We’ll probably never see a third installment in Valve’s legendary Left 4 Dead series, but that’s okay. L4D2 is still getting a lot of love and, in fact, it recently received a small update that comes packed with tweaks, as well as one sought-after change.
As spotted by PC Gamer, the patch notes for the latest update to Left 4 Dead 2 notes that, among other things, Valve has finally decided to name the Swamp Fever gator, something that’s apparently been requested by the community. From this day forth, the “swamp gator” shall canonically be known as…Fred. Do with this info as you must.
According to my own Steam account, this patch is only a 2MB download, but as you can see from the notes, there’s a laundry list of tinkering that’s gone on.
Still rockin’ the Steam charts
And why shouldn’t the developer keep its 14-year-old zombie co-op game alive and well? It’s an absolute classic in the genre, giving more of what people loved in the original release. It’s still going pretty strong overall. At the time of writing, SteamDB registers almost 27,000 players fightin’ hordes in Left 4 Dead 2 right now. Also, the game is currently at the number 44 spot on the Steam charts.
That might not sound impressive, but considering Elden Ring is just ahead at 40 and Cyberpunk 2077 is trailing behind at position 48, Valve’s classic FPS is still managing to pull in enough players. Although we were supposed to be seeing a return to the L4D format with Turtle Rock Studios’ Back 4 Blood, it didn’t quite hit the mark. For many, it was a decent zombie shooter, but it just couldn’t reach the heights of Valve’s long-dormant series.
