 Good evening! There's really not very many games as iconic as Left 4 Dead, especially in regards to its characters. Whether you prefer the lovable goofballs from the second game or the more tactful cast of the original, there's one thing the survivors all have in common, and that's being pretty much unforgettable. Everything from their dialogue and voice acting down to their silhouette design and taste in music was honed to perfection by Valve, and helps allow them to still stand today 15 years later as some of the best and most distinctive video game protagonists ever made. However, if you've spent any good amount of time online reading or looking into this legendary game's past, chances are you've at some point seen images of the game from earlier in its development, sporting a completely different looking cast, and ask yourself, who the hell are these people? Well, it turns out that between its characters, infected weapons, levels, and even game mechanics, Left 4 Dead changed a lot more than most people know. And even despite the two games having remarkably short development cycles, tons of ideas and mechanics were left on the cutting room floor or otherwise drastically changed before the game came out. And though it sits today as one of Valve's most popular and fondly remembered series, most people still really don't know the extent of these two games' turbulent development cycles, or just how differently they were originally going to look and play. So today, I'm gonna dig into the cut content from both of these beloved games and show you all the Left 4 Dead we almost got. Let's start from the very beginning. Counter-Strike. Chances are you already know this if you've seen that back for Blood Cropcat video, but Left 4 Dead started out as basically just a custom game mode that Total Rock Studios came up with while working on Counter-Strike Source for Valve. While we were developing bots for Counter-Strike Source, we discovered that a few of us armed to the teeth with automatic weaponry against 30 knife wielding enemy bots was a lot of fun. After shipping Counter-Strike Source in late 2004, we started experimenting with new game prototypes. That basic kernel of small team of friends against hordes of clawing enemies was something we kept coming back to, and we soon realized that the co-op versus the horde game had a ton of potential. The earliest iterations of Left 4 Dead, at least according to this reply, Left 4 Dead co-creator Chet Fallasek gave me on Twitter, were called Terror, Terror, Terror and Blood Run. I for one am very thankful the game didn't release under either of those god-awful names. Anyway, much like how Counter-Strike pits two player-controlled teams called Counter-Terrorists and Terrorists against one another, the earliest iterations of Left 4 Dead pit a team of humans against another player-controlled team of infected, which I find funny because that technically means that the way the game started out was actually closer to what we know today as versus mode than the co-op PvE campaign mode the series is most iconic for. Anywho, after the project's core gameplay was fleshed out, the name Left 4 Dead was eventually settled on. But there was still plenty that changed about the game after this point. Footage from various press releases and the game showing at E3 2007 offer a clearly different vision of the game. That's mainly because these are from before Valve stepped in. See, the game was fun. Intuitively so. It just worked. But Turtle Rock were having a great deal of trouble finishing the game on their own due to a lack of direction and a low budget. Once the legendary Orange Box with Portal, Half-Life 2 Episode 2 and Team Fortress 2 shipped out the door though, a lot more hands than Valve came untied and immediately began gravitating toward Left 4 Dead, leading to its punctual release in the following year of 2008. And by the time the game's sequel rolled around, Turtle Rock's hands had been washed completely clean of the project, save for some work on its DLC campaigns. Anyway, now that we've got that boring nerd context out of the way, why don't we kick things off by having a look at those weird alternate reality survivors that I showed you at the start. Every character in Left 4 Dead originally looked pretty much completely different to the ones we got. The original cast was designed by Turtle Rock using stock photos of random people from the 3DSK website, which is also where the textures on the common infected and the fishermen from Half-Life 2 Lost Coast were sourced from. They were changed because Valve thought they looked too well-prepared for the apocalypse, and that a more casual, everyday design for them would help the game resonate with a wider audience. They also planned to make cinematic animated trailers for the game and didn't think their simple faces were of high enough quality to not look weird on the big screen. So with the help of a casting call for face actors and Moby Frankie, yes, the same Moby Frankie who led the art design on TF2, the cast was overhauled into the one we know today. Let's start out with Zoe, since she probably went through the most changes out of all of the characters. Her original draft looked a lot younger, and early pictures show her not in red, but instead in blue, and even yellow. Her holsters and striped socks were dropped, her likeness switched out for that of Sonja Kinski, and after trying out a few different hairstyles, Valve finally landed on this final design. Zoe is also actually the only survivor who changed voice actors. In the final game, she's voiced by Jen Taylor, but she was originally casted as Alicia Glidewell and was kind of a different character altogether. Funnily enough, almost all of the pain and death sounds you hear in the final game are actually still left over from Alicia's portrayal of Zoe. Moving on to the squad leader and my personal favorite character, Bill is a funny case, because his original iteration is somehow both very different and also very recognizable. He originally had a tactical vest with American flag patches and dog tags, but other than that, he kind of just looks like the same Namvet guy with a beret on. His likeness was replaced with that of Bernard Fouquet, who to me almost looks exactly the same as the original face, except the tad bit younger. Before his design was finalized, Bill was also briefly shown with a striped t-shirt, which is visible in both concept art and in early promotional clips for the game, but other than that, Bill seems to have stayed pretty much the same exact character from his point of inception. The same cannot be said, however, of Lewis, who is probably the least recognizable out of all of the original cast. He's way grimeer and kind of looks like a guy at a Borderlands or something. While the Lewis we know today is a bald, enthusiastic office worker modeled after Sean Bennett, this guy is way more serious looking. He's got a full head of hair and even a beard, as well as a bandage on his forehead, a bandolier, and a brown coat with a yellow vest. Concept art even shows him smoking a cigarette, and it's hard to imagine these two would even get along if you put them in a room together. Now, if you think this design was bland, it's apparently because it was a revision of an even earlier draft of Lewis that was designed to be a religious zealot in accompanying religious garb. This is only ever mentioned in a single little known interview with Michael Booth, and there doesn't seem to be any known concept art or images of a religious Lewis ever released. So the actual original 2005 inception of his character still remains somewhat of an enigma in the beta community. Francis is funny because he was just fatter. He was just fatter, that's it, plus a fuller head of hair and a beard, I guess. His final likeness is that of Taylor Knox, who's apparently a professional surfboarder, but I'd say this original model resembles the bikers I've seen in real life a lot more. He also kind of resembles one of the midnight riders from the second game, funnily enough. Yeah. The original Turtle Rock survivor models were actually posted on the Left 4 Dead 2 workshop in 2013 thanks to a negotiation between Valve and a modern name Splinx, which to my knowledge is one of the very few times Valve has officially released cut content due to community demand, which is kind of cool. I can definitely see why these guys were cycled out for the more picturesque cast that we got, but it's still kind of interesting to imagine how different this game would have turned out had the more grimy and guttural survivors stuck around. Moving on though, next I want to talk a little bit about the infected. Easily the most famous cut infected is the Screamer, who was the predecessor to the boomer. He was harmless on his own, but once you spotted him, you'd have a small window to chase him down and kill him before he let out a terrible scream that would attract zombies. However, he was basically deemed too confusing for new players, and his Scream wound up being reused for the Hunter's Pounce. You can actually even see them allude to the Screamer in one of the earliest Left 4 Dead trailers, which is kind of interesting. Now, there's a common misconception in the Left 4 Dead community that there was once going to be zombie dogs in the game. This comes from the fact that there are sounds you can find in the game's files labeled zombie dog, but it turns out these were actually just placeholder sounds for the Hunter, who also underwent a lot of changes throughout his development. For example, he was originally going to be able to go invisible and hang from ceilings, which I think is pretty fucking spooky and I'm kind of sad they cut it. He was also at one point able to detach from his pounce at any time, use a leap attack to push players and run away to regenerate health, which obviously made him pretty overpowered and was toned down for a reason. The tank originally had a lighter skin tone and more health points, and we can tell from concept art and various file names that he was originally called the Hulk, which is kind of funny since his voice acting is performed by Fred Tatashore, the same guy who voices the actual Incredible Hulk. You probably know the smoker for sniping you across the map and pulling you in with his tongue, but you might be surprised to learn that he originally also had an attack similar to the Spitter in Left 4 Dead 2, being that he would produce toxic smoke that would drain the health of anyone who walked through it. Wrapping the segment up, the witch had black clothes instead of the greenish beige ones we know her for, and if Stardal was originally able to do collateral damage if the survivors were too This was far too powerful and would sometimes lead to entire teams being wiped, hence the nerf. Other than that, the boomers explosion originally did player damage and his bile was originally red, and the common infected for some reason have unused animations suggesting that they were at one point going to be able to sit down on and get up off benches and chairs throughout the level. I wonder why that was cut. Speaking of level, Left 4 Dead's campaigns changed a fair amount as well, and there were even some that were cut altogether. The most famous one is Dammit, a campaign that was meant to bridge the gap between dead air and blood harvest. It was never finished, but was released to the public by Turtle Rock in 2016, and is playable from start to finish. It features the survivors fighting through some hangers, a burning forest, and then finally a giant hydroelectric dam. It's also a pain in the fucking ass on higher difficulties, and I can definitely see why it was scrapped. It's finale is horrendous man, Jesus. Less well documented though is a cancelled campaign called The River, which connected death toll and dead air. In this campaign, you would get kicked off a boat and explore this cool union tech tower, from there traversing your way across rooftops to finally reach the greenhouse we see at the start of dead air. Though scrapped, most of its layout was apparently reused for the campaign we got in the Sacrifice DLC, and a survival version of the union tech tower map called Higher Eyes was released in 2016 as part of the Dammit campaign, alongside another cut survival map set on a big ass boat called Cole freighter. As for the campaigns we did get though, earlier screenshots show a heavier reliance on counter strike assets and more detail in some areas, presumably cut down on for performance reasons. No mercy was initially named Urban Underground, and was overall a bit brighter looking from the footage we have. The original versions of the rooftop finale and the subway look especially different. Very little is known about the earlier iterations of death toll and dead air, though Blood Harvest appears to have originally been a lot more colorful and its finale was also laid out slightly differently. I actually find it kind of sad that the one we got was so dull and washed out in comparison. And finally, we gotta talk about the items and mechanics of this game, because those changed a lot, probably more than anything else we've covered so far. Left 4 Dead's weapons were originally just ports of those from Counter Strike Source, though soundscape files suggest it was also at one point a rocket launcher and a flare gun that the survivors could get their hands on. The Molotov and pipe bomb both looked pretty different in early development, as did the first aid kit, which was more of a hard case than this soft pouch thing it became. They also functioned slightly differently, since the pipe bomb didn't attract enemies and was basically just a grenade, and right clicking a teammate with the med kit would give them it instead of healing them directly. One of the things I find most interesting is that Left 4 Dead at one point had an upgrade system. You could upgrade your guns by giving them laser sights or extended magazines, which I can only assume is what led to the incendiary ammo and laser sight upgrades we got in the sequel. As for player attacks, who were originally going to be able to do what's referred to internally as a stomp attack, which would insta-kill low level infected if you singled them out. And at one point, down players were also able to crawl around on the floor while shooting. This was presumably cut to help balance versus mode, but there's a lot of modded online servers that re-enable it if you want to try it out sometime. Additionally, cut animations exist for cocking your gun after every reload and also inspecting them when you pick them up. I initially thought these were really cool and wondered why they were cut, until I played around with them using a mod and realized they get really distracting and annoying after a while. And finally, there's the HUD, which changed a fair amount as well. Earlier iterations showed more of the survivors, were more centered, and were overall bulkier and more colorful. That about covers the original game's cut content, but before we move on to Left 4 Dead 2, I want to mention that even its branding and art went through many many changes. The hand you see on the cover of the game was originally meant to look like it was chomped off by a zombie, but the ESRB took issue with this, leading to it being changed to look more like it's been burnt or cauterized instead. And while we're talking about it, you might find it funny to know that the hand is actually that of Andrea Wicklund, who's an artist at Valve who you might know from Portal 2 as well as those Half-Life 2 Episode 3 concept art pieces that have been haunting Valve fans for over a decade now. Oh and also in Britain, throwing up two fingers in the way the sequels cover shows is considered a swear. So on their copies of the game, the hand was turned around, which looks really weird. Moving on though, Left 4 Dead 2 began development pretty much right after Left 4 Dead 1's release, as Valve saw immediate potential to flesh the game and its ideas out further and make a bigger, better and more appealing version of their own. There were actually a lot of scrap survivor concepts that were illustrated early on that I find to be kind of fascinating. Take for instance this early lineup, featuring an emo tattooed guy on a tank top, an Asian guy in yellow with a chainsaw who am actually a bit sad didn't make the cut, this southern country girl in cowboy boots, and an early heavier version of Rochelle. There's this archer, which apparently was also a role Coach was supposed to take on at one point, as well as this Asian doctor lady and a female reporter, this Cedar worker who's apparently a big fan of 50 Cent, this emo teenager girl, and this 1950s housewife looking woman. Unfortunately it doesn't seem any of these concepts made it far into production, and the cast we got was decided on pretty early. Though the color of their clothes did evolve a couple times, Rochelle's hair changed a bit and she was originally seen in orange instead of pink, Ellis' shirt was gray and blue instead of yellow, Coach was slightly heavier and wore blue instead of purple, and Nick's suit was just a little bit cleaner looking. You can actually find alternate versions of some of the campaign posters featuring the survivors and their original clothes online, which is kind of neat. Moving on to the undead. There were a lot of ideas for infected and left for dead too that were cut. Though I've seen particularly fascinated with the idea of zombie animals. There's art of hell hogs and even an infected who went attack would erupt a horde of infected rats out of his belly. There was at one point plants for a meat wall, which is an enormous cannibal zombie that looked to have been four or five times the size of a regular infected and would have presumably been some kind of mini-boss. There was also at one point a cut special infected called the leaker, which you can actually still play as in the final game using console commands though he simply appears as a boomer. With the leaker the idea was a kind of boomer that could take damage and shoot out spouts of goo, and you could plant yourself and explode be this walking bomb. The problem is there's a warning that you're going to do that, so when you go to plant yourself everyone else runs away and you just die and don't hurt anybody. It's pretty unsatisfying. The idea isn't entirely bad, and some of that we brought over to the spitter. Speaking of the spitter, its concept art is fucking weird. First it was a naked monstrosity, then it was a granny, then they made it into that car crash proof human meme before finally landing on the one we know today. The charger was also at one point a naked monstrosity that looked like something straight out of dead space. Other alternative renditions looked more muscly, more bubbly, or more ape-like. A lot of the crazier ideas from early in the games planning are said to have been cut because they were too wacky and supernatural for the series. And while it's fun to imagine what these guys would have looked like in action, I can definitely see why they were scrapped. There's a fine line between an infected like the hunter or the witch who are basically just humans with claws, versus a 20 foot tall monster who cries blood and a guy that shoots rats out of his tummy. I don't have too much to say about the levels in Left 4 Dead 2, as they were all developed alongside each other unlike those in the original game. They don't seem to have changed too terribly much, and I couldn't find anything to suggest that there were any cut levels or anything like that. We do know that the finale to Dark Carnival was going to take place on a train at one point though, and there's also this article that claims Val was at one point planning to make a campaign that would tie into the 2012 horror movie The Cabin in the Woods, though the movie's budget issues and delays seem to have led to this crossover being scrapped very early. I did find that there were a lot of cut items in the game though. For example, you were once supposed to be able to use a riot shield and a didgeridoo as melee weapons, and the melee weapons were also originally supposed to break after prolonged use, kind of like the tools in Minecraft do. They briefly experimented with having ammo packs you could carry with you, just like the first aid kit, but it was apparently cut because Valve wanted to incentivize players to cycle out their weapons. The new items we did get went through some changes as well. The adrenaline was originally shown as just a yellow pill bottle, then it became a syringe, then it finally became the shot we got in the end. And the D-Fib also briefly appeared as a reskinned health pack with a lightning bolt on it. As far as I can tell though, that's pretty much it for Left 4 Dead 2 and the series as a whole regarding cut content. There's a few small details regarding levels changing that I left out for the sake of brevity, and there's no way I got everything, but I'd like to think what I've shown still paints a pretty vivid image of the development of Left 4 Dead in its sequel. And if you'd like to know more, I'm sure some good Samaritans will have even more interesting insight if you scroll down to the comments below. I'd love to have done a full segment breaking down the cancelled Left 4 Dead 3 game set in Morocco, but there's not a terrible amount known about it other than what's said in the Final Hours of Half-Life Alyx book and some early concept art that surfaced a few years ago. It's said to have been cancelled because the Source 2 engine wasn't stable enough and that made Half the team want to switch to Unreal instead, leading to a deadlock and the project's complete cancellation, which I just think is a colossal shame. Then again though, it was apparently going to have base building mechanics and be open world and have skill trees, so maybe it would have sucked and been a complete letdown, I guess we'll never know. I'd also love to point you all to some good Left 4 Dead beta mods to check out, but the most competent one, Left 4 Dead Zero, was apparently shut down in 2017 after Valve went silent on them in the fallout of Hunt Down the Freeman, which is a shame because it actually looked to be a very interesting project, yet another thing to thank this shitty fucking game for. There is however a project called Terror Strike that's currently in development and seeks to remake the late 2007 alpha of the original Left 4 Dead, so definitely go check that out sometime if you get the chance, I'll link it in the description. I'll also link some workshop collections for anyone who wants to toy around with some of the beta survivors in Left 4 Dead 2. Before we wrap up, I want to address Valve directly and tell them we, the people of the Valve community, need Left 4 Dead Source 2, so please, please do it, I don't care if it's a new game or if it's a port of Left 4 Dead 2, whatever, just give me it, I need it. Thanks for watching, I hope you enjoyed the video or at least learned something, subscribe for more, support me on Patreon if you want to join my super special secret private club, I gotta chill it at least once or twice, and have a good day. Things have been okay for me except that I'm a zombie now, I really wish you'd let us in, guys speak for all of us when I say I understand.