Campaigns

Campaigns (or movies) are story lines consisting of several chapters (levels, maps). At the end of each chapter, players are given awards for how well they did on certain aspects. If at least one Survivor escapes after the finale, credits will role with the Survivors' final results. Much like the awards, the credits are completely cosmetic.

Each campaign features a "finale", in which the Survivors call for help and must face a gigantic horde while waiting for rescue to arrive. This includes several waves of Common Infected and Special Infected, as well as two or more Tanks (though, never a Witch). After holding off the Infected for a certain period of time, the remaining Survivors (if any) head to the rescue vehicle.

Currently, Left 4 Dead has five campaigns playable in Campaign and Versus, with the sixth only available in Survival and more confirmed to come from Downloadable Content. They are, in chronological order:
 * 1) No Mercy, focused on moving towards a Hospital for evacuation. Takes place in an apartment building, subway station, sewer, Mercy Hospital, and a Rooftop Finale. The rescue vehicle that saves the Survivors is a News 5 Helicopter.
 * 2) Crash Course takes place directly after the No Mercy Rescue. The News 5 Helicopter crashes in an area close to The Turnpike in Death Toll. The helicopter is caused to crash after Zoey kills the pilot who is, in fact, infected. This campaign is focused on delivering a full multi-player campaign in just 1/2 hour. It was released for download on the 29th of September 2009.
 * 3) Death Toll takes place from an abandoned highway, the drainage system of Riverside, a church, the town of Riverside and the Boathouse Finale. In which the Survivors contact two civilians; John and Amanda Slater. A boat arrives to rescue the Survivors.
 * 4) Dead Air, a campaign focused on getting through an Infected greenhouse, through a metropolitan area, an air station terminal, and finally, a last stand at a Runway Finale. Dead Air's rescue vehicle is a C-130 Hercules that has run out of fuel, and the Survivors must wait for it to fuel before they are rescued.
 * 5) Blood Harvest, a campaign that revolves around getting to a military base in a rural area. This campaign begins with a wooded area, continues on to a train yard, and culminates in a Farmhouse Finale reminiscent of the film Night of the Living Dead. An M93 Fox Armored Personnel Carrier is the rescue vehicle in Blood Harvest's campaign.
 * 6) The Last Stand, this campaign has only one level, The Lighthouse. This campaign can only be played after downloading the Survival DLC. It is located in the woods, with a large lake off to the side, unreachable by the Survivors. As it can only be played in Survival Mode, there is no rescue vehicle that arrives to rescue the Survivors and always ends with the Survivors' death.

Storyline
There is no definitive storyline involving the four campaigns (with the exception of No Mercy and Crash Course) in Left 4 Dead, only a collection of maps where you need to get from Point A to point B. It is unknown if Valve will ever pick up a solid story after the initial cutscene. However, the campaigns can be linked to one another with careful observations, but this does not define it as Left 4 Dead canon.

However, it is worth noting that according to the Developer Commentary, the game was originally supposed to be one large campaign, but was later split up. For example, No Mercy and Death Toll were directly linked; in the former's Rooftop Finale, the helicopter pilot reveals that he tried to do a ground pickup, but was bitten by the Infected in the process. Unfortunately, he soon dies, and the helicopter crash-lands on The Turnpike where the Death Toll campaign begins. Though most of the sound clips have been removed from the game, their audio files are still in the game files. They can be heard here. However, it is now known that the helicopter crashes in Crash Course which links No Mercy and Death Toll.

Awards
Once each level in a campaign is completed, players are presented with several awards. These awards are purely cosmetic and do not affect gameplay. Only the most relevant will be shown.


 * General Defense - Killed the most Infected.
 * Tank Slayer - Did the most damage to the Tank.
 * Least Damage Taken - Took the least amount of damage.
 * Protector - Protected the most teammates.
 * Witch Hunter - Did the most damage to the Witch.
 * Headhunter - Got the most headshots.
 * Special Killer - Killed the most Special Infected. This is only shown if there were no Tanks or Witches in the chapter.
 * Most Careful Teammate - Lowest friendly fire incidents.

Note: The following are only given in Versus Mode.
 * Total Damage - Did the most damage to the Survivors.
 * Boomer Damage - Did the most damage as a Boomer.
 * Hunter Damage - Did the most damage as a Hunter.
 * Smoker Damage - Did the most damage as a Smoker.
 * Hunter Pounces - Pounced the most Survivors.
 * Tank Punches - Punched the most Survivors.
 * Most Vomit - Vomited on the most Survivors.
 * Survivor Drags - Dragged the most Survivors.

Credits
If at least one Survivor makes it out of the campaign alive, credits will roll. If all of the Survivors escape, text stating "The Survivors have escaped!" will appear. However, if any of the Survivors do not make it to the escape vehicle, this text will be replaced with: "In memory of:". This will then be followed by the names of the deceased Survivors. Following either of those scenarios, the credits will continue with information such as: As a humorous reference to normal movie credits, the total amount of Infected killed is mentioned at the end as "X zombies were harmed in the making of this film."
 * Who took the least damageDead_Center.jpg
 * Who used the most molotovs/pipes/pills/etc
 * How many of each Special Infected everyone killed
 * The number of Common Infected killed
 * The Survivors' accuracy by percentage of shots that hit Infected.
 * Headshot percentage.

Left 4 Dead 2
In Left 4 Dead 2 there are 5 new campaigns. The Parish, Swamp Fever and Dark Carnival have been actively talked about and are being played by people at game conventions such as PAX 2009 (Dark Carnival), E3 (The Parish), Comic-Con 09 (The Parish, Swamp Fever), TGS 09 (Swamp Fever, The Parish, Dark Carnival), LGS 09 (Dark Carnival) and some more.

Recently, two more posters of the remaining campaigns have been spotted(http://gnn.gamer.com.tw/4/39834.html )Their names appear to be Hard Rain and Dead Center

So, this is how the campaigns appear, in chronological order:

1: Dead Center - This is the first campaign of the game, taking place in Savannah, GA. The Survivors find themselves caught up in the chaos of a recent outbreak of the Infection, and have to fight their way through the still partially functional city to to a shopping mall, where they make their escape in a muscle car.

2: Dark Carnival - Upon finding the freeway out of Savannah blocked by abandoned cars, the Survivors are forced to leave their vehicle and make their way on foot to the Whispering Oaks amusement park, where a nearby train station will provide them with an escape route out of Georgia to a rumored safe zone near New Orleans, LA.

3: Swamp Fever -The train in which the Survivors escaped Savannah has derailed and crashed outside a small town in rural Louisiana. Now they have to fight their way through the nearby swamps and an abandoned shantytown to a giant plantation house, where they have to fight the horde until a rescue boat comes to save them.

4: Hard Rain - Almost nothing is known about this campaign - the Survivors' plan to escape from the infected zone have failed one more time, and they are forced to fight their way through a partially flooded industrial complex and find an alternate way to reach New Orleans.

5: The Parish - As the morning sun begins to rise, the Survivors finally manage to reach New Orleans, only to find the city completely overrun by the Infected. They have to make their way through the streets of the French Quarter, a cemetery and the military's abandoned quarantine zone until they finally arrive at a partially collapsed table bridge. On the other side is a military helicopter waiting to take the Survivors out of the city to a flotilla of commandeered cruise ships in the Gulf of Mexico, where the last remnants of humanity in the area have regrouped, safe in the knowledge that the Infected can't swim...so far...