Save your Spacebucks for another day, Left 4 Dead fans. The “Survival Pack” DLC will be coming to your Xbox 360 or personal computing device for free.
There may be no such thing as a free lunch, but there is such a thing as free DLC. Valve’s “Survival Pack” downloadable content for Left 4 Dead, everyone’s favorite zombie-filled co-op shooter, will arrive on gamers’ hard drives for free. “Survival Pack” contains one new multiplayer mode called “Survival” as well as a two campaigns for Versus Mode, Death Toll and Dead Air, which are already playable in the game’s regular co-op mode. For L4D newbies who enjoy the whole brick-and-mortar store experience, the Survival Pack content will come pre-packaged in a new retail version of Left 4 Dead dubbed the “Critic’s Choice” edition.
We were worried there for a second. While Valve has continually gone the free route for Team Fortress 2 on the PC, Microsoft-enforced regulations require them to charge for DLC on the 360, resulting in the multiple delays the new content in TF2 has seen on the 360 since, supposedly, Valve wanted to take the time to put together a package that would have a decent value. While that’s all well and good, the lack of new content has left the 360 version of TF2 arguably even more crippled than it was upon release. So when we heard that Valve would be releasing the L4D DLC simultaneously on PC and 360, we immediately figured it’d cost something, which would undoubtedly rile up PC gamers used to free content who might also be angry because the “Survival Pack” essentially amounts to one new mode and two unlocked maps that are already in the game.
So put down your pitchforks and save your “In my day we called this a patch! And it was free to everyone!” hollering. The content won’t cost you a dime. Still, we’ve got to wonder how Valve managed to make this free but haven’t been able to do the same for TF2. Maybe they’ve worked something out with Microsoft, or maybe someone thinks new content isn’t bulky or significant enough to warrant that kind of attention or regulation. Oh well, more Left 4 Dead is more Left 4 Dead. Who’s going to complain about that?
