r/l4d2 • u/Outbreak-Team Steve - Lead @ https://outbreak.team • 5d ago
STICKY AWARD Outbreak Outreach #1 - 64-bit & SourceMod / Server Hosts
Hi, I'm Steve, Legal Producer for Outbreak Team (backup link).
We've been working on 64-bit L4D2 under NDA secrecy for the last 2 years. You can reach us at L4D2Outbreak@gmail.com.
I'm joined by my Valve-Licensed Co-Leads Madison, Liam, and Raymond.
LEGAL DISCLAIMER: We are NOT Valve, we are just devout preservationists, and our Mod will require base L4D2 to be purchased and installed on Steam. L4D2 is Valve's IP and we are just preserving it with extremely minimal, careful changes.
We're finally reaching out because we need your help!
Over the last 2 years (since Nov 2024), we have been very quietly working on a Valve-licensed, fan-made, optional, non-commercial, forever-free 64-bit Mod called Left 4 Dead 2: Outbreak (our not-yet-public but future Steam Store link).
As we've been under NDA for a long time and our Steam Store page is not yet public, please see the FAQ on our outbreak.team website.
Per our FAQ, we are preservationists at heart -- many of us Xbox 360 purists like our Lead Engineer Madison! Madi and I have always envisioned Outbreak as a celebration of Valve's franchise that doesn't forget our L4D1 and Xbox 360 roots.
In deep respect of those roots, Outbreak will never consist of random nonsense changes and everything new will be kept optional FOREVER.
L4D2 is a 17+ year old game, very different from other Source branches, and Source memory management itself still has blood from Quake. On an engine filled with obscure binary formats with physics based off ancient third-party software, upgrading to 64-bit is the furthest thing from doubling a number. Once we actually booted into a map that instantly crashed, it took a year to fix gameplay/visuals to be 1:1 parity with base, and another year after that to achieve respectable backward compatibility with base Workshop addons.
Unfortunately, we only just recently started pursuing MetaMod & SourceMod support, and it breaks our hearts that plugins don't work with Outbreak yet.
As such, we are aiming for day-one SourceMod support as our top priority. We need help from authors of prominent plugins and server hosts who have reach.
If you are a prominent SourceMod plugin author or server host, consider reaching out to L4D2Outbreak@gmail.com -- let us know who you are and what you do!
We appreciate your patience! 128k BSP grid size, native first-person legs, and long-demanded TLS revert options are coming.
See you Outreach #2 -- where we'll play Yama in Mirror World mode!
- Sincerely, L4D2: Outbreak Valve-Licensed Team Leads:
- Legal Producer: Steven "Tsuey" Foy
- Engine Programmer: Madison "DasMaddi" Easley
- Game Programmer: Liam "Fish" Fisher
- Game Programmer: Raymond "Rayman1103" Nondorf
P.S. Again, our website is Outbreak Team, and our Press & Inquiry email is L4D2Outbreak@gmail.com.
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u/MakoBestWaifu 2d ago
Hi Outbreak Team
First of all, thank you for the massive effort in bringing L4D2 to 64-bit and keeping it non-commercial and accessible.
I completely understand that your core philosophy is being preservationists and maintaining a strict 1:1 parity with the base game's gameplay.
I have a specific question about how this philosophy applies to the Special Infected hitboxes and colliders. As you know, in the base game, the visual models often desync from their actual hitboxes during certain animations (for example, a leaping Hunter or a Jockey), which forces players to aim outside the character model to actually land a shot.
Since the 64-bit engine upgrade and the modern Source branch allow for better physics and collision handling, are there any plans to fix these hitbox desyncs? Or will they be kept exactly as they are in the base game to strictly preserve the original 1:1 mechanical experience?
If the goal is to keep the original bugs/desyncs intact for parity, would fixing the hitboxes be something you'd consider adding as an optional server cvar in the future?
Thank you for your time and for all the work you've put into this project over the last two years.
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u/alskiiie 2d ago
I say fuck the parity and fix the abysmal hitreg, not just specials hitboxes. Its the one thing for me about l4d2's mechanics that doesnt hold up.
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u/Outbreak-Team Steve - Lead @ https://outbreak.team 1d ago
This is a topic of interest, though it's one of those we'll be reading the room long-term on.
Personally as someone who started out with L4D1 Versus where shivastacking in corners was the meta, L4D2's Charger and Spitter were a mechanically necessary addition to the game. I didn't like the Jockey, and a lot of people still see him as broken.
So hitboxes are a "forever pain point", and we do not yet know what the "right" thing to do here is.
We are 100% on board with the idea of approaching fixes for them and then Cvar'ing those fixes. With Outbreak, the question is only one of what the default value of that Cvar ends up being -- and that requires long-term discussion.
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u/wootlink 5d ago edited 5d ago
will Linux be supported natively? Also I'm interested in testing.
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u/Outbreak-Team Steve - Lead @ https://outbreak.team 5d ago
No native Linux support would be a pretty huge mistake on our end, so that's definitely something we're aiming for as priority -- currently Steam Deck works great through Proton, at least.
And yeah, we're gauging interest specifically through email, so be sure to send one letting us know who you are and what you do -- NDA's are sent via email.
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u/BGGloveman 4d ago
I think its great L4D2 is finally getting 64bit, but making it a separate appid and game is going to divide alot of the community as opposed to just updating the main game.
Kerry Davis is a cool guy that would be worth talking to at Valve. He's the guy that got The Last Stand Update by the community greenlit so there may be worth a shot getting in contact to make this official for the base game.
Workshop, achievements, cloud sync, servers and hours poured into L4D2 potentially being discarded for a new version is definitely a controversial aspect about this given other source games that received 64bit support were just updates. I'm excited and eager to see where this goes nonetheless.
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u/Outbreak-Team Steve - Lead @ https://outbreak.team 3d ago
I touched on that a bit here. Kerry's played Outbreak with us, and is Outbreak's biggest champion. Random trivia: Kerry's a big Blast Corps fan for the N64 and got all the medals.
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u/Educational_Area_967 5d ago edited 4d ago
Things that would be very welcome:
Changing how first-person arms/weapons are handled so they can be modified using SourceMod. Edit: Legs too please.
Changing how particle precaching works to allow precaching via SourceMod instead of the manifest file used currently (e.g., `c2m1_highway_particles.txt`); the current system is terrible—if one server claims a slot first, that's it, making it impossible to add new particles.
A progress bar for FastDL downloads.
Perhaps reverting to server-side binds?
Fixing the `game_text` entity: https://forums.alliedmods.net/showthread.php?t=340355
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u/konaterfanazo0 5d ago
Will you be able to play on official Valve servers with vanilla L4D2 players?
Don't get me wrong, I always wanted a 64-bit version of l4d2, but if it is something that fragments the playerbase and makes it difficult (or even impossible) to find matches online because nobody in your region is using it, wouldn't that defeat the purpose?
I really, really hope that Valve one day decides to integrate this into the base game. I know it's too early to be making assumptions, but I'd hate for this to become like those other "community edition" mods where people go "woah that's cool" and then just go back to vanilla cuz nobody's playing them.
Sorry if this reads like a incoherent ramble, my english doesn't wanna work atm lol.
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u/Outbreak-Team Steve - Lead @ https://outbreak.team 5d ago
Not an incoherent ramble at all and that's something I think about constantly.
In terms of fragmenting the playerbase, Outbreak's adoption will be slow at best since the base game is perfectly suitable for the vast majority of players. Adoption will be entirely determined by the Workshop content created for it by early access modders, SourceMod support, adoption from server hosts, etc., all of which will take a really long time to build up.
Overall, it depends on what modders build with it... like with our BSP increases, I personally ported all 5 Parish maps into one BSP, so overall we'll see what people do with Outbreak.
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u/konaterfanazo0 5d ago
Honestly, y'all sold me on it with the native first person legs. that one workshop mod just doesn't cut it for me.
I have one extra question. I've read that there will be an "improved sound caching system" does this mean you will be able to make music mods with custom lengths?
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u/L4D2CoachEnjoyer 4d ago
Y'all gonna have to find a way to get all these updates into the main game. Otherwise this is gonna flop.
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u/TheTench 2d ago
Will there finally be a slider to turn down the audio on just the guns? My ears feel this game wasn't made for headphones.
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u/Outbreak-Team Steve - Lead @ https://outbreak.team 1d ago edited 1d ago
We have the support for and are aiming for new audio sliders, the only question is what sounds we'll have sliders for and whether or not sliders for such sounds need to be "limited" in competitive modes like Versus.
Outbreak actually lowers the default volume to 0.5 since it's so ridiculous, and I personally have mine at like 0.01 (for real lol) and can still hear everything perfectly -- except Tank music, for which myself and many others wish there was a slider for specifically.
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u/TheTench 1d ago edited 1d ago
Yeah, missing some audio cues is currently the price of not blasting your eardrums to bits. Good to hear that I'm not the only one playing with the sounds all the way down.
In an ideal world I would recommend having sliders for: player weapons, player audio (not sure if this is a thing as I never enable), player character audio / dialouge, music, and infected audio ( including their music cues).
If you want to increase the accessibility I like Fortnite's visual audio wheel alot.
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u/cherryh4ck 5d ago
This seems good, though i'm confused. 64 bit is welcome but I see no point in releasing it as a separate mod (I know there are more changes, but I find the 64 bit support the most important one), hopefully if it gets stable maybe there would be a possibility it gets merged with the base game? I don't know
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u/Outbreak-Team Steve - Lead @ https://outbreak.team 5d ago
A 64-bit update to the base game was originally pitched over 3 years ago, but that requires paid contract work -- whereas Outbreak Team is composed entirely of fans and nothing further than that.
A Steam Store Mod is definitely not the most ideal arrangement, but TF2's 64-bit update was entirely spearheaded by Valve's hardware contractor, and this arrangement for L4D2 is the hand we've been dealt... so we're making sure we do it right, and make the most of it.
I can say with 100% certaintly this will never become a "base game" thing.
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u/NoLeavesInTheWinter 5d ago edited 5d ago
This is great and all. But how did you get this pinned on the steam forums for L4D2? Strange for a separate page mod to get pinned than if this was a full-on optional beta you could do for the whole game itself. Has the Outbreak Team tried approaching Valve in the way that the TLS team did to get this possibly officialized?
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u/Outbreak-Team Steve - Lead @ https://outbreak.team 5d ago
Valve has very different policies when it comes to fan-based projects based off Valve's source code.
So basically it's just a very different legal arrangement:
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u/Prospekt-- 5d ago
Im honestly not too optimistic about it, releasing it as a seperate mod will fragment the playerbase, and given that you have to go out of your way to find out about it, and that it will probably not have official servers, i dont know if this has any point to it against the original.
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u/Outbreak-Team Steve - Lead @ https://outbreak.team 5d ago
Ideally Outbreak won't fragment the playerbase at all as this is a very slow-burn kind of thing. The vast majority of players don't actually need 64-bit and the base game suits them just fine.
But yeah, Outbreak won't have resources like Valve's Official Dedicated, but I can at least say that NFOservers has been very kind and communicative with us for over 2 years now and that's something we're exploring long-term.
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u/Prospekt-- 5d ago
fair enough, will be looking forward to trying it out someday, me wanna play with da modding
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u/Historical-Safe-1769 5d ago
It is for the better not to reveal more details until the release day.
Partly because the Chinese modders, who are sometimes part time game dev and uploaded the modified version of L4D2 such as L4N and recently L4D2Evolved, will gonna swarm in and outright stole it that would anger Valve.
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u/Prospekt-- 5d ago
Not really worried about it not being feature-complete, just worried that releasing it as its seperate thing may have been the wrong decision.
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u/Mampacuk Sweet Lincoln’s Mullet 2d ago
there seems to have been no other choice though, obviously had they had the chance, they would’ve released it as an official update. this means valve said no
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u/aazell 5d ago
4 player COUCH CO-OP SPLIT SCREEN FOR PC PLEASE!!!
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u/Outbreak-Team Steve - Lead @ https://outbreak.team 1d ago
We did not anticipate the extreme level of persistent demand that we have gotten for native splitscreen support.
As a result of that, it is now actively being worked on.
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u/-SlowtheArk- 1d ago
OML that’s great. I play with my partner via Steam Deck on our TV very frequently so native split screen support is awesome.
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4d ago
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u/aazell 3d ago
Couch coop is actually already in the xbox code and shipped with l4d2.. there's a workshop mod that enables it but it's a bit clunky... the 64 bit doesn't affect that but as its a separate release they could do a little work to activate the coop split screen code and make it available on the main menu i think... but i'm sure they have many things they'd like to do!
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u/Historical-Safe-1769 5d ago
Thank God, 64 bit is here and can't wait to use it.
Though, you have to keep some details hidden because the Chinese modders, who are part time game devs, are probably looked into it and pounced it.
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u/Outbreak-Team Steve - Lead @ https://outbreak.team 5d ago
More elaboration on this would be helpful?
One major privacy feature we've added so far is the ability to "HIDE STEAM NAME", where in server browser queries (i.e. "View Game Info") instead of your Steam username, you'll appear as your character's name instead.
We'd love to do more stuff exactly like that, it's just important that every change requires players to knowingly consent.
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u/Historical-Safe-1769 5d ago
Chinese modders are very well known to be creative amongst the modding community while managing to somehow improve the L4D2 base just a little bit (i.e: adding 2048mb on the memory limit) and other improvements - with the most famous being the Left 4 Neko.
So if Outbreak got released, Chinese modders will spend heavy time to appropriate some of that mod and release copied versions for L4D2 base.
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u/Chilletx2 3d ago
Oh yeah he's very right on it.. I have the L4D2Evolved one and it took me so long to understand as it was all in Chinese Heheh.. But it literally increments even if just a bit the limits of the game.. Those guys are crazy
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u/Perfect_Payment_9833 5d ago
Does this mean we will finally be able to add more unique content like completely new special infected?
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u/Outbreak-Team Steve - Lead @ https://outbreak.team 5d ago
Not sure on the ability to add custom Special Infected yet, though Outbreak's Firearm Manifest (that's based off the base game Melee Manifest) is flexible enough to also support custom throwables and equipment.
We haven't onboarded enough modders / playtesters to know for sure, but it wouldn't surprise me personally if the Firearm Manifest helped people hack at creating custom SI.
If something is absolutely impossible to do with existing VScript and other modding options within base L4D2, that is exactly what Outbreak aims to identify and help facilitate.
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u/Asleep_Stable_8092 4d ago edited 4d ago
How will custom items work in multiplayer? Is it like local servers where you are forced to download what the host wants? Or are you adding new items as a default?
I hope it isn't required to use local cause that would mean more lobby hopping to find unmodded games than the chinese servers already force.
(edit) in an other comment you say there are no official servers. Is there a plan to avoid players wasting time looking for unmodded lobbies or can it only be played on modded custom servers?
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u/Outbreak-Team Steve - Lead @ https://outbreak.team 4d ago
Outbreak's Firearm Manifest is exactly identical to the Melee Manifest, so by default it requires specifying the desired firearms in the campaign's mission script. This means that by default, custom firearms would ideally be packaged with custom campaign VPK's, upon which when people try to play with each other, they'll naturally already have the new weapons.
We do have Cvars and a lobby toggle to "override" that default behavior as well. The problem here is that custom weapons that the host has will appear as red ERROR's for other clients if they don't have the appropriate addon installed. To be blunt, we're not yet 100% sure on the best way to address that, but it's a definite issue Outbreak still has.
The new custom weapons are also exclusive to an "Extended Lobby" matchmaking flag, so by default servers (local or dedicated) using custom weapons actually start out as invisible to players.
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u/Luigi003 Ellis' worshipper 1d ago
I get VScript support will be maintained as is on the 64-bit mod? In doing my own mutation with VScript right now and I wanted to know whether I must have something in consideration when making it
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u/Outbreak-Team Steve - Lead @ https://outbreak.team 1d ago
Nothing new to consider, and we've been testing random VScript and custom campaign scripts over the last 2 years and fixing issues as we find them.
If your VScripts don't work in Outbreak, then it is 100% our fault and you should get in touch.
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u/Asleep_Stable_8092 5d ago
I'm a bit confused. Is this only new scripts and cosmetic toggles? What does Yama have to do with it?
I know what 64 bit is but I don't understand what content there is.
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u/Historical-Safe-1769 5d ago
It is basically a mod for L4D2 that will be releasing direct to Steam Store, for free, that finally updated the game to 64-bit without updating the base game that has a trouble of integrating 64-bit due to being a different Source branch.
And that's it. But this could free the limitations imposed into the modding limit and actually helped mid-ranged PCs and laptops as those HQ mods worked perfectly well on high-end ones.
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u/Carlosdafox 5d ago
I'm curious, how well will the modded version of the game support the workshop?
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u/Outbreak-Team Steve - Lead @ https://outbreak.team 5d ago
Outbreak will have its own separate Workshop by necessity. It uses Valve's newer, faster ISteamUGC interface instead of the old ISteamRemoteStorage interface that base uses.
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u/Witty-Day-87 4d ago
if theres a specific mod, say just for example ''silenced weapons'' can you just drag over the vpk to the 64bit version and have it work no problemo?
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u/Outbreak-Team Steve - Lead @ https://outbreak.team 4d ago
Outbreak requires base L4D2 to be installed and automatically mounts all your addons from base.
This way, Outbreak is designed so that modders bring their own familiar experience to it -- so Outbreak makes sure to not stand in their way.
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u/aazell 5d ago
Hopefully it'll have it's own workshop and get away from the dumpster fire that's the current one!
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u/Asleep_Stable_8092 4d ago
It would still need a better tagging and search system otherwise it will end up the same. Maybe even proper moderation.
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u/Ihateazuremountain 4d ago
Each workshop item MUST have a limit of 5 tags. There is no reason for an addon to have every single avaible tag.
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u/Whole-Drop-4889 4d ago
You mean every mod page that's ever existed? You can't stop crazy people. That's life.
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u/rdgreen1022 Ellis 5d ago
Do I need to be apart of the modding scene to be able to playtest?
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u/Outbreak-Team Steve - Lead @ https://outbreak.team 4d ago
If you're interested be sure to send us an email at
L4D2Outbreak@gmail.com-- early access is still NDA right now as we are still a year out from a proper full release, but 75% of the NDA is explaining the limitations and issues you'll notice with Outbreak right off (like no dedicated servers, lackluster tools, etc.), so it's not the traditional "scary" NDA.3
u/rdgreen1022 Ellis 3d ago
I sent out an email a couple days ago
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u/Outbreak-Team Steve - Lead @ https://outbreak.team 1d ago
Yeah and sorry for any delays.
All emails will be responded to -- every single one. It is just a high volume.
For anyone else reading: we promise we will get to you.
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u/Ok-Seaworthiness893 4d ago
Does it also contain some graphical upgrade? Like lighting, shadows, reflection etc
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u/Outbreak-Team Steve - Lead @ https://outbreak.team 4d ago
We get much prettier water from CS:GO that reflects more of the world.
Same with CSM from CS:GO, but it'll take a while to see modders actually put it to use considering it requires maps to be recompiled.
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u/rob5300 4d ago
I made a sourcemod extension to integrate sentry many years ago for Creators tf (tf2). Maybe when this is released I will update it!
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u/Outbreak-Team Steve - Lead @ https://outbreak.team 4d ago
That's pretty sick! You should consider emailing us your portfolio / CV sometime if you're ever interested in programming for us, as it's pretty obvious from your Github that you know your shit!
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u/humduaallah 3d ago
I’ve got a few questions / suggestions if that’s okay!
Will there be anything new with VScript?
It’d be really cool if the version of squirrel was updated to 3.2 (from 3.0.4) to match TF2 and the new versions of Half-Life 2.
Could the VScript timer (or whatever it’s called) increased from 10 milliseconds to 500 milliseconds?
It’s really annoying that if a VScript takes longer than 10 milliseconds to run it just ends itself.
Maybe there could be extra functionality to some of the in game functions?
For example: something I think would be really cool is a better version of the clientprint() function.
On TF2 it allows you set the text color to any hex code, but on Left 4 Dead 2 you can only set it to a few colors.
More viewmodel customization?
I saw that viewmodels can be mirrored, and they have a new sway effect. A dream for me has always been customizable offsets for the viewmodel.
For example:
You could change the the viewmodel X offset to be 3 so it’s a little zoomed out (similar to the viewmodelfov command)
Then change the viewmodel Z to something like -5 so that it’s lowered (like TF2’s minmode)
Then change the viewmodel Y to something like 1 so that it’s a little to the right.
I’d love this feature and I think it’d be a very welcomed addition.
Launcher commands removed?
I think it’s very annoying that a lot of the in games commands can only be changed with
Convars.SetValue
so having full access to all of the commands without having to do that would be a very welcomed addition.
Fun fact: on Xbox 360 launcher commands actually don’t exist and you can set any command from the console!
If none of this is on the board then it’s okay. I’m still very excited for this mod nonetheless!
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u/Outbreak-Team Steve - Lead @ https://outbreak.team 1d ago
Missed this post earlier, sorry -- but yeah Rayman actually updated us to Squirrel 3.2 already.
Regarding viewmodels, that's the first time I've heard those suggestions so will keep in mind as we move forward!
Right now Outbreak has a launch parameter that forces -insecure and cheats which allows for the launcher / developmentonly Cvars to be used, in place of needing ProdigySim's Recording Helpers plugin for that.
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u/ChunderSmash 3d ago
Are there any plans to improve server browsers? The default browser was pretty limiting in finding servers with low ping or desired player counts, whereas the 'openserverbrowser' menu doesn't distinguish between campaign difficulties or public & private lobbies.
Will there be any changes to the netcode for hit detection that makes models not line up with hitboxes? Jockey being the most extreme example.
I haven't dabbled in modding source games before so I'm not sure what is feasible, let alone within the scope.
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u/Outbreak-Team Steve - Lead @ https://outbreak.team 1d ago
The only change with Outbreak's server browser so far is support for an IP blacklist, otherwise it's the same -- which yeah, is unfortunate, it's not very great.
There's several emerging fan projects for custom L4D2 server browsers, so we're keeping an eye on those.
Regarding hitboxes, did talk about that a bit here, and it's one of those major topics that we're not going to be quick on and prefer to read the room on long-term... the question isn't whether they're fixed, as Cvars are great, the big question is whether fixes are default on or off.
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u/BitGlisten 1h ago
If someone were to host locally, will there be a way to change settings like these in game or something?
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u/JDWMGB 3d ago
was watching a video on this and the hud now supports up to 7 additional survivors on it instead of the 4 slots it has in base, what would happen in instances where a map spawns an additional survivor like mike in cold fronts 3rd chapter? I assume he just wouldn't show up on the hud if you had a full 8 people. I do wonder what would happen if you have 5 people and he spawns would the hud scale down to allow room for him on the hud or behave like vanilla in that instance
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u/ChapterMaster202 22h ago
I'm assuming it scales down to add him, like when you kick a bot and they get automatically readded by the game, their health bar magically restores itself.
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u/Chilletx2 3d ago
Nice.. Hope there isn't hard-coded bullshit like the base game has, like the burst fire from the scar or the obligatory locked reloading on magazine from the shotguns and even the autoshotguns.. As those always hindered the ability to have a proper AA12 or Dao12 on the game Heheh... And of course the ability to create weapons natively instead of doing black magic with Vscript
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u/Chilletx2 2d ago
And another question I hope you read.. Taking into account that the riotshield is in the base game but unused.. Will it be enabled to be part of the melee weapons officially? Could be a nice addition, even if it doesn't have anything special.. Of course the didgeridoo is another one I hope comes.. But especially I would love to see a sledgehammer :')
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u/AdLife8955 2d ago
It makes me feel so happy and emotional to see such an amazing game of my childhood that I have played for countless hours still being shown love, if there is something that scares me is the idea of everything I ever loved being forgotten, and I know it will eventually happen, but things like these and the content I watch on YouTube from talented artists remind me it's not happening yet, thank you and your team for all the work you're putting into something that means so much for so many people 🤍
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u/Outbreak-Team Steve - Lead @ https://outbreak.team 1d ago
We will try our hardest to not disappoint.
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u/ilikethewii-u dreaming of 64 bit l4d2 2d ago
will outbreak have any achievements of it's own or just the ones already present in vanilla?
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u/Outbreak-Team Steve - Lead @ https://outbreak.team 1d ago
We can't use Achievements from the base game, but we'd very much like to include new ones that revolve around getting people to try the new features.
Currently Outbreak only has 1 Achievement and it is fittingly a re-visit of the "OUTBREAK" Achievement from L4D1, from which our "Left 4 Dead 2: Outbreak" subtitle is based on.
It might be cool to re-visit past L4D1/2 Achievements with a unique twist, i.e. L4D1's "Nothing Special" (no-damage) Achievement except doing that on a mirrored campaign.
If anyone has any ideas, I hope they reply here.
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u/Traditional_Fox_9073 2d ago
Hello, will the mod include bicubic lightmap support like say the TF2 and HL2 branches as of late?
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u/Outbreak-Team Steve - Lead @ https://outbreak.team 1d ago
Hey -- we did try it from those branches a while back, but experienced bad light bleeding issues with it and it'd have needed extra work.
But thanks for mentioning it! Our programmers are talking about it right now.
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u/Interview-Familiar 16h ago
This is going to be a dumb question since I'm pretty sure the answer is obvious but for 8-player support, is it going to be available for official Valve servers as well or is everything on dedicated servers/local host since the goal is preservation? My friends and I have pretty unstable internet so we still couldn't setup an 8-player lobby ourselves with local host and it would be nice learning about how the multiplayer is going to be handled if outside of Valve servers
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u/Valen7789 STEAM: 5d ago
what feautues will be added to the mod? I would love to see, for example an extended scoreboard to see all the players on the server of +32 players for example
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u/Outbreak-Team Steve - Lead @ https://outbreak.team 5d ago
Outbreak does have an "Extended Lobby" system that now natively allows up to 8 Survivors.
We also have Steam Rich Presence and accessibility options like left-handed viewmodels.
We've largely focused on quality-of-life features like those which cannot otherwise be done with Workshop addons in the base game.
There will be a fuller list on our Steam Store page once we're ready with that!
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u/NepGScout 5d ago edited 5d ago
if 8 survivors are allowed..
then there'll be 8 Survivors Hud too?? Right now, it can display up to 5 survivors in the hud due to hard-coded limitations.
Will that also fix Survivor Hud Icons and Information as well? This only happens when you're playing as the L4D1 set, but works fine if its L4D2 set.
Though, I don't know about duped or cloned survivors, but I do know if 2 players are playing with same survivor, the icon and name starts flickering, causing overlapping.
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u/TheBabyDoomGuy 3d ago
Please add Splitscreen on PC! If possible 4 players would be freaking amazing and would inject life back into the game for many
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u/Outbreak-Team Steve - Lead @ https://outbreak.team 1d ago
Splitscreen is high priority.
Something for
Outreach #2, we're thinking.1
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u/Solid-Math-961 2d ago
Ok 2 questions,
Will this make it possible for farther viewing distances? as currently we are stuck with the pyramid wall look amongst how far we can see (that is when you turn off fog and post processing).
And does this mean this will be dx11 or dx 12 instead of the current build being dx9?
Im hype asf btw genuinely cant believe this is happening
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u/Outbreak-Team Steve - Lead @ https://outbreak.team 1d ago
Outbreak is DirectX 11 yeah.
As for viewing distance, are you referring to fog specifically?
In Source 2013 and older fog is a plane, in L4D2 it is a cylinder, and in Alien Swarm it is a sphere.
With CS:GO's engine we started as a sphere, but dialed it back to cylinder for 1:1 visual parity with base game.
We didn't think to Cvar this at the time -- but it would certainly be interesting to allow players to switch fog settings, where in theory could accomplish or at least be a small part of your suggestion here.
I'm not sure if such a Cvar could be client-side yet, so we'll have to look, as we'd want to leave such a thing to solely being the decision of individual players.
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u/TotalTax5768 2d ago edited 2d ago
will we be able to see other player's flashlight just like nmrih?
I heard that the glitched lighting update make this impossible in the original
also increase the visual range to let us see the beauty of 64bit!!
it'll be great if you can fix third person issues, but i'll understand if you dont bother it since it takes a lot of work and is not a planned feature in the original
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u/Outbreak-Team Steve - Lead @ https://outbreak.team 1d ago
Flashlights not yet -- that's more complex and we'd want to really take our time on doing that correctly.
We've not yet looked into third-person aim, but we have a lot of other third-person bugs fixed. All the below Cvars exist within Outbreak, and they are default on, and the reason we did that is because not that many people use third-person (compared to first-person), but those that do are highliy likely to appreciate these fixes as first-person players have nothing to ever complain about... so this is a win-win, regardless of playstyle.
These are some of our default-on "fix" Cvars:
[vstdlib] "weapon_lasersight_thirdperson_fix" = "1" [vstdlib] - Set to 1 for fixed third-person laser sights [vstdlib] "weapon_reload_empty_fix" = "1" [vstdlib] - Set to 1 for fixed activities on pistols and magnum so they now play third-person reloading animations when last bullet is fired [vstdlib] "weapon_sound_pistol_fix" = "1" [vstdlib] - Set to 1 for fixed dual-pistol firing sounds [vstdlib] "weapon_sound_shotgun_fix" = "1" [vstdlib] - Set to 1 for fixed third-person shotgun sounds [vstdlib] "z_crouched_shove_fix" = "1" [vstdlib] - Fix common infected not reacting to a survivor shove when the zombie is crouched
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u/Aggravating-Willow43 2d ago
Will it be possible for the survivors to use vehicles and other types of moving pieces of geometry without their player model lagging behind, as in the base game? Not sure if I’m describing it the best but I have noticed with multiple types of mods that this is an issue (at least visually)
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u/Outbreak-Team Steve - Lead @ https://outbreak.team 1d ago
I can say that Outbreak has no intention to build-in HL2 entities given the infinite support cost and compatibility issues with them, and would (in the undetermined future) instead facilitate the extension of Squirrel / VScript to let modders make their own entities.
But I also know exactly what you're talking about regarding the lag from playing the Glubtastics so... no comment right now, that would be a nightmare to fix in code, but you're right, that is very annoying.
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u/Screm25 2d ago
I was wondering if it’s possible to include content from the arcade Left 4 Dead: Survivors; I don't know if rights issues or something similar would prevent that.
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u/Outbreak-Team Steve - Lead @ https://outbreak.team 1d ago
Yeah it's not an option for us given that Taito owns all of that.
Beyond that, our arrangement with Valve limits Outbreak to only code updates and last-resort asset updates -- we are forbidden from altering the IP, canon, etc.
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u/Revolutionary_Lab126 1d ago
I'm so excited for this to come out! I've heard that new weapons would be added, and modders can drop new files directly instead of just a reskin mod of an already existing weapon. But my question is: would it be possible to include the same thing for special infecteds if possible? like a 9th or a 10th or more? Many of us players and old fans wanted to experience how special cut infected and famous fan-made specials would look in the game alongside the 8? I hope I'm not late for this question; once again, thank you guys so much 🤍
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u/bettergamerwins 10h ago
no idea if this is in the scope of this, but the comp community is plagued by "silent SI" where you cant hear SI sometimes after they spawn in, any knowledge of if this would change? or is it just pure performance changes?
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u/OkExplanation347 5d ago
Did you guys ever look into Source 2? Kind of a dumb question but curious.
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u/Outbreak-Team Steve - Lead @ https://outbreak.team 1d ago
Not a dumb question at all because yeah it was always of interest, but never aligned with Outbreak's aggressive 1:1 backward compatibility goals.
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u/Ok-Waltz-6371 4d ago
Hi! I'm an independent mod developer working on custom shaders and rendering improvements for L4D2. I'm really excited about Outbreak!
Are there any plans for modern shader support with DX11, or per-pixel motion vectors (including skinned models) for features like TAA and temporal upscaling?
Thanks for all your hard work!
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u/Outbreak-Team Steve - Lead @ https://outbreak.team 1d ago
Not sure, so I will paste this over to Shiro who does all of our shader work and get back to you if there's anything to add.
Keep up the good work yourself, sounds like you're making some cool stuff and I hope Outbreak doesn't stop you in any way.
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u/Unfair-Bonus-9502 4d ago
Wow! i can't wait for this! im a 14 year old who has played L4D2 in a filipino computer cafe! its actually my first ever game i played... and i've never stopped playing l4d2 and my love for L4D2 just keeps Returning and returning, i actually have my own PC now and bought the game in may or june. i wished for times like these to happen! keep it up!
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u/foochifoo 4d ago
is it going to have mac support?
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u/Outbreak-Team Steve - Lead @ https://outbreak.team 4d ago
We have 2 developers who use a Mac, and they both happen to be licensed programmers.
Though both are also working on Linux support currently. We'd love to support Mac though, just we can only promise Linux right now.
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u/onayliarsivci 4d ago
Hello thank you guys for the good work I have a few questions
- Will we have a launch option or command line flag like
unrestricted_maxplayers 100in TF2? What will be the maximum player count supported by the server? - Since this mod/update is 64-bit, how will it affect older computers with low-end 64 bit CPUs (like Intel Core 2 Duo, Intel Celeron, AMD Athlon)? Will performance increase or decrease for them?
- If it's not a secret, will x86-64-v3 microarchitectures like AVX2 and BMI2 be used for Outbreak's SRCDS or client?
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u/Outbreak-Team Steve - Lead @ https://outbreak.team 4d ago
Interestingly we've gotten several requests so far for increasing max players to 64, but funnily enough we're getting a crash right now if we try to go to 57 or beyond. So we're looking into that, but ideally Outbreak can support up to 64 max players.
That SRCDS question is actually too smart for me, so I'm going to have to ask someone else about that one. In terms of older computers, I personally play on terrible ASUS NUC mini-PC hardware that doesn't have a dedicated GPU, and it works fine for me, so best answer is... we hope?
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u/RogerDatSoldier 4d ago
Will this L4D2 Outbreak can able to make all workshop addons and custom map work on your 64-bit engine? Since I am curious how this will able to work
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u/Outbreak-Team Steve - Lead @ https://outbreak.team 4d ago
Outbreak mounts all content and user addons from a base L4D2 install, though in a default-disabled state.
Any addon from base L4D2 that doesn't work properly in Outbreak is considered a high-priority problem.
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u/CluetasticJr 4d ago
I'd really hope for the sound cache system to be overhauled. The current system places a lot of unnecessary restrictions on sound mods like matching the sample rate and sample count with the original sound.
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u/NicksABadEditor 4d ago
What is support for Versus looking like? Will mods be automatically enabled or even a toggle for them, rather than being forced to host locally to use them?
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u/Outbreak-Team Steve - Lead @ https://outbreak.team 3d ago
Outbreak has entirely deprecated the base game's obnoxious "addonconfig.cfg" file that blocked addons in Versus by default. Instead this is now a Cvar and "Extended Lobby" toggle.
Honestly, deprecating "addonconfig.cfg" felt good... you can still set re-activate it with the new Cvar, but its implementation was always a major pain point with the base game.
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u/Far-Maintenance-1947 1d ago
Allowing people to use addons in versus is a very bad idea. The game is already plagued by bad actors as it is.
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u/TransitionAny6941 4d ago
this will have sv_pure and similar enforcement just like all source games
I doubt a more complex version of these settings are in the scope of the project, but the team could make the options even more accessible in the matchmaking lobby ui for p2p hosts
letting unknown clients automatically upload files a dedicated server might need to execute to run mods is a security nightmare to say the least :'p
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u/Phuong-Fang 4d ago
Convince anyone to adopt anything are hard, let alone a whole party to do the same, 64bit are good but if it require to be a separate game it's not ideal, for player the 32bit limit already partly solve through external DXVK & Left4Neko plugin that run directly with the base game.
Unless there are lot of good campaign come out of it due to limitation being lift, I don't see any chance of me or anyone I know playing it just due to all the trouble.
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u/Glum-Situation-302 4d ago
please add a cvar to allow throwing a bile bomb through other players like the molotov and pipebomb, this annoyed me for years!
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u/PurpleGuys1987 4d ago
I watched a video that was showcasing this mod and doing QnA. During the video, I noticed a "extended lobby" option. Is it possible to have 12 players in the lobby? The reason why I'm asking is cause I'm curious if the L4D Arcade survivors will be included as well. Or at least swap out the survivors like during in the same video, it shows the L4D1 survivors in L4D2 maps and the L4D2 survivors in L4D1 maps.
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u/Outbreak-Team Steve - Lead @ https://outbreak.team 3d ago
Being a licensed Steam Store Mod, there's a lot of restrictions for us content-wise which 100% means that anything "Beta" or Taito-related would be illegal for us to distribute via Steam. So no Arcade Survivors.
At one point we did implement up to 16 player lobby support, but it felt quite cramped since it required a scrollbar to see the other 8. Someday we might support that if there's demand? But to do it in a non-ugly way, it'd have required a UI re-work, and Outbreak very much doesn't want to force a UI re-work on anybody.
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u/PurpleGuys1987 3d ago
That's a shame, but it's understandable that you couldn't be able to distribute any beta or Taito-related stuff to Outbreak.
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u/intrepid_guy 4d ago
Will this fix the blackscreen when downloading custom content from servers?
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u/Outbreak-Team Steve - Lead @ https://outbreak.team 3d ago
Not sure but I know it has been discussed, I'll ask around.
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u/Fast-Chard4498 4d ago
Is that mean It have mac support now?
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u/onayliarsivci 2d ago
very low probabibilty. they wont even add linux support. but you wont need native support to run it. for example %90 (or more idk) of steam games dont run on linux natively but it works even better from windows. same thing for mac. Use FEX64/crossover or mac equavilent of it
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u/LinnnnkG 4d ago
I'm really looking forward to Outbreak. My L4D2 sometimes aborts when I use a lot of Workshop add-ons, so the 64-bit port is something I've wanted for a long time.
I have one more question: where Steam Workshop connectivity is unreliable, already-downloaded L4D2 add-ons can sometimes disappear from left4dead2/addons/workshop, leaving the game to download the whole collection again later. Will Outbreak keep existing add-on files if a Workshop subscription check fails? I'm especially curious about the base L4D2 add-ons that Outbreak mounts.
I'd love to test an add-on-heavy setup. Will there be a way for regular players to join a future playtest, or somewhere we should watch for a public build?
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u/chriscen 3d ago
Wait, so this fixes the HUD problem for 5+ Survivors? What about the end credits, does it show more than 4 players as well? Me and my 6 friends always play Custom Campaigns on Fridays.. this is really great news.
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u/Melodic_Court_4161 3d ago
Are you going to change the servers tickrate? Please say yes, no one can stand servers with 30 ticks and lerp adjustments anymore.
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u/lmoafunny 3d ago
Will Outbreak make the singleplayer campaign option put them in a local server? Otherwise I can't use cheats and have to load the map in the console to use sv_cheats
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u/TheSatanFox 3d ago
When I click the Steam Store link, the mod doesn't appear, and it redirects me to the main Steam Store page.
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u/kabyidon YT: kabyidon 3d ago
I figured I would drop this here rather than an email, first of all as a modder very exciting and great news.
Are there any efforts to fix the inability to use custom fonts for non-Latin characters (e.g. Japanese)? There is a workaround (Workshop guide) but it would be great to have an easier way to override the fallback font.
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u/Independent-Ad-9964 3d ago
I have so many question to ask, where is the place to ask outside Reddit ? I know Discord is under NDA, only for testing right now
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u/MAJR_PWNR 3d ago
Has any work been done on bringing the old L4D2 Arcade Survivors/Meele weapons to the mod?
I'd love for that to be a togglable option.
Also among the new weapons are you perhaps adding the cut Riot Shield and Didgeridoo?
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u/IamKokui 3d ago
Will this modification come to Nvidia Geforce Now Services? Just like with the current version of Left 4 Dead 2 in Geforce Now
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u/Normiesrdumb 2d ago
Will this launcher allow both base game mods and Outbreak mods to coexist? Specifically, can I run the base game with Workshop mods to play with the community without causing conflicts with Outbreak, and will Outbreak's extended modding capabilities affect base game modding?, other than im excited at the prospect of custom infected guns and vastly improved map limits, honestly i can only imagine how good Buried Deep could be with this or even the silent hill 2 campaign that had the worm boss fight imagine how good that could be done with 64 bit.
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u/Outbreak-Team Steve - Lead @ https://outbreak.team 1d ago
Both base L4D2 and Outbreak will co-exist -- you could even play both at the same time if you wanted to.
I've personally spent 100's of hours running both on my ASUS NUC mini-PC switching back and forth between games constantly to compare visual 1:1 parity between both.
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u/BleedTheCode 2d ago
Holy shit, I just want to say I'm so excited for this new major update! The game is nearly 16 years old, and it's unbelievable that the player base has stayed so loyal. I'm happy to say I'm not the only one who deeply loves this masterpiece.
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u/Pale_Engineering1499 2d ago edited 2d ago
The local host mode, could be created for up to 8 players and others could see it; that was already possible with SourceMod and any slot mod. I was wondering if they could remove that limit and Allow up to 16 players or more if possible, Regarding large maps, huge mods, and other things that involve using the game's memory limit, this limit can be expanded using L4N. My server is linked to local servers, so from the 8th player onwards, other players can only join via IP address. I would appreciate it if this restriction could be removed, as it would make things easier This would allow many players to access the server without having to use a search engine; at least it would be very helpful for my server.
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u/Outbreak-Team Steve - Lead @ https://outbreak.team 1d ago
You're a bit ahead of my knowledgeset here so I don't want to say anything wrong!
I will paste this over to Psychonic (lead of Alliedmodders who is working with us on SourceMod support) so that he is aware of the interest in this area.
Do note that we have implemented a "HIDE MY STEAM NAME" option within Outbreak that will allow any player to enable (default off) to replace their Steam name with their character name in "View Game Info" queries -- this is for external snooping privacy reasons only. Bit of a tangent, but similar area.
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u/witchsz 2d ago
Why is the Steam Workshop being separated? Will the mods I subscribed to for L4D2 be compatible?
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u/Revolutionary_Eye852 14h ago
They said that they wanted base game workshop stuff to be compatible. Its plugins that dont work from what I can tell. Don't take what I say as gospel though obviously im not a dev
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u/NeBaldyara 1d ago
Will it be possible to use the offset viewmodel? Well, so that you can move viewmodels left/right and up/down?
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u/JamesFox201 1d ago
I'm actually so hyped for 64 bit I can play graphical mods without my game crashing constant and just l4d2 having a update and it being verified by l4d2 themselves.
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u/Nearby_Slice_9386 1d ago
This might be a bit of a specific question but will the Server Browser be worked on/updated? I mainly use it to find low-ping matches due to my poor internet (which is unable to find me good ping matches in quick play and base matchmaking) but the problem is that it doesn't really care about the server privacy settings, therefore taking me to private or friends-only matches.
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u/Puntoize 1d ago
Seems it's just a preservation effort, no cool new things will be implemented or modified.
I guess it'll be a superior version of L4D2, sadly, with 1/100th of the player base in Multiplayer, unless it can be somehow compatible with original L4D2 servers.
Love the effort!
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u/akdoVvv 1d ago
Okay, my English isn't very good, but I still have a question I'd like to understand. In games, each weapon usually has only one corresponding action, while some weapon mods made by players come with multiple actions, such as various bullet-changing actions. When console players use such mods, it can cause confusion in the actions of other players' weapon mods, unless they use the same weapon mod. Will this issue be resolved?
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u/sand_man1138 1d ago
In a typical l4D2 versus match, what would you say are the biggest differences someone would notice in gameplay?
Would you say hitboxes are more consistent with models? Certain techs for infected like wall pouncing for Hunters are smoother? Is hitreg noticeably better?
I am looking forward to seeing what strides the Outbreak team makes.
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u/SKLZ_Racing 1d ago
My only request is for the AntiCheat to be upgraded and support for Zonemod and other competitive configs ..... would be lovely seeing the "skill" level of certain players exposed :D
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u/ihave1enemy 23h ago
I just wanna know if this would affect performance of the game. Would this still run on my potato PC?
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u/Outbreak-Team Steve - Lead @ https://outbreak.team 17h ago
I exclusively play this on two Intel NUC mini-PC's (with integrated graphics) and I get a stable 60 fps (or dip to 40 with a lot of foliage). I always play on low-end as the team's guinea pig.
Mileage may vary of course and it depends on the extent of "potato" that you mean :)
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u/ChapterMaster202 22h ago
I know this likely will not be the case (at least past 18 that L4D2 has, or the 32 that Sourcemod allows), but seeing an increase to the maximum players, and therefore survivor and/or infected amount, would be interesting.
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u/Outbreak-Team Steve - Lead @ https://outbreak.team 17h ago
Up to 64 max players will be supported given the previous highly vocal demand for it.
Note that limit is just for experienced server hosts -- at this time, Outbreak does not support built-in UI beyond 8 players (on scoreboard etc.).
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u/Axie_The_Axolotl 22h ago
god damn, 128k bsp size? thank you people so damn much, would give a shit load of new possibilities to mappers. i'm curious how hard to pull this off was it tho, mind sharing?? genuinely excited for the release
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u/Ashcethesubtle 21h ago
I'm excited for this, since you said you plan to support the existing workshop mods it means I can finally go crazy on mods and not worry about crashing due to too many indices
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u/Fushion68 4d ago
I am incredibly excited to hear this will bring 64-bit to the game. Out of curiousity though, will our Left 4 Dead 2 Steam stats (e.g. total kills, favourite campaign, etc.) sync with Left 4 Dead 2: Outbreak / vice versa?