The Charger

The Charger can be most dangerous when the survivors are standing in front of a deadly area that they can be thrown into. The Charger will scatter them, launching any of them unfortunate enough to be hit after the Charger picks up his first victim either backwards into the horde, where the survivor faces a swift and unpleasant death, or into the deadly zone, killing them instantly. The Charger will then proceed to stomp the victim into oblivion. A good example of this is the dock section of The Parish. A Charger may spawn directly in front of the dock's exit, and when the survivors come to it, the Charger can send any survivors not grabbed flying into the lake, killing them.

In terms of appearance, the Charger is a large Infected, roughly the height of the Tank, and about half as wide. Unlike the Tank however, only one of its arms have been mutated while the other is small and presumably useless. The Charger does not use its arms for movement, as its legs are still capable of supporting it. The Charger seems to prefer using the arm as a shield. Like the Tank, though, it charges through crowds of Common Infected to get to the Survivors. It also sports blue-overalls, meaning one could assume the Charger was once a farmer, especially considering the Southern setting. This could also explain why only one of his arms is so bulky; A farmer working in the fields would use only one arm while cutting crops with a sickle.

Like most other Special Infected, the Charger has a distinctive sound. It does not shake the ground as the Tank does, but itself does seem to be loud, growling and moaning at enemies distinctively.



Note: The following damage is calculated on normal difficulty.

While charging, the Charger will run like a Tank, using its mutated arm to grab a survivor. It will run faster than a Survivor with full health, and will grab the first Survivor it charges into, holding the survivor out in front of itself while continuing to run through anything (including other Survivors, doing about 8 damage.) until he slams the Survivor into a wall, doing about 10 damage upon impact. The charger itself also appears to receive damage when it hits a solid object, although it will receive less if it has a survivor, and more if it misses and hits a wall. After that, it slams the Survivor in a pinned like style until the Survivor is dead or the Charger is killed. This attack does 15 damage per slam. In a recent gameplay video of the new Scavenge mode, it only takes the Charger 9 seconds to incapacitate Coach, who at the time was in green health. The video can be found here. On the Expert difficulty a survivor can be downed in 3 - 5 slams to the ground making the charger one of the most dangerous new infected due to its ferocious ability to incapacitate survivors in a matter of seconds. In some gameplay videos, the Charger is shown not only pummeling a survivor into the ground, but throwing the survivor up into the air, causing them to crash into the ceiling.

Tactics

 * The good thing about being a Charger, is that Survivors can't shove you off your victim and you have a powerful claw. Besides you have 600 HP. Use these factors to your advantage.
 * Try to catch the Survivors in either an extremely narrow or extremely open space. A narrow space - such as a hallway - will allow you to knock over all the Survivors at once. An open area - such as the park - lets you snatch a Survivor and drag them far away from the group. This can be combined with the Jockey to split the Survivor team quickly and efficiently.
 * Chargers can be good for suprises, for instance if a horde is coming and the survivors attempt to run, the charger can slow them down giving the horde a chance to catch up.
 * In the first level of The Parish, a Charger can instantly kill a survivor by running into them on the gangplank, sending them flying off and killing them.
 * Chargers work well in ambush situations, as they can instantly take one survivor far from the group and delay their saviors.
 * Chargers have one of the most useful abilities of the playable special infected: immunity from melee attacks. Melee attacks will neither stun you nor cause you to release a pinned survivor.
 * While it is still uncertain, it may be possible for a charger to survive a hit from a melee weapon on higher difficulties.

Extent of Mutations
The Charger has been heavily mutated by a strain of the Infection. It appears to be halfway into the transformation to a Tank. While not quite as hulking as a Tank, it has an enlarged torso and right arm and an abnormally shaped head. Its left arm is shriveled and hangs oddly off the side of its hunched back. It wears a pair of blue overalls that have slightly burst due to its malformations. While pounding a Survivor, the Charger's useless arm flops around comically. Possibly due to its choice of attack, the Charger appears severely damaged; the creature's scalp and face appear smashed or caved in. Along with this, half of its face is missing, revealing the skull, and the nose has been torn off clean. These damages are most likely from charging and slamming it's head into walls.

Even though it seems like the Charger is half way into a Tank, at the same time it also seems to be turning into an Infected all of its own. The intro scene of Left 4 Dead 2 shows that its left leg is much larger in size than the other, meaning its legs are starting to lose support on it, similar to the Tank, and that the right leg is under much more weight because of its large, mutated arm. This occasion is closely related to how the Jockey resembles the Hunter, except that the Jockey is half-way through transformation and isn't fully crouching. The arm also appears to be formed of tumors and scabs, as opposed to pure muscle that the Tank has, forming a protective layer around much of the Charger's arm and back. Because of this, the Charger is probably undergoing an entirely different mutation.

The Charger could be a Tank that underwent difficulties during its development. In addition, the Tank's lower jaw is consumed by its upper muscle. However, in terms of the Charger, the jaw appears to be largely unharmed and fully functional in comparison to the Tank's. In addition, the Tank possesses two muscular and bulky arms unlike the Charger which sports only one overdeveloped arm accompanied by a undeveloped/limp second arm which could have been drained of most of its nutrients and transferred them to its opposite arm due to unknown development difficulties.

Trivia

 * When the Charger has pinned a survivor under a low roof, the first smash will be into the ground normally; the other smashes will be the charger throwing the survivor into the roof.
 * Concept art shows that the developers had planned for the Charger to be either a large zombie with an armored upper skull yet tiny 'T-rex arms' or a 'tripod' dog-like animal.
 * Originally, the Charger would stop immediately when it had grabbed the closest Survivor; now, it continues charging for a short time, either until it hits a wall or goes a short distance and then ultimately does stop before going too far.
 * Sounds used by the Charger at Comic Con are re-used ambient sounds from various sections of Ravenholm in Half-Life 2. In addition, the Charger's roars and grunts seem to be remixed or altered versions of Half-Life 2's Poison Headcrab Zombie.
 * The Charger's model appears to have been changed again, now more closely resembling its skeletal-faced concept art. Its ramming arm now seems to have become not just bigger, but rock-hard as well, however, this could just be one of the few skins the Charger will use. It can be seen here.
 * Charger seems to have the most distinctive sounds in game, some of them have been mistaken as words, such as "Don't shoot me!" When he begins to smash you you might also hear him say "Die!!"
 * Though unconfirmed The Charger may have increased health dependent on difficulty, in the early demo it appears on easy the charger can withstand two shotgun blows, whilst on advanced and expert three.
 * On the image of the Meat Tenderizer achievement the Charger's left arm is mutated and big instead of the right arm.
 * When slamming Survivors into the ground, the survivor will struggle when brought up. When they are incapacitated, however, they will be limp when brought up.
 * Charger: music cue

Behind the Scenes
Before the Charger's design was finalized, it used a reskinned Hunter model so that the team could test out how the Charger would play while the art team was designing it.