Valve Software recently released an update for the classic 2002 shooter Counter-Strike 1.6 – meant to bring bugfixes and enhancements that more than 15 years of gamer usage had caused – that, surprisingly, included an unfinished version of their 2009 classic zombie survival horror game, Left 4 Dead.
The update, that served to update the latest version of the game, contained an embedded version of the 2009 game’s engine, named “Source 1.2”. As game users attempted to launch the engine, an anime-style splash image playing alongside a complex set of instructions were displayed as part of the executable. The image was a prototype of the options page for Left 4 Dead, featuring a design meant to give players the ability to tweak settings during the game.
Valve has since responded to the incident, stating that the inclusion of the prototype was an ”accidental” mistake done by developers. The bad news for fans of Valve’s titles is that the update was swiftly fixed by Valve, and that the prototype version of the game was removed from the source code after the discovery was made.
The update with the left 4 dead prototype was a bright spot in the update, however, as the previously mentioned changes included: a fully updated DirectX 8 to DirectX 11 graphics engine, support for NVIDIA’s Shadow Play hardware, and fixes to a variety of stability issues withCounter-Strike 1.6.
Valve may have removed the engine from the update for Counter-Strike 1.6, but fans of the franchise have still been Left 4 Dead curious ever since news of the update’s surprise spread through social media. It’s likely that the surprise drop of the prototype has only served to increase demand for a new Left 4 Dead title, hopefully one that builds on the improved engine of Counter-Strike 1.6.