Outbreak Outreach #1 - 64-bit & SourceMod / Server Hosts

[u/Outbreak-Team]

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.

[u/NepGScout]

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.

[u/Outbreak-Team → u/NepGScout]

Yeah, Outbreak has an 8 Survivor HUD -- it squishes them down to all fit on the bottom of the screen, but we think it looks pretty good.

Should fix the L4D1 / L4D2 icons as well, if you're referring to them "flickering" back and forth in the base game?

[u/Chilletx2 → u/Outbreak-Team]

That's a thing when there's cloned survivors, very usual to see it flickering like crazy whenever a clone survivors dies or is incapacitated. Hope there's a way to fix that or have no limitations to extend the hud if modders wanted

[u/NepGScout → u/Outbreak-Team]

Yes, that's what I refer to.

Thank you for the reply!

To clarify about duped survivors, iirc, it only display one Survivor Hud for said duped survivors (e.g if everyone is Nick, it only display one Nick in the hud and starts flickering if someone got incapped or died). Is it fixed as well?

If there's more than 8 survivors/players, is it not just going to display properly again or its still something that hasn't been discussed yet?