the dialogue left out of the game, like the pilot saying "I think i am getting sick."
joking aside, look at the pilots character model...early signs of infected most likelyWhat happens is everytime, the survivors get on the get away vehicle, it turns out the drivers are infected themselves or they run out of fuel. In no mercy the Helicopter makes an abrupt stop on the ground, then they find a car with supplies, they drive the car tell they get to a blockade. Skip ahead to the end of death toll, they ride the boat up the river tell they run out of fuel and or the boat drivers are infected. If you have the PC version right outside the Garden area at the beginning of Dead air is the boat that is docked. Then at the end of Dead Air you find out the pilot is infected, then you jump out of the airplane.
The only information that cannot be explained is maybe the sleeping bags, but yes not all is explained. They possibly could had picked up those or stumbled upon that camp site. Regardless they follow the railraod track to get to the APC which drives them to the "safe zone".
I listened to the dev com's. And they were going to have all of them tied together, but they thought the players wouldnt be satisfied or some crap like that...i would have liked the story.
"I listened to the dev com's. And they were going to have all of them tied together, but they thought the players wouldnt be satisfied or some crap like that...i would have liked the story."
well I like the idea the story is locked within the world, makes replaying it awesome to me.
Maybe there is a story, and maybe there is not. Regardless, it seems that there are plenty of people putting elements together on the internet, so who is anyone to deny them of that? We've got some people in this thread saying "well, Valve said there isn't a story linking it all together". Okay, so VALVE doesn't think that. However, who is someone, even the creator of the game, to tell me or you or anyone else that we can't put our own linking story to the whole thing? Why can't we, huh? because VALVE says there's no linking story? I think that some of the evidence presented is a great little story to work into it all, and if that is someone's perspective, then keep going with it.
Left 4 Dead is a game about ENJOYMENT! If someone is enjoying the game by finding little things here and there to support a story being told, then by all means...they can do so. There's no one that can deny them that, because as long as they are ENJOYING it, then it's perfectly fine.
So stop trying to discourage it. All thabigred was doing was offering up his own explanations for things. He isn't forcing any of you to accept it as the one true story for all of it!
Yeesh. Anyways, bigred, I've gotta say that your finds and theories are pretty good, sir. Personally, I like them...especially since I spent about 4 years or so in Ohio as a young kid. Therefore, it brings it a little closer to home when I see it in terms like that.
*EDIT* Also, bigred, my buddy Log had heard that the infection is possibly a mutated strain of rabies. I don't remember where he said he found it at.
I would have said people are reading way to much into the game. But it looks like there is some strong evidence for this story locked within the game theory, and actually the idea appeals to me the more I think about it. End of the day I am just happy to run about killin' zombies cause the game play is great, hopefully some DLC movies/episodes whatever are on their way.
*EDIT* Also, bigred, my buddy Log had heard that the infection is possibly a mutated strain of rabies. I don't remember where he said he found it at.
"
I have been talking on valve forums about this.
It's definitely not an airborne virus. There is some writing on the walls saying tape the air openings, then a writing under it that says that it is not airborne don't worry about it.
It says in airport to where a mask saying coughing my spread the disease, that means that it might be a liquid virus, being that coughing on people leaves liquid residue through saliva.
It is quite possibly rabies, because since the zombies talk in broken English syllables, if you see a person who is struck with rabies they talk very much the same way.
" Oh come on! There isn't a story if there isn't a link between the episodes!"
If you look at the pilot in No Mercy Campaign, he is showing signs of being infected with white skin and scars, and also says he is going in for a last run and has run into complications.
If you own the PC version you can find some of the dialogue left out of the game, like the pilot saying "I think i am getting sick."
joking aside, look at the pilots character model...early signs of infected most likelyWhat happens is everytime, the survivors get on the get away vehicle, it turns out the drivers are infected themselves or they run out of fuel. In no mercy the Helicopter makes an abrupt stop on the ground, then they find a car with supplies, they drive the car tell they get to a blockade. Skip ahead to the end of death toll, they ride the boat up the river tell they run out of fuel and or the boat drivers are infected. If you have the PC version right outside the Garden area at the beginning of Dead air is the boat that is docked. Then at the end of Dead Air you find out the pilot is infected, then you jump out of the airplane.
The only information that cannot be explained is maybe the sleeping bags, but yes not all is explained. They possibly could had picked up those or stumbled upon that camp site. Regardless they follow the railraod track to get to the APC which drives them to the "safe zone"."
" Oh come on! There isn't a story if there isn't a link between the episodes!"
If you look at the pilot in No Mercy Campaign, he is showing signs of being infected with white skin and scars, and also says he is going in for a last run and has run into complications.
If you own the PC version you can find some of the dialogue left out of the game, like the pilot saying "I think i am getting sick."
joking aside, look at the pilots character model...early signs of infected most likelyWhat happens is everytime, the survivors get on the get away vehicle, it turns out the drivers are infected themselves or they run out of fuel. In no mercy the Helicopter makes an abrupt stop on the ground, then they find a car with supplies, they drive the car tell they get to a blockade. Skip ahead to the end of death toll, they ride the boat up the river tell they run out of fuel and or the boat drivers are infected. If you have the PC version right outside the Garden area at the beginning of Dead air is the boat that is docked. Then at the end of Dead Air you find out the pilot is infected, then you jump out of the airplane.
The only information that cannot be explained is maybe the sleeping bags, but yes not all is explained. They possibly could had picked up those or stumbled upon that camp site. Regardless they follow the railraod track to get to the APC which drives them to the "safe zone"."
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