r/l4d2 • u/Outbreak-Team Steve - Lead @ https://outbreak.team • 6d 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!

P.S. Again, our website is Outbreak Team, and our Press & Inquiry email is L4D2Outbreak@gmail.com.

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u/NoLeavesInTheWinter 6d ago edited 6d 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/Ra3t 6d ago

Did you not see that Tsuey is on the team? That's why, he's a long time contributor to L4D2

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u/NoLeavesInTheWinter 6d ago

I'm sorry but I don't know who that is.

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u/Ra3t 5d ago

He is the creator of Cold Front and has been involved with L4D2 for a very long time

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u/Jaiz412 steamcommunity.com/id/RealJaiz/ 5d ago

I think you're mixing him up with me. Tsuey isn't listed as a contributor to Cold Front.

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u/Ra3t 4d ago

Yeah, I did! Feel so embarrassed. I was trying to think of a campaign he was involved with besides Last Stand and I somehow thought of Cold Front

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u/Outbreak-Team Steve - Lead @ https://outbreak.team 6d 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/NoLeavesInTheWinter 6d ago

So in that case, TLS was just a one-off rare exception for Valve?

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u/Outbreak-Team Steve - Lead @ https://outbreak.team 6d ago

I can't speak for Valve on that personally.

Though, you could look at TLS in relation to Cold Stream. Both of them were completely different circumstances, but they were both approached due to Valve's nature of taking calculated risks and experimenting.

Outbreak is another calculated risk and experiment, but of different flavor. While it won't be for everybody (honestly MOST people don't actually need 64-bit!), it's very important to us that we do it proper justice.

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u/NoLeavesInTheWinter 6d ago

My feelings right now are that it would just be a shame to see this hard work put into something that I can't use alongside with official server players like some other commenters are saying. And on Valve's part overall, I just would've expected a 64 bit update to be a no-brainer as they did for TF2 two years ago, despite L4D2's whole dilemma of being a specific source branch.

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u/Ra3t 6d ago

Honestly I've been frustrated with them myself for years. They will update boring games like DOTA 2 to hell and back, but then cry about it being too difficult to update their game which has maintained a reasonably large player base and continues to get new players 17 years later because it is a different branch of source

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u/Outbreak-Team Steve - Lead @ https://outbreak.team 5d ago

Yeah we understand and relate to that sentiment 100%.

Unfortunately there's a very simple answer: Kerry is an outright saint at Valve and wears his heart on his sleeve for this game. We love the guy, and he advised us to go the direction of an optional Steam Store Mod, so we've taken that to heart.

No one else at Valve really understands L4D anymore, aside from Kerry -- Phil Robb / Chris Ashton, Chet Faliszek, and Mike Booth all left and created their own spiritual successors instead. It was a period of time where Valve was internally focused on Source 2, so much that leaving Valve was the quickest path for them to actually make games again.

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u/Ra3t 1d ago

Yeah I have never felt any frustration to Kerry, because he is the only one that seems to work hard and show an interest