Weapons

"Long as we still got guns, we gonna' fight."

- Coach

"Guys! Big, badass, nasty weapons over here!!!"

- Zoey

The main weapons in Left 4 Dead and Left 4 Dead 2 are divided into two tiers. The first is the kind available to any Survivor when the scenario starts. Second-tier weapons can only be found later on throughout the maps such as at the end of the campaign just before or at the finale, as they are considered upgrades from Tier-1-weapons. Melee (shove-back, default "right-click (mouse2)") can be used while holding any weapon, on Infected (excluding the Tank, the Charger, and the Witch (except in some situations)) within close combat, pushing them back and delaying a threat.

There is currently no way to distribute weapons or ammunition among teammates without picking up another weapon to replace the slot of the weapon you wish to give. All weapons have an attached flashlight with an unlimited battery; however, the light emitted from the flashlight is only visible to the player wielding it.

Picking up a weapon from a table or other location holding new weapons (not from a dead Survivor) provides a full ammo refill of that weapon, equivalent to interaction with an ammo pile. This is useful for unloading an entire magazine, then picking up a new one so as to avoid having to reload the weapon.

Weapons will continue reloading despite the lack of reloading animation during melee attacks, provided that reloading starts before the melee attacks. This is extremely useful if out of ammo, or both primary and pistol need to be reloaded as it allows the player to shove back attacking Infected while their weapon reloads in the background. When it is fully reloaded (after 2-3 melees' time) it can be used to kill the staggering Infected.

Left 4 Dead
Tier 1

Tier 2

Left 4 Dead 2
The following weapons are found in Left 4 Dead 2. The original Left 4 Dead weapons also make an appearance in Left 4 Dead 2, although some of them appear to be slightly tweaked and have a new reload animation. Tier 1

Tier 2

Other Tier
There is only one weapon that doesn't qualify as a tier 1 or tier 2 that can be found in Left 4 Dead 2.

Sidearms
Other than primary weapons, Survivors are provided with a sidearm weapon at all times in case their primary runs low on ammo.

Left 4 Dead
Left 4 Dead only featured one side arm, the M1911 Pistol which could be duel-weld.

Left 4 Dead 2
Unlike Left 4 Dead, Left 4 Dead 2 features two firearms and 10 melee weapons under the sidearms section.

Melee weapons
Other than handguns, Survivors can also use items they find throughout the campaigns to deal with Infected nearby.

Weapon Upgrades
Special items lay scattered across maps to boost their weapon's abilities.

Grenades
Each of the Survivors can carry at any time one of the following grenades.

Usable Items
These items are found throughout campaigns, and when picked up, you can't use any weapon until you throw them or drop them. You can shove with them, however. When shot, burned, or otherwise detonated, these items blow up or spread flames, making good tools for defending areas during Crescendos or Finales.

Special Items
These items, like the items above, take over all of the Survivor's abilities to use weapons, and can be used to knock back Infected. Though these are special that in some cases are required to fulfill a certain task.

Fixed Weapons
Over the course of the campaigns, the Survivors find fixed gun emplacements left behind by the military in their failed attempt to contain the Infection. They appear at certain finales and crescendo events and have an infinite supply of ammo. However they are prone to overheating, which renders them temporarily unusable. When a Survivor uses a mounted gun, they cannot move and can only fire in a fixed arc.

Weapon Characteristics
The following are common characteristics shared by most weapons.

Reload
Reloading (default "R" on PC and "B" on the Xbox360) is the in-game action of moving ammo from your reserve ammo count to your usable loaded ammo. Which complements their high magazine capacities to make reloading nearly trivial.

The Hunting Rifle takes longer to reload than the other two magazine-fed weapons, but the person using it should have the least close quarters contact of all other Survivors anyway.

Pistols have a similar reload time to the submachine gun, but have a much smaller magazine capacity. Dual Pistols make reloading take slightly longer, and incapacitated players take twice as long as normal to reload their pistols.

It is best to always reload before a finale or when a Tank is drawing near. While reloading in the heat of battle, it is best to run away when you are almost out of ammo and use your melee attack while reloading. Listen closely when a teammate yells "Reloading," and offer cover fire, especially if they are using shotguns.

If you melee while you are reloading, this will not interrupt your action. You will continue to reload until you are finished or attacked by a Special Infected such as the Hunter, Tank, Smoker, Charger, or Jockey. This is extremely helpful against horde attacks, as it allows you to push them away from you to finish reloading you weapon.

One thing to remember when reloading is that if you press the reload button before your gun or magazine is empty, you will reload just a little bit faster than if you empty your magazine entirely. This proves useful if you need to take down a Tank, and need a fast reload. One way to bypass this is to leave exactly one or two bullets left in the gun, then press reload. You still have the fast reload, but get to empty your entire magazine.

Flashlight
The Flashlight is an item that is always in the Survivors' inventory and is attached to every firearm the player can obtain. You cannot drop it, but you can turn it on and off, which makes a clicking sound. It allows the player to see in dark areas when exploring for items and weapons. It also allows the player to scout out such areas for groups of Common Infected, and spot Special Infected much easier. Also, the flashlight is attached in a fixed point on your weapon which means that when using the melee attack, changing weapon and reloading, you lose the benefit of the light as your weapon moves and changes angles. The flashlight is a sure-fire way to disturb the Witch, as demonstrated in the introduction cutscene. The Survivors will often warn each other when they believe they hear a Witch, telling them to turn their flashlights off. Shining the light on her will disturb her more than standing near her, so you should aim your crosshair away from her, or turn it off altogether. Also, idle Common Infected are disturbed faster when you shine your flashlight on them.

Cooldown
Cooldown is the minimum length of time in the Left 4 Dead series that a Survivor or an Infected needs to wait after using an ability before they can use it again.

The Survivors
Main article: Fatigue

In Left 4 Dead the Survivors have no special abilities and therefore do not need to wait to use their abilities other than healing, shooting and reloading. However, in all gameplay modes of Left 4 Dead 2 and Versus mode of Left 4 Dead there is an exception called Melee Fatigue. After couple of melee uses, the Survivors will need to wait 2 seconds until they can use it again, and if they will keep using it, they will have to keep waiting 2 seconds each melee attack until fully rested for couple of seconds.

Originally this was not in the game until Valve received complaints of people not actually "Firing their gun" in Versus and Campaign matches. When the Left 4 Dead DLC known as the Survival pack was released, Valve added in this new system.

The Infected
The Infected have different abilities, and therefore different cooldown times.


 * The Boomer has to wait 30 seconds before being able to vomit on the Survivors again.
 * The Hunter does not have a cooldown on Pouncing, but it must wait 2 seconds before being able to leap if it stood up.
 * The Smoker's tongue takes 15 seconds to rewind if it breaks or is removed from a Survivor. In Versus, it takes 5 seconds to rewind if it misses.
 * The Tank takes 3 seconds to swing his arm again after punching and to rip the ground to throw concrete. The Tank has no punch delay after a rock throw, meaning it can hit a Survivor twice.
 * The Charger has to wait 12 seconds to be able to charge again.
 * The Spitter has to wait 20 seconds before she is able to spit again.
 * The Jockey has to wait 1 second after he jumps if he misses a Survivor, 7 seconds if he is knocked off of a Survivor, and 30 seconds if he incapacitates a Survivor.
 * The Hunter, Boomer, Charger, Spitter, Jockey and Smoker's secondary claw attack has a 1 second cooldown.

Behind the Scenes

 * In the game_sounds_weapons.txt file, listings for a flare gun and a LAW rocket launcher can be found. It is likely that these weapons were scrapped early in development, as none of the pre-release footage shows either of these weapons.
 * All of the weapons in Left 4 Dead are based on the programming used for Counter-Strike: Source's weapons. Most of the weapons are based on either weapons usable by both teams or Counter-Terrorist-exclusive weapons, with the only exception being the Dual Pistols, which is based on the Dualies, a Terrorist-exclusive weapon.
 * Weapons originally did not have flashlights on them, as seen in pre-release pictures. In addition, their world models had blood on them.
 * All weapons originally had two reload animations; when the magazine is empty and when the magazine is not. The animation that played when the magazine was empty is longer than the other animation because the player need to cock the gun in order to load a new round. Most of the "empty" animations were removed from the game, but can still be seen in the Left 4 Dead Authoring Tools. The only weapons that still use their empty reload animations are the pump and auto shotgun. In Left 4 Dead 2, most of the weapons have the empty animations (Except the Hunting rifle).
 * It appears that the animations relating to the other 3 weapons (Uzi, Assault Rifle, and Hunting Rifle) were removed shortly before release, as they can be last seen in gameplay footage dated September 2nd, 2008, but are gone by the time footage is released on October 15th, 2008

Originally, weapons did not have flashlights on them. The light came from the player's chest, like in the Half-Life series. Flashlights were attached to the guns to make it so that the player wouldn't have a light source when either reloading or using melee.

The old flashlight behavior is still in the final game; turn on the flashlight when holding a melee weapon, molotov, pipe bomb, medkit or pills to see it.

Cut Weapons
In Left 4 Dead 2 there was originally going to be a riot shield and a didgeridoo as a usable melee weapon in the game. However, this appears to be cut. The riot shield was fully modeled and textured and can still be spawned in-game via the console while the didgeridoo had a model, but no textures.

In Hard Rain, there was also suppose to be a flare gun, but was cut during early development. Found somewhere near the end of the level, with the possible ability to help Survivors see in the rain.

Ammo Packs were also set to be an an alternative to the health kit. When deployed it would let all Survivors be able to restock on ammo. It was cut because players found it less valuable than the med kit and expected to find more ammo further on.