Left 4 Dead 2 Beta is out of Beta!

July 2, 2013 - L4D Team

The Extended Mutation System, Linux support, and other features and fixes are moving to Left 4 Dead 2 proper. Thanks to everyone who helped test all the changes in the Beta Build. You can find a complete list of the change notes here.

Linux
The Linux conversion is ready for primetime so we are opening it up to more people and releasing it officially on Steam. This will let us get feedback on more builds and distros.

SteamPipe
Some of you may have noticed a quick update to your game last week. That was our conversion over to SteamPipe. For L4D2 it was quick and painless as our system was already using VPKs. What does this change mean? For server operators there is an easier update path and smaller downloads. For clients, we have improved the downloading experience and you can now install L4D2 on any drive. You can get more details on the support page.

Extended Mutation System.
The EMS takes the current idea of mutations and mutates it into a powerful tool for modders. They have been busy at work creating a bunch of new Mutation and game modes that will begin to be uploaded to the L4D2 workshop today. With names like Vicious Infected, Boomer Peril, Stranded, Vampirism, Plague of the Dead, Zombie Run, and Tiny Terror, there is something for everyone.

Later this week, we will highlight some of our favorites.

For now, make sure to checkout Holdout. It is a multi-map Mutation that includes the concept of resources and buildable items. It was created to showcase some of the functionality of EMS and as a byproduct, it is pretty damn fun.

You can find our original EMS blog post here, or jump into the developer wiki here. If you want to get cracking on it, you can also join in on the discussion here.

We will be adding the most popular EMS creations to the official servers.