Left 4 Dead File Has Fans Thinking Valve Has More Than Counter-Strike 2
Valve has been making headlines lately with the reveal of "Counter Strike 2," a follow-up to "Counter Strike: Global Offensive" that promises visual and gameplay overhauls to become the ultimate strategic FPS. Though hype for the game is absolutely massive, it follows a trend at Valve of not being able to count to three. There's the original "Counter Strike," the source version, and "CSGO," which would make this at least the fourth game in the franchise, but "Counter Strike" is far from the company's only franchise that lacks a three in its title. That might be finally changing if rumors about a new "Left 4 Dead" game are true.
Some players have been going through what few "Counter Strike 2" files are available to peruse. According to a screenshot posted by user u/PaP3s, there is code in "Counter Strike 2" that refers to "Left 4 Dead 3." The code appears very barebones, and doesn't give away any details on what players could expect from a third "Left 4 Dead" game.
This wouldn't be the first time that the third "Left 4 Dead" game has allegedly leaked. Back in 2016 a Steam developer accidentally showed a file titled "Left 4 Dead 3" in a tutorial. However, "Counter Strike 2" being one of the few major games on the Source 2 engine makes it more believable that this could finally be confirmation "Left 4 Dead 3" is in development.
Left 4 Dead 3 is referenced in CS2's files
Posted to the Steam subreddit, the screenshot appears to be of less than ten lines of code that are preceded by the "Left 4 Dead 3" title. What exactly the seven terms shown reference is anyone's guess at this point, but there are some inferences one can make — if the screenshot is real of course.
First, the game's "version" is listed as "2," which could be a reference to it being based on the Source 2 engine instead of the first two games' regular Source engine. Its "owner" is listed as "triage*" — the medical practice of evaluating patients' symptoms to determine who needs to be treated first. Then, its "severity" is listed as "high."
Interestingly, this severity section is followed by one labeled "priority," which is listed as "none." This line was particularly lambasted in the comments of the post — "yeah, we figured that out," said one user. The final three lines, "category," "product," and "component" don't say much. There is no category, the product is called "Left 4 Dead 3," and "component" is listed as "other."
The screenshot raises a lot of questions and answers few of them, but that hasn't stopped "Left 4 Dead" fans from getting excited anyway. One user said it would be a "baller move" if Valve just released the third entries in this and its other series out of nowhere. But there were also some who pointed out that this could be leftover code, or a remnant of something shelved long ago.