YMMV / Left 4 Dead

See Left 4 Dead 2 for YMMV details in the second game.

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• Abridged Arena Array: No Mercy was the only campaign people would ever play on Versus, ignoring Blood Harvest completely. Even after Death Toll and Dead Air were released for VS mode in the Survival Pack DLC, people still chose No Mercy. The sequel had the same problem where people would only play Dead Center and sometimes The Parish. Even after The Passing and The Sacrifice was made, Dead Center was still the only campaign people played for VS mode. Until No Mercy was ported to the sequel, then everybody flocked to it.
• Alternative Character Interpretation:
  • In The Sacrifice comic, does Bill have a hatred of them where he needs to work out some issues, or is he actually terrified of the monsters?
  • Some see Louis as either a guy whose positive reactions is the opposite of how he feels and it is his way to cope without snapping, while others feel Louis is just trying to find hope in a grim situation.
  • Why does the Witch cry? Some fans believe that she retains some degree of her humanity and is horrified at what she has become. Others believe that her crying is just a Wounded Gazelle Gambit intended to lure in unsuspecting survivors. A third group believes that her crying is genuine, but merely for primal reasons (such as being in pain or suffering fever-like symptoms as a result of the Green Flu).
• Annoying Video Game Helper: The survivor AI when it comes to healing. They will do their damn best to keep you going, but ignore anything else occurring at the moment, and always try to heal you at inopportune times. Expect to run around frequently while holding a healing item just for the sake of not being interrupted.^note For some incredibly stupid reason, the AI treats temporary health gained by pills and adrenaline shots as being half of that of permanent health, which often results in the AI wasting a health kit if they only have temporary health, rather than savoring that temporary health and using a health kit much later. The console variable "sb_temp_health_consider_factor 1.0" can be used to rectify this, but this must be entered in the launch options if one is to use this without resorting to cheats.
• Breather Level: Although it's definitely not on your side, the AI director does tend to give you a breather in-between swarms of zombies or boss encounters, especially if you're just limping through. The period of time is increasingly brief on higher difficulties.
  • The elevator in No Mercy (only in campaign)
• Cargo Ship: The first game has Louis and his peelz.
• Cheese Strategy: One of the best ways to survive a horde of Infected is to simply have the entire team huddle in a corner while spamming the shove key. With everyone on top of each other and shoving, it's virtually impossible for a Hunter or a Smoker to nab someone, as they're immediately shoved off by another teammate. Meanwhile, normal Infected are left stumbling into each other to be easily shot down, while the Boomer's main weapon (the Horde and the blinding effect of his bile) is rendered ineffective as a result of everyone being so close to each other. Nothing short of a Tank or the Survivors running out of ammo will break this formation, making it incredibly unfun to play against in Versus. This is the reason why the sequel introduced Infected specifically designed to counter this strategy, namely the Spitter, which punishes players who sit in one place with ever-increasing amounts of damage, and the Charger, who can toss an entire team with one attack. A stamina gauge was also added to limit the number of times a Survivor can shove consecutively, further neutering this tactic on Versus and everywhere in the sequel.
• Cliché Storm: For zombie movies, played for laughs.
• Complacent Gaming Syndrome: In the first game, if you didn't pick the Auto Shotgun as your primary weapon then you were most likely kicked for being a detriment to the team. The second game tried to avert this by making ammo refills more scarce, so that players would run out of ammo for their primary and be forced to pick up a different one. Instead, this just caused everybody to treat their primary as Too Awesome to Use and rely mainly on their infinite-ammo sidearm instead.
• Demonic Spiders: All of the Special Infected count in their own way. If not dealt with quickly, they can turn a campaign into Hell on Earth in short order.
  • The Boomer, on its own, isn't particularly harmful and comes with about as much health as a Common Infected. However if you let one catch you off-guard, it'll vomit on you, which attracts a large horde of Common Infected to the afflicted Survivor(s), along with splattering the screen with bile and inducing blindness. Don't let its low health pool deceive you either. Killing it will make it explode, which has the same effect as being puked on.
  • One of the most feared Special Infected is the Hunter. Its growls can instill dread in even a hardened player. In an instant, it can pounce on a Survivor and continually tear them apart until they are shoved, or the Infected/Survivor is killed. If you need a reason as to not go alone, just look to this guy.
  • The Smoker is a sneaky bastard with a long tongue that, if it hits a Survivor, will drag them towards the Smoker, draining their health all the while. They like to hide up in hard-to-reach places where they can't be killed easily, meaning that the Survivors will have to shoot the tongue to free their companion and let the Smoker get away.
  • And this is just the AI-controlled Smoker. An experienced human-controlled Smoker can be even worse considering the fact that they can drag a player to certain death by hanging them off of a ledge, ensuring even if the player is freed or the Smoker is killed that they'll die no matter what.
  • Witches are the bane of all players, regardless of experience, and all of them generally agreed that it's better to stay the hell away from the her. Initially, they just sit in one spot crying to themselves, but if a Survivor gets too close, fires a weapon or shines their flashlight on the Witch, she goes berserk and charges at the offending Survivor. Should they reach them, the Survivor will be instantly incapacitated, regardless of health. Worse, on Expert difficulty, they die immediately instead of get downed. This wouldn't be too bad, if the Director didn't have a habit of spawning them in tight corridors, right around corners or at a crucial point that the Survivors need to cross. If you hear crying at any point in a Campaign, then brace yourself for an all-out assault from a pissed-off banshee.
  • Then there's the Tank, the big man of all Special Infected. These things are not a very common sight, but when they do, bad news. How bad? He, alongside the Witch, gets his own Leitmotif, where even the music sounds like it's gonna be a very lousy time for the Survivors. As the name implies, Tanks are an absolute Damage-Sponge Boss, with them eating bullets for breakfast and asking for more. Their punches are capable of knocking Survivors flying across the map (or if they're unlucky, off the map entirely), and they can chuck pieces of concrete at Survivors, which also really hurt. They can also knock large props around the map, which can down an unlucky Survivor instantly, and they can even break down the safe room doors! Word of advice when facing these things? Run and shoot! Or just run.
• Die for Our Ship: Zoey was this to Nick/Ellis shippers at first, even though the two characters had never even met in canon yet. Thankfully most of the bashing subsided after the initial furor over The Passing, which upgraded Zoey/Ellis to near-Official Couple status, though it still surfaces from time to time.
• Difficulty Spike:
  • The jump from Advanced difficulty to Expert is huge. On Advanced, a common infected will deal 5 points of damage if they hit you in the front whereas they do 2 damage on Normal and 1 on Easy. On Expert, common infected can cause 20 points of damage in the front. Hunters can slice you for up to 40 points of damage, dealing the most damage out of all of the infected on Expert except for the Tank, who can instantly bring you to incapacitation in a single strike. Not to mention that Witches, which previously incapacitated you in one hit as well, now just flat out kill you.
  • The Sacrifice was a huge bump up from all the other campaigns, mostly due to its finale. Unlike the other finales, the hordes AND the Tanks attack at the same time. And there are three sets rather than two now. And one achievement involves setting off all three at once. And then just when you think you've made your escape, the lift engines stall and you have to sacrifice a survivor to go re-activate the lift. With 3 more tanks and another horde all gunning for him.
• Draco in Leather Pants:
  • You will be amazed at the sheer amount of Self-Fanservice art there is of the Hunter as a Bishounen. And let's not get started on Hunter/Smoker or Hunter/Witch...
  • The Witch, leading to her being The Woobie or even Ms. Fanservice. Which can be a very good thing, if you know what I mean.
    • The Hunter and Witch get this a lot. Even the Smoker at times. Why? No one knows. Who remembers the Hunter being a hoodie-wearing Bishōnen, the Witch being a cute Emo Teen, or the Smoker being even remotely attractive in the game with all those cancerous tumors growing on him?
• Ensemble Dark Horse: NO ZOMBIE IS SAFE FROM CHICAGO TED.
• Epileptic Trees:
  • Nothing about the origin of the Infected is explained, leaving players to come up with absolutely every theory under the sun. Even off-screen supporting cast within the game itself fall afoul of this trope as they bicker among themselves on the various wall scribblings, etc. What's impressive is that the Emergent Narrative nature of the game makes these somewhat more valid than usual.
  • It is mentioned in Kotaku interviews, game reviews and other non-in game sources that the zombies are infected with a mutated rabies virus that the playable survivors are immune to. That's why they don't get turned when they're exposed to the zombies' bodily fluids.
  • Directly mentioned in the sequel in-game with the characters' discussion of immunity and carriers.
• Fan-Preferred Couple: There is a surprising amount of Witch/Hunter fanart to be found online.
• Fan-Preferred Cut Content: There are fans who prefer the way Turtle Rock Studios' version of the game looked due to its Darker and Edgier appearance compared to Valve's less gritty, slightly Team Fortress 2-influenced textures. Fans would remake TRS's version of No Mercy as Fairfield Terror, while their common infected textures would make their way into Left 4 Dead 2 as part of The Last Stand restoring the first game's infected models for its ported campaigns.
• Fanfic Fuel: What happens in between the original campaigns can be easily filled out with custom campaigns, especially how the van the survivors escape in "Crash Course" was nowhere to be seen in "Death Toll" (until The Last Stand update patched it in), the point where survivors are out of the Slater's boat at the end of "Death Toll" and making their way into the greenhouse in the beginning of "Dead Air", and how the survivors are stranded in Allegheny National Park in the beginning of "Blood Harvest" with the cargo plane out of sight.
  • Whether the Green Flu is naturally uncontrolled mutation or genetically engineered, as well as how the Special Infected (and one encountered is a military property) is either a natural mutation or Bioweapon Beast, as its never addressed at all as of the game's end of storyline.
• Friendly Fandoms: With the Resident Evil fanbase. This extends to the developers, as the PC version of Resident Evil 6 has an assortment of special Mercenaries mode cameo in Capcom's side and Left 4 Dead 2 has the models of Resident Evil 6 BOWs as replacement of Special Infected character models converted by Chet Faliszek, the writer of Valve's core games including Left 4 Dead and its sequel themselves.
• Funny Moments:
  • This is the sole purpose of soundpacks. Whether they succeed in this endeavour may vary.
  • The dedications in the Closing Credits.
  • Ragdoll Physics. Much potential amusement lies within those codes.
• Game-Breaker:
  • A major problem in the first game. Corner camping. Have all Survivors cram up in a corner of a wall or a small room and constantly melee the infected rushing in or shoot all at once. Aside from a Tank, nothing can break through this formation. This is so common that most infected players in VS mode wait it out until the survivor players move again and both teams will corner camp when it's their turn as Survivors.
• Germans Love David Hasselhoff:
  • The game is apparently fairly popular in Japan, possibly owing to the game's linear structure and immense replay value, which is surprising considering how unpopular western-developed games, specifically first-person shooters, were in Japan. Even Hideo Kojima has confessed that he's a fan of the game! This lead to an arcade port of the game in Japan.
  • It's also very popular in Russia and other parts of Europe.
  • For whatever reason, the series is heavily popular in Mexico.
• Goddamned Bats:
  • The Common Infected, who all have the ability to slow you down just by hitting you.
  • Especially if there's a Tank; the common ones will not let you move out of the way.
    • Not at all helped by their uncanny ability to flank you and pinch you between four or five others.
• Good Bad Bugs: The game is almost filled with various glitches and exploits that make the campaigns almost laughably easy but can be a life saver on Expert difficulty.
  • Possibly the most (in)famous regarded shoving. Shoves have a cooldown before you're supposed to be able to shove again, but you're still able to switch to another weapon before that cooldown ends. Originally, this was bugged in such a way that switching weapons reset the shoving cooldown, allowing you to immediately shove again. People very quickly took this to its logical extreme and were able to simply shove their way through entire hordes without taking a hit.
• Harsher in Hindsight: When "The Passing" was released in 2010 and it was revealed that Bill died, rumors circulated that Valve made this decision because his voice actor, Jim French, had died. These rumors were eventually dispelled when it became apparent that French was still alive and simply couldn't record new lines due to scheduling conflicts. In 2017, Jim French really did pass away, ensuring that "The Sacrifice" is the last time we'll ever see Bill alive and fully voice acted in the Left 4 Dead series.
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • Francis can see some birds in "Crash Course" and say "I hate birds," to which Zoey replies "Yeah, birds are dicks!" Later, in "Blood Harvest", the group startle a murder of crows, who in turn start a horde. And they do it again in "The Sacrifice".
  • The Fictional Video Game in Stay Alive (2006) is a co-op monster/zombie shooter set in New Orleans. Compare to Left 4 Dead 2, though the real game is harmless and has no supernatural elements.
  • One of Francis's many hates is lawyers; "When're they gonna stop practicing law?" Fast forward to 2012 and the release of smartphone game "Devil's Attorney," where the player character - a suave defense attorney - is voiced by Francis's voice actor, Vince Valenzuela.
  • The "Screamer" concept of Special Infected would be properly implemented in later different games State of Decay (including the sequel) and World War Z (2019) due to the larger map of both respective games. Previously in Killing Floor there is a "Siren" but it only disorients and harm player character instead of bringing horde attention due to fixed number of undead-like enemies of the game.
  • Louis says "Oh man, this is just like Counter-Strike!" upon picking up an Uzi, despite it not being a weapon in the game. He'd have more of a reason to say it with the alternative SMG in Left 4 Dead 2, which is a MAC-10, not to mention it having several weapons with models straight from Counter-Strike: Source.
• Ho Yay Shipping: The Sacrifice brings us an, uh...interesting line that Bill can say if Francis is the one to make the Heroic Sacrifice...
  Bill: Francis, you beautiful sonuvabitch, you did it!
• I Knew It!: Many expected that Left 4 Dead will not have a 3rd game/2nd sequel (courtesy of Valve) as the game's developer, Turtle Rock Studios, had announced a Spiritual Successor named Back 4 Blood.
• Jerkass Woobie: The Church Guy. Justified in that he is halfway turned into a zombie when you meet him, and distrusts you because he had been bitten by the previous person he let in.
• Low-Tier Letdown: Zoey's Bot AI is this, since she always grabs the Hunting Rifle on sight. Because the Survivor AI is borrowed from Counter-Strike, they'll always switch to pistols when an enemy gets too close. Since this is a zombie game, the chances of that happening are very high. Cut to Zoey constantly getting the least kills for not using the Hunting Rifle often enough.
• Magnificent Bastard: William "Bill" Overbeck is the de facto leader of the Survivors and looks after his own group no matter the cost. Having been introduced to the Infection when he powered through surgical anesthetic to kill a zombie with his bare hands, Bill remains just as effective a zombie killer as his younger counterparts, leading them from Philadelphia to rescue at the Millhaven outpost. Inside the outpost, Bill helps overpower his captor before leading the expanded group across the outpost, picking up on Louis' plan to take out a Tank and playing his role perfectly. When they get to the train, Bill starts it and leaves everyone except for his group behind, beginning a new plan to reach the Florida Keys. When the plan goes wrong, Bill sacrifices his life to ensure the group's survival, facing down three Tanks with nothing but a last smoke and the comfort that his loved ones are safe.
• Memetic Badass:
  • A number of forums have taken a single graffito referencing a "Chicago Ted" (itself a Shout-Out to an old gaming website) and seem to be attempting to turn him into a Chuck Norris-esque zombie slayer.
    • Found in a community campaign, "I Hate Mountains" Area 4, is The Epic of Chicago Ted.
  • Tanks are one as they intimidate everyone, both in-game and out from making their presence known alone. Try finding an online match where someone doesn't scream out "TANK!" the moment they see one.
• Memetic Mutation:
  • Francis hates everything. ^Explanation  Francis is well-known for his Mad Libs Catchphrase "I hate [x]", in which he claims to dislike just about anything relevant to the current campaign in some form (except vests), whether it be forests, small towns, lawyers, tunnels, vans, train yards, Ayn Rand, etc. Some fanmade campaigns even add their own variations of the catchphrase.
  • Louis loves pills. ^Explanation  In both games, looking at pill bottles will cause your character to say specific voice lines, the most common ones being "Grabbin' pills!" and "Pills here!" Louis in particular sounds the most enthusiastic out of the four survivors when exclaiming these two lines, giving the impression that he is particularly fond of them. The fandom promptly exaggerated this into Louis being outright obsessed with pills, a portrayal especially popular in Garry's Mod machinimas; if pills are involved, expect Louis to become a Memetic Badass just to get to them, or fly into a rage when his pills are taken from him.
    • What Happens When [X] Gets His/Her Pills ^Explanation  A trend of Garry's Mod videos in which a character — usually one of the survivors from both games — finds some pills and launches into a Voice Clip Song of "The Monsters Without", composed of their pill-related voice lines.

• Coach loves cheeseburgers. ^Explanation  Cheeseburgers are Coach's Trademark Favorite Food alongside chocolate, a trait which is often exaggerated in a similar manner to Louis' memetic love for pills

• ⚠ Be ready to fight the horde ^Explanation  The caption that appears when approaching the beginning of a crescendo event, in which survivors must perform an action that allows them to proceed through the level, but provokes a massive Zerg Rush of Infected as a result. This is often quoted in response to scenarios in which something attracts the attention of many people at once, whether it be someone pressing a group's collective Berserk Button, a hot-button topic sparking a Flame War upon introduction, a newly-introduced character in a work inspiring large amounts of Rule 34 art, etc.
• Purple Francis^Explanation In 2021, a Wiki Vandal created a page in the Left 4 Dead wiki for a fake character named Purple Francis, who is as his name suggests, Francis but with a purple hue filter over him. According to the page, he's a secret playable survivor who has canonically sacrificed himself in an earlier campaign, is a much kinder person unlike his doppelganger, has the voice of a god (played by Purple Vince Valenzuela), and used to have a root beer factory and a family of five. The article went viral and people expanded on his lore with more joke posts, and naturally, modded him into the game.

• Moment of Awesome: Several achievements qualify, such as the 'Untouchables' achievement for making it through the finale unscathed or the 'Unbreakable' achievement for going an entire campaign without healing. The arguably most awesome, however, is the 'Man vs. Tank' for killing a Tank single-handedly.
  • A bot cr0wning a Witch. The lack of any emotion they display just makes it cooler.
• Moral Event Horizon: As of part three of The Sacrifice comic: Bill refused to slow down the Survivors' train for a moment, causing the death of a military doctor who had grouped up with the survivors despite Zoey telling him to slow down, and has twice declared that he'll leave anyone to die outside of their own group.
• Recurring Fanon Character: It's fairly common among fans to treat the Director as a genuine character, when it is really a program responsible for populating the game's levels with zombies and items without having any basis in-universe. When the Director is interpreted this way, "he" is usually seen as the Big Bad, actively commanding the infected hordes in an attempt to kill the survivors. Physical depictions vary, from a Special Infected who always remains out-of-sight from the survivors, to a Jerkass God out for the survivors’ blood, to an actual movie director (with the survivors and infected just being actors).
• Self-Fanservice: Go look at how the Hunter, Witch, and Smoker look in the game. Pretty hideous looking zombies, right? Now go look how they are drawn in a lot of fanart. Notice any differences?
• Sequel Displacement: Enforced by Valve, due to them porting over the original game's content to Left 4 Dead 2, as well as continued (though first-party content addition basically stopped in 2012 with subsequent additions being fan-made or minor critical patch fixes) development of the sequel while leaving the original behind. Though many old-time players still like to play Left 4 Dead 1 and as of now the game wasn't delisted yet (and Valve never delist their own games).
• "Stop Having Fun" Guy: A disturbing number of people will vote-kick you for not being as good as they are in Versus, moving at less than a dead run through a campaign, failing to cr0wn a Witch, getting pounced on once without dead stopping the Hunter, being incapacitated for any reason, shooting a Boomer and splattering the team accidentally, or sometimes even for picking up the "wrong" weapon. Suffice to say there are SHFGs galore in Left 4 Dead.
  • Also, people who antagonize others for playing on "Easy," and ESPECIALLY people who do so for players on "Normal."
  • Of course, the majority of people you'll find playing on Easy are just going for achievements, god help you if you're actually at that skill-level.
  • VS mode is ripe full of these guys, mainly due to how competitive the mode can get. If you don't rush with the rest of the team, don't save someone in a nanosecond when a Hunter pounces them, let yourself catch on fire while playing as a Tank, even though you tried to avoid the attack, you're a Scrub to everyone else. It also does not help that the only way to learn how to play VS is to try everything out since the game barely teaches you how to play as the Special Infected.
  • Gets worse when you run into this type of player who judges other players purely on hours they invested into a game. If a player doesn't have X hours logged, they are deemed n00bs and are promptly booted from the game.
• Too Cool to Live: Bill.
• The Woobie:
  • Zoey, after 2-3 rounds of Break the Cutie and all. Arguably an Iron Woobie, since she's able to spring right back up and kill more zombies even after Bill's death.
  • The Witch, anybody? Some people go on suicide missions just so she would stop crying. Others think she's just wangsty.
    • Some interpretations of the Witch are definitely this. The reason why she cries is never really explained, but one theory is that when she is unprovoked, she still has some humanity in her. She realizes that she's become a hideous, clawed beast, and cries over it. Alternatively, the infection has caused her to develop a very high fever, which is why she has removed most of her clothing, and the fever among the other affects of the infection are driving her into depression.
    • Special mention goes to the poor bride who became a Witch on her wedding day, as featured in The Passing. Poor girl is still by the altar, dressed in what is left of her wedding dress, by the time the players pass by.
  • To a lesser degree, the other Infected can qualify due to the sheer, unimaginable pain they must be going through.
• Unintentionally Unsympathetic: A mild example, but in The Sacrifice comic, while it's a case of Gameplay and Story Integration with how the comic came out leading up to campaign's release, some people feel that Bill went too far by leaving the military doctor to die as mentioned above under Moral Event Horizon. As a result, this can make his failed attempt to rejoin the others before getting punched by a Tank during his titular Heroic Sacrifice seem a bit like karma.

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