Shambling into the open, Left 4 Dead 2 Steam Workshop arrives
Sean Cargle January 19, 2013 - 12:55 amThe Steam Workshop has finally come out of beta for Left 4 Dead 2 and suddenly there are thousands of mods just a click away.
Just last week I was revealing how the Left 4 Dead 2 beta testers had some surprises coming once Steam Workshop finally released, and it did release today, but those surprises have yet to be revealed. However, the Steam Workshop for Left 4 Dead 2 has already been filled with thousands of mods, some of which are simple fixes, others are weapon changes and some are entirely new player made campaigns. Now all you have to do access these is open up Steam Workshop, go to Left 4 Dead 2, and start subscribing to mods. Here are a few of the most interesting mods that I’ve noticed so far.
This is a “simple mod” that doesn’t change anything major, but it does change the skyboxes for all L4D2 campaigns except for The Passing. As you can tell from the screenshot above, these look absolutely gorgeous and really help liven up the original campaigns.
2. Urban Flight
This is one of the player made campaigns I mentioned and it is a fantastic looking one that is so far being lavished with praise. It has been out for several weeks already, outside of Steam Workshop, so there are quite a few people already playing it. While this one is interesting and looks very well done, it is quite a different beast than the next mod.
How long did it take for someone to make a Helm’s Deep for L4D2? Probably not long, but this one is created by four people and it is very unique. Not only in this map distinctly look like Helm’s Deep, but it also survival mode, features hundreds of zombies at once, is apparently stable for low-end machines, NPC helpers, custom models, custom textures, custom sounds and it has a tiered event system that has you falling back into the keep as the attackers break through the wall. This one is definitely crazy, but it looks like a lot of fun.
As someone who likes to play games singleplayer more often than not, I’m quite thrilled with this mod. It takes the once unresponsive and harmful friendly AI and turns them into real team members that will actually try to help you. It allows bots to use melee weapons, makes it so they target special infected quicker if you are being grappled or held down, they use their first aid kits on the player more often, bots continue to play after you die, bots can finally close doors, bots can lead the group if you command them to and they will try to stay closer to the player. This mod does more than what I’ve listed, but one important thing to note is that using Improved Bots disables Steam Achievements, mainly since you can take control of bots if you die and do other cheats through them. However, the author does also have a simple version of Improved Bots that is compatible with Steam Achievements.
Those are just four of the most interesting mods I’ve seen so far and there are hundreds more making it up to the front page of Steam Workshop. I can’t wait to see some of the huge fan made campaigns and fixes make it on the workshop and I can’t wait to jump back in and try some of these mods. The L4D2 Steam Workshop is currently only available for the PC version of the game, but the Linux version is still being tested. Read all about it over on the Left 4 Dead Blog.
