Left 4 Dead 2 Cold Stream DLC coming July 24

After over a year of public testing, Valve will officially launch Left 4 Dead 2's Cold Stream DLC for PC and Xbox 360 on July 24, alongside a patch making all mutations available at all times.

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After over a year of public testing, Valve will officially launch Left 4 Dead 2's 'Cold Stream' DLC later this month. It packs versions of original Left 4 Dead campaigns Blood Harvest, Crash Course, Dead Air and Death Toll, as well as the community-made Cold Stream. On top of that, a patch launching alongside will make all of the game-altering mutations available at all times.

The DLC and accompanying patch will launch on July 24, Valve revealed in a blog post. Valve put Cold Stream up for public testing last March, followed by the remaining L4D campaigns (No Mercy had launched before). Now, thanks to the wonders of Valve time, it's finally ready to roll out.

Valve has been rotating mutations weekly since February 2010, with only one available at any time. Their weird and wonderful effects have included turning all enemy infected in Versus into tanks with 'Taaannnkk!,' the infinite ammo M60 madness of 'Gib Fest,' and mode-mashup 'Versus Survival.' When the new patch launches in the 24th, you'll be able to play any of them whenever you want.

While the Cold Stream DLC will be free on PC, Valve will most likely charge on 360.

From The Chatty
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    July 2, 2012 7:30 AM

    Alice O'Connor posted a new article, Left 4 Dead 2 Cold Stream DLC coming July 24.

    After over a year of public testing, Valve will officially launch Left 4 Dead 2's Cold Stream DLC for PC and Xbox 360 on July 24, alongside a patch making all mutations available at all times.

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      July 2, 2012 7:34 AM

      [deleted]

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      July 2, 2012 7:39 AM

      Sweet.

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      July 2, 2012 7:47 AM

      love it

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      July 2, 2012 7:49 AM

      The post-launch support for L4D2 has been straight up unparalleled, I think, especially on PC. The game is now just about double in size of what it was when I bought it for $30 at launch, both in terms of GB and maps. All for free.

      Plus the mutations, HEART Valve.

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        July 2, 2012 9:20 AM

        Remember all the conspiracy theorists saying Valve was going to go the annual sequel route when L4D2 came out so soon after L4D?

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        July 2, 2012 9:21 AM

        can't tell if serious

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          July 2, 2012 9:52 AM

          why not serious? sounds about right to me

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          July 2, 2012 10:00 AM

          Extremely serious. Why would you think otherwise?

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            July 2, 2012 10:01 AM

            There are games that have paralleled and exceeded post-launch support on the PC.

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              July 2, 2012 10:13 AM

              Start listin'.

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                July 2, 2012 10:32 AM

                Have you not played any Blizzard game?

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                  July 2, 2012 10:35 AM

                  Sure have! You can't really count something like WoW, as that's an MMO. Plus isn't all that paid content, anyway?

                  What else? SC2 has a huge expansion coming, but is that free or paid? I'm sure D3 will have paid DLC.

                  What I'm getting at is that L4D2's postlaunch support added a shitload of maps and game modes (what, like 15+ of them?) for FREE.

                  I don't think it gets any better.

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                    July 2, 2012 10:49 AM

                    Look, free is free and it's great that they do this.

                    But you are avoiding obvious choices of much better supported post-release games from Blizzard, and even Valve.

                    Valve, in my opinion, really fucked up with L4D franchise. 1 had a booming community map/mod scene the likes I had not personally experienced with the quake days and it died almost instantly when L4D2 came out. They didn't fulfill promises made for L4D1, and possibly even 2 I don't remember. While they have added some maps, they haven't been that good and (here is a great example) take forever.

                    Free is free and who can complain about that but to go all crazy and say "straight up unparalleled" is crazy, but such is shacknews posting.

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                      July 2, 2012 10:58 AM

                      So you played L4D1, quit when L4D2 came out, and declared the scene dead? Shacknews posting, indeed.

                      L4D2 thrives, son. There's a shitload, and I mean a fuckin' shitload of quality user-made maps available, campaign, VS. and survival. Check out l4dmaps.com (I think that's the one). You claiming that the maps they added aren't very good is subjective, and I'm guessing you don't play them much. I have. They're excellent. Especially Cold Stream (which has been available for a year on PC, so there goes your 'take forever' point).

                      So yeah, I have yet to see any game company offer this much content/support (regular patches come with the mutations) for free, pretty much ever.

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                        July 2, 2012 11:22 AM

                        Don't forget Helms Deep Reborn. I fucking love that map.

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                        July 2, 2012 11:47 AM

                        So you played L4D1, quit when L4D2 came out

                        No, I didn't do that, nor did I write that. ( Shacknews posting, indeed. ) Reading comprehension failure detected, further irrational and inaccurate posting from bill crystals likely

                        L4D2 thrives, son. There's a shitload, and I mean a fuckin' shitload of quality user-made maps available, campaign, VS. and survival. Check out l4dmaps.com (I think that's the one). You claiming that the maps they added aren't very good is subjective, and I'm guessing you don't play them much. I have. They're excellent. Especially Cold Stream (which has been available for a year on PC, so there goes your 'take forever' point).

                        So yeah, I have yet to see any game company offer this much content/support (regular patches come with the mutations) for free, pretty much ever.


                        Irrational? Incorrect?

                        Confirmed!

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                          July 2, 2012 11:53 AM

                          Sure you didn't write that, but it's pretty easy to infer when you DO write stuff like this "L4D1 had a booming community map/mod scene the likes I had not personally experienced with the quake days and it died almost instantly when L4D2 came out.'

                          Being that this is an objectively false statement, as anyone who plays L4D2 can tell you, I have to conclude that you were butthurt over L4D2 being released so quickly and stopped playing.

                          In any case, you're totally wrong, L4D2 owns, son.

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                            July 2, 2012 12:08 PM

                            You excel at trolling, that can't be denied. Here I am posting again, taking the bait on another terrible post.

                            Sure you didn't write that, but it's pretty easy to infer

                            It is easy to infer that I didn't play L4D2 is your statement here, and that is false.

                            you DO write stuff like this "L4D1 had a booming community map/mod scene the likes I had not personally experienced with the quake days and it died almost instantly when L4D2 came out.' Being that this is an objectively false statement, as anyone who plays L4D2 can tell you, I have to conclude that you were butthurt over L4D2 being released so quickly and stopped playing.

                            As anyone who played both games can tell you, it's 100% true, in fact it eventually led to the collapse of a second website that was just as, if not more popular than l4dmaps.com which is still around. The maps and campaigns came to halt.

                            They still come out, its been years after all, but at the time it was a massive blow to the original game, and new maps for the second game were mostly ports from the original and took a lot of time and were bug filled.

                            My only point in my frist response to you, that is now long lost in your trolling here is that when you say something as ridiculous as "the post-launch support for L4D2 has been straight up unparalleled" that it is not correct. Ninjase pointed out an obvious and immediate example.

                            Free stuff is great, even if it takes years and is medicore. Nobody can complain about free! But to say it is "straight up unparalleled" is ridiculous and wrong.

                            But your hillbilly reading comprehension failure led you to get all "butthurt" and make wild accusations and incorrect statements, and change your point with each subsequent post.

                            In any case, you're totally wrong, L4D2 owns, son.

                            I never wrote that it didn't own, L4D2 is a great game. Also, I aint your son Jethro.





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                      July 2, 2012 12:24 PM

                      I agree with you. TF2 is "unparallelled". L4D was neutered by L4D2 so I would say it was just merely okay. L4D2 has been better though. Mutations if you're into that, The Passing, The Sacrifice, but Cold Stream spent over a year in beta and isn't even a Valve map. The L4D additions to L4D2 were nice, but unneeded. But I can't complain. I even said it was good, just not unparallelled. Way better than Portal though. Portal's post-launch support was a major fuck up if you ask me. Great game, but they never supported it despite building in a support system. Portal 2 has been much better, though I feel the map editor should have been in from the get go. I think the map editor should actually be a universal Source feature actually.

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                        July 2, 2012 12:26 PM

                        The Passing and The Sacrifice were terribly mediocre. I also really hated how Bill was treated as some "achievement" and didn't even get a cool send-off. Kill one of the cooler characters in the cast and give him a shitty ending. Ah durrr, read the online comic.

                        They really felt about as non-Valve as possible.

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                    July 2, 2012 12:00 PM

                    Both Starcraft and Diablo 2 have been supported for more than a decade. The later also had a few non-trivial FREE content releases for the first few years after release.

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                      July 2, 2012 3:09 PM

                      SC is only supported because it's huge in the tournament scene, they're kinda obligated to support it. I would guess that they started patching D2 in the last few years again to build some hype for D3. But hey, I remember when D2 was new and they were saying how easily they could add horadric cube recipes and made it sound like it would happen frequently; it didn't.

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                July 2, 2012 11:50 AM

                Diablo 2 still had patches coming out for it over 10 years after it was released

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                July 2, 2012 3:00 PM

                EVE Online has been making expansions and upgrading the engine for free.

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              July 2, 2012 10:20 AM

              I feel that their post launch support is commendable

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        July 2, 2012 12:53 PM

        I know it's made by the same company, but COME ON, TF2 has had so much post-launch support! Way more thean L4D2.

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          July 2, 2012 12:57 PM

          Substantial content that any other company would charge money for. The maps, items. Including the replay function and editor? Crazy.

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        July 2, 2012 2:54 PM

        I'd just like to point out here that...once again, Tripwire did it first with Killing Floor. I mean, enjoy, but yeah.

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      July 2, 2012 8:01 AM

      Need 24/7 TANK!!! servers. Our society doesn't have nearly enough RUNNING FOR OUR DEAR LIVES these days.

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      July 2, 2012 10:39 AM

      Finally! They did say there was going to be another suprise in the DLC if I remember correctly. Anyway can't wait to play the L4D1 campaigns again I always felt they were better and I can't wait for Death Toll!

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        July 2, 2012 10:42 AM

        I think Death Toll is already out. I know Blood Harvest and No Mercy are.

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      July 2, 2012 11:04 AM

      [deleted]

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        July 2, 2012 11:11 AM

        Yeah it's still decently lively. It's a shitty scene (for VS) due to the type of game it is, but I have great games all the time!

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      July 2, 2012 12:22 PM

      "Valve will most likely have to charge on 360" as imo they've said that they are unhappy about the forced monetization model on the XBox (addons for released games need to meet a minimum price).

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      July 5, 2012 12:54 AM

      I'll be getting both the XBLA and PC versions, I guess...at least I only need to pay for one of them.

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