I wrote up some interview questions to give to Turtle Rock Studios, but because they were so busy VP of Marketing for Valve Doug Lombardi took some of his very valuable time to answer them himself.

[VGChartz] For those who don't know, could you briefly describe Left 4 Dead and what makes it so special.

[Doug Lombardi] Left 4 Dead is a new game from Valve that's attempting to merge the dramatic, story-driven experience found in single player games like Half-Life with the replayable, social experience found in multiplayer games like Counter-Strike. The game is set immediately following the highly-anticipated zombie apocalypse, is playable by 1 to 8 people (depending on which mode you're playing), and will be available for the PC and Xbox 360 the week of Nov 17 - which just happens to coincide with the 10 year anniversary of Half-Life 1's launch.


[VGC] The AI director is a brilliant addition to this game. Do you have any plans for future applications of it outside of Left 4 Dead?

[DL] For sure. The AI director is the technology that drives the overall experience in Left 4 Dead. It's monitoring the team's progress, health, ammo, etc., and making real-time "calls" for sound effects, number of zombies, types of zombies, general pacing and more. It was conceived as a solution for keeping the game fresh each time you play, but then we quickly realized it could be tuned to adjust pacing as well as difficulty on the fly. With that said, it's very likely that we will do some testing with it after L4D ships to find out how applicable it is for other games. And, we're definitely anxious to see what the mod community will do with it once we add it to the Source SDK.

[VGC] Amazingly, fan made maps for this game are already in production. Were good mod tools a priority for you, and what have you done to support the mod community?

[DL] Valve has been dedicated to supporting the MOD community for as long as Valve has been in business. Before Half-Life 1 shipped, I can remember Gabe beating the question of "how will this affect MOD developers?" into our heads with every decision that was being weighed. And that's proven to be incredibly important for us. Without that philosophy, it's likely there would have never been a Counter-Strike, Team Fortress 2, Garry's MOD, Day of Defeat, and the list goes on. Originally it was about updating an SDK for this audience. Then we tried new things like the MOD Expo. And just last week, we officially announced that Source MODs will be distributed via Steam.


[VGC] Do you have any plans for new content for Left 4 Dead in the future via either expansions or DLC?

[DL] Yes.


[VGC] Will 360 owners see DLC support as well? Will it cost anything?

[DL] Yes. TBD.


[VGC] What are your sales goals for this game. Do the benefits of Steam make it easier to meet profit expectations?

[DL] First part of the question: Sales goals are hard to truly define until you get close to launch, especially with a new game property. However, we're getting close now and it looks like Left 4 Dead may do OK. Pre-orders for L4D are currently exceeding Orange Box pre-orders by well over 40%, this driven largely by the 10% off promotion being offered now for both versions. And one could assume this trend over Orange will continue as the pre-launch demo hits and the largest consumer advertising campaign for any Valve game begins on buses, buildings, billboards, TV, magazines, and web sites in the next couple weeks.

UPDATE: The Left 4 Dead pre-order lift over Orange Box is retail vs. retail. The Steam pre-order will begin around the middle of October.

Second part of the question: Whether it's opening an additional sales channel or providing solutions for auto-updating and copy protection products sold at retail, Steam improves all aspects of our business

[VGC] Many of our members have fallen in love with the B-Movie grindhouse style of the game, but a lot of people would love to see some sort of movie maker feature so people can make their own cheesy horror movies out of the game. Any plans to add a feature like this in the future?

[DL] Please stay tuned.


[VGC] It's pretty amazing what you have managed to do with the 4 year old source engine. How well does it hold up today among other modern video game development tools? Are you working on developing or experimenting with any new engines for future projects?

[DL] The key difference here is terminology; we don't view Source as engine but as a constantly evolving set of technologies utilized for the creation of our games. If it's constantly evolving, it's not growing old. And, we would argue, the evolutionary approach to toolset creation allows you to evolve your game design and graphics more rapidly because you're always working with functional code (rather than halting everything for 2 years of engine development).


[VGC] Is there any chance of a limited or open beta for Left 4 Dead?

[DL] The demo is planned to hit prior to launch, roughly a couple weeks prior. It will be available for both the PC and Xbox 360.


[VGC] Thanks again for your time, Doug.