Cut Content

Before the release of any Left 4 Dead game, there were features that were removed from the final product. These changes range from changed Survivor models and features to the removal of infected and weapons.

Left 4 Dead
Survivors


 * Bill had gone through only small changes during development. The only difference in his beta appearance from his current appearance is that Bill's jacket was actually a olive drab colored hoodie, a black military assault vest with the U.S. flag, and gray/black gloves. He was also paranoid about the fact that the Survivors could turn into the Infected but these lines were cut.
 * Originally, Francis had slightly long, black hair with a beard, blue jeans, and appeared overweight and his vest which appeared to be a denim one instead of his current leather one.
 * Louis had short curly black hair and a beard, a bandage on his forehead, a tan, long-sleeve shirt, a yellow undershirt, blue jeans, and a bandolier of shotgun shells over his shoulder. He was originally set to be the manager of an electronics store. This may also be a reference to Shaun of the Dead, as Shaun manages an electronics store, also he and Bill were often argueing in the game and didin't seem to get along.
 * Zoey's beta appearance was relatively different than her original design. In the beta, Zoey had longer hair, a pink hoodie with what appears to be ammo straps on it, gloves, khaki-green baggy shorts, white and reddish-pink striped stockings, boots, and knee pads. She sounded much older in early footage of the game and had a romantic relationship with Francis.
 * There is a lot of removed lines from the survivors and NPCs, most of them still in the game files.

The Infected
Common Infected

Special Infected
 * Originally when in Versus mode the player was able to take control of a Common Infected while waiting to respawn after being killed as a Special Infected. This was scrapped as it was deemed too difficult for many players to attack the Survivors as they were always competing against AI controlled Infected.

The Boomer

The Hunter
 * Originally the Boomer's explosion simply caused damage to nearby players since the Horde-attracting abilities were assigned to the cut Screamer.
 * When the Boomer's bile was first added to the game, it was red. It later was replaced by the green seen in the final version.

The Smoker
 * The Hunter has unused animation of it hanging upside-down. It is unknown how this was supposed to be done in-game, as no pre-release footage shows the Hunter doing this.
 * Originally, when a Hunter pounced a Survivor, there would be no special visual indicators (such as the red light around the Survivor).
 * The Hunter's ability was originally to become invisible. It did this when backed up against a wall, then the pounce ability could be used, it could also regenerate health, but this was cut along with the invisibility.
 * During development, you used to be able to jump off Survivors after you pounced them by holding crouch then primary fire again.

The Tank
 * The original design of the Smoker was to sneak up on the Survivor's in a cloud of smoke, seize any Survivor, and "pop out" again to leave the unlucky Survivor stranded.
 * In early footage, the Smoker seems to have had the ability to release pitch-black smoke whenever he wanted to. If the Survivors were near the Smoker when he fired his smoke, they would have been pushed back, as if they were hit by a Boomer explosion.
 * The Smoker's tongue would drag a victim at a significantly faster rate, but the victim would be able to fire at the Smoker while he/she was being dragged.
 * The Smoker's tongue was unable to lift the Survivor caught above the ground should the Smoker be on higher level.
 * The Smoker's smoke could originally injure anyone that walked through it.
 * You used to be able to release victims, via right click while a Survivor was being pulled. This can still be accessed by using the console command tongue_allow_voluntary_release 1.

The Witch
 * Not much is known about The Tank during development but a pre-release screenshot shows that he orginally had no hair and used to be faster.

Cut Infected
 * Originally, The Witch was to attack the entire group upon being startled. However, this was cut from the final game because it was deemed too difficult, as she would often wipe out the whole group with little trouble.
 * The Witch was going to have black hair and black clothes instead of white hair and pale green.

Weapons
 * The Screamer was a Special Infected that was cut. It's only known photo is it's concept art and it's scream was given to the Hunter.
 * The Leaker was being developed. It had similar attacks as the Spitter and Boomer, and the ability to plant itself in the ground and act as a bomb. It was removed because the Survivors could run, as the Leaker would alert the Survivors that it was planting itself.
 * In the sound files, there are sounds for an infected dog. It seems to have been cut, but all of the sounds are still in the game files. Some sounds have been recycled for the Hunter.

Pump Shotgun

Submachine Gun
 * An unusual ammo counter for the Pump Shotgun's magazine is in the game's files. There are two versions; one for an empty magazine and one for a full one. This seems to hint that in very early versions of the game, the player ammo count would be shown with a physical representation of how much ammo is left in the magazine

Auto Shotgun
 * Originally, it's flashlight was mounted directly under its handguard.
 * The Submachine Gun also had a full reload animation of pulling the cocking handle after replacing the magazine.

Assault Rifle
 * According to the Auto Shotgun's weapon file, it used to have a larger spread, less accuracy, fired two less pellets and had a 9-round magazine.
 * The Auto Shotgun is based on Counter-Strike's XM1014 automatic shotgun.Early footage shows that the Auto Shotgun used unmodified XM1014 sounds.

Hunting Rifle
 * Early screenshots show that the Assault Rifle lacked text on its left side at one time.
 * When the Assault Rifle was drawn in early versions of the game, the character would pull the charging handle as soon as he/she took the gun out.
 * It had a different reload animation as well. After replacing the magazine, the player would both pull the charging handle and hit the bolt catch.


 * Early screenshots show that the Hunting Rifle's world model had a charging handle on its right side at one time. The handle was removed in the final version, after all cocking animations were removed.

M1911 Pistol

Molotov
 * Originally, the Pistols had limited ammo. It appears that you were able to hold 260+ maximum rounds in addition to the rounds loaded in them. This was scrapped and replaced with infinite ammo.
 * At one time, when dual-wielding Pistols, both Pistols had a flashlight on them. This can be seen on the Intro Scene, where both of Zoey's pistols have flashlights attached.

Pipe bomb
 * An early screenshot shows that the Molotov was gray and had a different-shaped top before becoming the final design.

Other
 * According to the game's Developer Commentary, the Pipe bomb did not have the flashing light when it was originally conceived; instead, it served as a conventional grenade.
 * It is likely that the Pipe bomb was a regular grenade at one time. Hidden in the game's files is a very early grenade icon for the HUD; this grenade looks exactly like the Counter-Strike: Source HE Grenade. This, combined with the earlier info about the Pipe bomb being based off of the HE grenade, means that the Pipe bomb was likely a regular grenade at one time.

Healing items
 * 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 in Left 4 Dead 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. These animations were removed from the game due to community request, but can still be seen in the Left 4 Dead Authoring Tools (1 or 2, 2 has the M1911 Pistol viewmodel unused but still having empty reload animations). The only weapons that still use their empty reload animations are the pump and auto shotgun.
 * Laser Sights were originally set to be an upgrade for Left 4 Dead, but the concept of upgrades were cut. It then was put into Left 4 Dead 2 as a lone upgrade.


 * Early screenshots show that the first aid kit had a more boxlike shape, didn't look like it was made out of soft materials and had a carrying handle at one time. This design can still be seen in the final version's first aid kit icon.

Campaigns
 * Early videos showed it was possible to share med kits like pills instead of healing them.

No Mercy 

The Apartments
 * No Mercy looked significantly different in early versions; it was much darker, but where there was light, it would be quite bright.
 * The skyscrapers and other buildings in the background would be a part of the skybox texture, which makes them look completely flat; in the final version, the buildings dotting the landscape are actual brushes and models.
 * The sky itself was a dark blue, compared to the blue/green mix in the final version
 * Buildings in the campaign would have most of their lights still on, which was changed to very few of them in the final game.
 * The working title for this campaign was "Hell Hospital."
 * In the game's sound files, there are unused sound files for the Chopper Pilot: "Hey down there! I can't get any closer, but if you can get to Mercy Hospital I can take ya to the military outpost up north. You have to get to Mercy Hospital! Call me on the radio when you get there.". This seems to suggest that the chopper pilot was originally going to notice the Survivors, but this concept was cut.
 * Originally, the 28th floor was going to be much like the lower floors, but with large windows. It was revealed that playtesters avoided these windows due to fear of falling.

The Subway
 * The spawn area originally had Molotovs on the weapon table.
 * Originally, the safe house at the end of this map was supposed to be in a clothing store in a building that was to the right of the current entrance to the subway.
 * The apartment was supposed to be a hotel at one time, judging by the HOTEL sign on the apartment building in early versions of the game.
 * A large sign was supposed to be in front of the building that is to the left of the apartment complex, which indicated that the building was a convenience store.

The Sewer
 * There was to be a long corridor that lead to the last set of subway cars the player goes through. This was scrapped, likely because of how boring it was.
 * The lights inside subway cars used to flicker on and off.

Rooftop Finale
 * In earlier footage, it seems that the players had to get to the roof by going through the building to the left of the gas station, not by using a lift.
 * An early picture of the front of the Hospital shows that there was to an advertising billboard to the left of the hospital at one time.

Death Toll' (Boathouse Finale)'
 * In the earliest pictures of the Rooftop Finale, it seems that there was a building in front of the supply room that had electric generators in it there was also a tower on top of the supply room.
 * The building the player emerges from when he/she enters her rooftop area was much thinner.
 * The buildings in the background were all sprites in a 3D skybox, whereas in the final, the buildings are mostly brushes and models.
 * An early screenshot of it found in the game's files shows at one time, you were supposed to be able to see the streets surrounding Mercy Hospital. This was likely removed for optimization reasons. It also shows that there were a lot of buildings with lights on, which fits with other screenshots of No Mercy. In some of the pictures, it seems that there was a stadium in the background, which means that there was most likely a sports event going on at the time of the outbreak.

Dead Air
 * Originally, the finale took place near a houseboat that was docked at the edge of a river.
 * An early photo of the area, seen in the folder /materials/console, shows a houseboat. The houseboat was such an memorable part of the map that this map's filename is "l4d_smalltown05_houseboat". It is unknown why the houseboat was removed, but based on the screenshot, it seems that the Houseboat would be too easy to defend.
 * Of note is that the image shows that there originally was no burning city in the background. Instead, a clear dark sky can be seen.
 * The Boathouse Finale was simply called The Boathouse.

Runway Finale
 * On this basis and an early Runway image in the game's files, it is evident that Dead Air was originally intended to have a light blue "moonlight" visual tint.
 * There is an unreleased map called tutorial_standards that was originally going to be part of this campaign as the Dead Air poster can be seen at the end of this level.

Blood Harvest
 * An early version of the Runway seen in the materials/console folder shows that the area was virtually pitch-black at one time, which the only lighting being near some parked planes.
 * It seems that the idea of Dead Air taking place in a ruined city was not a part of Dead Air from the beginning. In addition, there is no rubble near or on the runway, which suggests that the idea of the airport being bombed was not developed when the airport chapter was first made.

Farmhouse Finale
 * Beta versions of Blood Harvest were much greener and brighter than the final version. In addition, there is no fog, making the sky much more visible.

The Lighthouse
 * An early screenshot of the Farmhouse Finale in the folder materials/console shows that early versions of the Farmhouse looked significantly less fortified by the military; there is no sign that designates the area as Echo and there is much less military equipment surrounding the farmhouse
 * Early images show that the rescue vehicle was a Flatbed Truck with a Minigun on it.

Other
 * Before this map was released, a video showed that instead of turning on the generator, you were supposed to use a radio to call for help instead.


 * Originally, the only mode was to be Versus. However, Valve found that it was very difficult to balance the game so that both teams could have fun, so they split the game modes.


 * In Versus, the Infected players had the ability to select which Infected they wanted to play as. This menu can be seen in early footage. This idea can be found nowadays on some modded servers.

Left 4 Dead 2
'Survivors'

The Infected
 * In his first concept art Coach had a football helmet and a light blue and white shirt with a red S on it. Then in the E3 2009 trailer he is seen in a light blue and yellow shirt without the red S.
 * In early designs for Ellis he has a white shirt and a green hat. His appearence changes in the E3 and Comic-Con playable beta version this time wearing orange pants, a blue and white shirt and a matching hat. Also he use to have a cap has a Saint Georges Cross on it, this may indicate that at one point in his design stage, he was to be British rather than Georgian and a John Deere hat, but the hat was changed, likely for licensing reasons.
 * In the commentary for Left 4 Dead 2, the developers stated that Nick's character was originally an escaped prisoner that stole a nice suit, but he was eventually adapted into his current con man persona. Nick is the only current Survivor who retained his appearance from either beta screenshots or trailers out of all the playable Survivors
 * The designers of Left 4 Dead 2 changed Rochelle's clothing designs several times.In the trailer, she is wearing an orange shirt. The designers then changed it to a red shirt, now it is seen as a pink shirt.Her hair has also received some minor changes; the designers changed it from dark brown to black, and made it shorter, from a waist-low ponytail to a bun. Her original, longer hairstyle can still be seen in various artwork of her latest design.

The Charger The Jockey
 * 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 had many different series of attacks and has gone through multiple versions with different twists on his charge attack. In one version of his build, his charge attack caused him to trample over Survivors rather than grab them, and his melee attack was replaced with an overhead strike that smashed the Survivor to the floor before the Charger started pounding them.

The Spitter
 * Concept art shows the Jockey as being gray-skinned, much larger and more ape-like, as well as being completely naked. Another shows him without a large amount of muscle mass around his neck and upper back, as well as being much more skeletal.
 * An early version of the Jockey's attack had the Survivor stay in first person with the Jockey's hands obscuring the screen.
 * The Jockey was supposed to be the first Special Infected with the ability to dismount his targets after mounting or ensnaring them at his own will.

Common Infected
 * As seen in concept art, the Spitter's pigtails originally were not tucked behind her head, but stuck out like antenna.
 * The Spitter also had a large, rounded stomach to give her a logical place to brew her acidic goo. However, during playtesting, it became apparent that many playtesters thought she was pregnant or called her pregnancy-themed names. Valve decided that this was rocky territory and made her stomach flatter to avoid any confusion.
 * The Spitter also had a comical pigeon-toed bird walk, changed for being more humorous than frightening.
 * The Spitter's primary attack was going to behave in a manner similar to the Boomer's bile attack in which the acid would stick to the Survivor that it came in contact with. This concept however, was scrapped since it made it too easy for Spitters to incapacitate Survivors.
 * Originally, the Spitter's acid would change colors as it became more potent. It was to start off green, then change to yellow, and finally red.

Uncommon Infected
 * There is an unused gore effect featuring a gigantic slash completely down the Common Infected's spine. It is possible that this would've been used should the axe had kept its overhead downwards slash and was used on a Common Infected's back.
 * The original Common Infected models and textures exist in the game files in left4dead2_dlc3, however they are only used as ragdolls because they use a lot more memory, have strange colors on some areas, square shadows and lack the other features the new Infected possess (better gore effects, gradients and so on). The "Infected Suit guy" still appears in the population.txt under "test_common_male_suit", but again lacks gore effects etc..

Weapons
 * The Fallen Survivor was going to be in Left 4 Dead 2 from the start, but was cut from the final version due to people having trouble in the beta version with him (re-used in The Passing).

Chrome Shotgun

Silenced Submachine Gun
 * In early gameplay videos, the Chrome Shotgun shared the Left 4 Dead Pump Shotgun animations. The stats were shared as well.


 * In early gameplay videos, the Silenced Submachine Gun used animations from the Left 4 Dead Submachine Gun.

Combat Shotgun
 * The fabric strap doesn't seem to move at all, although E3 videos showed the strap moving when a user runs or turns


 * Early beta footage showed that the Combat Shotgun used the Left 4 Dead Auto Shotgun animations, including pulling a non-existent stock when the gun was pulled out. It also seemed to have the same damage, fire rate, and so forth as the original Auto Shotgun early on.

Sniper Rifle
 * Early videos show that the folding stock on the Combat Shotgun had an animation while moving.


 * In the first footage released, the Sniper Rifle's magazine was shaped like the the PSG-1's 5-round magazine, while later footage showed that the magazine is now shaped like the G3's 20-round magazine.


 * Early footage showed that the Sniper Rifle used the Hunting Rifle's animations

Combat Rifle


 * During the beta version of Left 4 Dead 2, the Combat Rifle was fully automatic, but then changed to three-round burst due to balancing reasons.

P220 Pistol


 * In the beta version the P220 had a lighter color scheme.


 * Also in beta, it reuses the same reloading animation as Left 4 Dead.

Magnum Pistol


 * The Magnum was originally supposed to be called the "Desert Cobra". A string calling the Magnum the Desert Cobra is in "left4dead2_english.txt" under a line about the Magnum.

Axe


 * It was originally planned that you could decapitate a Witch by sneaking up on her and swinging the Axe at her head, but this was later scrapped.


 * In early gameplay video, the Axe had an animation in which the Survivor brings it over his or her head and slices downward, probably chopping the Infected in half. This was later abandoned.


 * In the beta version, Axes could be found in The Parish campaign.

Baseball Bat


 * Early, the Baseball Bat was supposed to be made of metal, explaining its sound in the first trailer. Its old design can be seen in the Left 4 Dead 2 Strategy Guide and in the texture file "4meleeweapons".

Bile bomb


 * The Bile bomb appears to have originally affected Survivors near the blast radius, according to a game instructor line stating, "A Survivor bile bombed you"―however, this line is used when biled as an Infected in Versus. There were also, according to captions in the game files, lines stating that Boomer bile attracts the horde, and that you shouldn't throw it on them. It was removed by default due to it being too annoying.

Heavy Machine Gun


 * The Heavy Machine Gun was originally going to have limited ammo, but this limitation was given to the portable M60 machine gun instead.


 * There is a Heavy Machine Gun present in the beta version of the Waterfront + Park level, located on a tower just before the CEDA checkpoint and the Gauntlet Crescendo. Whether this was going to be a placement in the final game, or simply used to test the weapon's use is unknown.

Cut Weapons


 * 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.


 * There were originally going to be a riot shield and a didgeridoo as usable melee weapons in the game. However, they they were cut. The riot shield was fully modeled and textured and can still be spawned in-game both via the console and during custom campaigns, while the didgeridoo had a low-poly model, but no textures.


 * In early development, Coach was seen with a compound bow which was never put into game.


 * There was an item called the Ammo Pack. They would be placed in the Med kits slot when picked up and used a reskinned First aid kit model. Much like the Incendiary and Explosive ammo packs, they could be deployed for use by teammates, with which they could resupply their ammo. This was cut because it went against the idea of players having to pick up new weapons when their current weapon was low on ammo and because play testers would deem ammo packs less usable so long as ammo piles still existed. Its texture sheet can still be found in Left 4 Dead 2 materials files.

Healing items
 * The two ammo upgrades were originally designed to be static items that the Director placed in the world. However, testing showed that players were unwilling to move away from an area that had ammo upgrades, so they made it so that ammo upgrades could be picked up by players and placed anywhere.


 * The placeholder for the adrenaline shot was nothing like a syringe, rather a re-skinned pain pills model with a yellow bottle. The texture can still be found in Left 4 Dead 2 files. Then it became an syringe similar to the one used in the HUD before the current look for adrenaline.


 * Likewise, the defibrillator's world model placeholder was a re-skinned first aid kit model. Its textures can still be found in Left 4 Dead 2 files the Defibrillator was a yellow First aid kit with a lightning symbol instead of a cross

Dead Center

 * Originally the Uncommon Infected were going to be the Riot Infected, not the CEDA Worker Infected.

Dark Carnival

 * Originally, The Coaster was planned as a monorail and the Survivors supposed to climb roofs and jump to monorail from there. A barricade was planned at some point, but scrapped entirely.
 * In the sound files, the survivors (mostly Nick) are arguing with a driver who has the Midnight Riders tour bus to pick them up. The Concert was the same except the driver smashes a door and pick them up.
 * Originally, the Coaster was supposed to be a survival level, but it was cut it in the final version because players would be able to stand on the wood that holds the track up and the Infected could not attack you.The survival level can be accessed by the use of glitches.
 * Originally, the Coaster was supposed to crash causing the alarm to go off, which would have explained the fire in the Zombie Survival Guide, but it was cut.
 * Originally, Valve planned the Concert to be set on a train, akin to a more county fair type setting. This was cut out because it "wasn't as much fun as you would think".

Swamp Fever

 * Originally the Uncommon Infected were the Fallen Survivors instead of the Mud Men, but they were cut from the game and later put in The Passing.
 * The Heavy Machine Gun at the finale was going to be in front of the entrance of the house, not on the 1st floor.
 * The wooden walkways would sometimes collapse when walked on, forcing the Survivors to trudge through the muck and take the other path. Valve removed this because play testers found this extremely tedious.

Hard Rain

 * Initially the Survivors had to travel some distance into the initial chapter to get weapons. During play testing it was found players were hesitant to do this, thus failing to get to up-graded weapons in time. This problem was overcome by putting weapons and supplies in the nearby Burger Tank.
 * According to Chet Faliszek at EuroGamer Expo London, early builds of the campaign had the players turn on the lights of houses and other areas on the way to the gas station so that they will be lit on the way back but players found this to be a menial task, and so the idea was scrapped.
 * At first, the survivors were going to use flares to signal Virgil (and start the finale) and he would sail back to pick them up. The idea of firing off a flare gun was later dropped in the final version and its sole legacy is a brief and occasional exchange between the survivors at the start of Hard Rain campaign when Nick is accused of leaving a "gun bag" containing the flare pistol behind on Virgil's boat.

The Parish

 * Originally the Uncommon Infected were going to be the CEDA Worker Infected but they were replaced with the Riot Infected.
 * During the finale, The Bridge, the bridge itself was going to be bombed by the military.
 * The beta version of this campaign combined the first two levels (The Waterfront and The Park) together.
 * The crescendo of the second level was somewhat changed. Instead of entering a simplistic CEDA trailer, the Survivors entered a sanitation center, which would spray them with disinfection gas, and sound an alarm as the doors open. The map is still in the game files and is playable through the "map c5m1_waterfront_sndscape" command in the console.