Left 4 Dead 2 offers early DLC unlock

Valve is offering early access to the Dead Air piece of the upcoming Cold Stream DLC, if 20,000 willing guinea pigs unlock an achievement by the end of day on Sunday.

Steve Watts

July 7, 2011 7:45 AM

Once again, Valve is offering early access to a game if its fans jump through a hoop or two. This time it's Left 4 Dead 2, and the offer is a piece of the Cold Stream downloadable content. A blog post outlines the details.

The developer is currently in the testing phase, and is offering an incentive for the community to become bug-finders. If 20,000 people earn the "Stream Crosser" achievement by the end of the day on Sunday, July 10, Valve will release Dead Air (from Cold Stream) on July 22. Stream Crosser is awarded for surviving a campaign of Cold Stream, so it shouldn't be too unobtainable. If you don't own the game yet, it's just $5 until 10 am PST today.

Valve previously offered early access to Portal 2 in exchange for playing indie games. This netted users the anticipated game about 9 hours early. Unlocking DLC for an existing game probably isn't quite as exciting, but early is early.

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July 7, 2011 7:45 AM

Steve Watts posted a new article, Left 4 Dead 2 offers early DLC unlock.

Valve is offering early access to the Dead Air piece of the upcoming Cold Stream DLC, if 20,000 willing guinea pigs unlock an achievement by the end of day on Sunday.
- jtthe2nd
  
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  July 7, 2011 8:17 AM
  
  I avoid playing Cold Stream because it almost always turns out to be a nearly unplayable 15-20 fps exercise in frustration for me.
- Mmmmmoo
  
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  July 7, 2011 8:22 AM
  
  This would be ok if it weren't for the fact that Valve didn't force a lame beta campaign on everyone as a L4D2 update. It isn't even well designed or all that great either. There are better campaigns out there that deserve the spotlight.
  - JINKY
    
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    July 7, 2011 8:24 AM
    
    forcing it on us
    - Mmmmmoo
      
       reply
      July 7, 2011 8:31 AM
      
      it's rape in digital bandwidth form
      - JINKY
        
         reply
        July 7, 2011 8:47 AM
        
        they're SHOVING IT DOWN OUR FUCKING THROATS
        
        massdev
        
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        July 7, 2011 9:15 AM
        
        I'm GAGGING on the PIPE; Ceci n'est pas une pipe!
  - jtthe2nd
    
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    July 7, 2011 8:26 AM
    
    It is curious why Valve is giving this campaign so much love because as you said, it isn't very well designed or fun imo.
  - flagg209
    
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    July 7, 2011 8:29 AM
    
    I agree mmmmmoo - i got the achievement, but didn't have fun doing so
    - Pandilex
      
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      July 7, 2011 8:39 AM
      
      Same, rushed through it on easy with bots. Didn't enjoy it. It's still buggy, sometimes the survivors get trapped in the safe room at the start of the last level, not to mention the awful design in some areas where it is ludicrously easy in versus to charge people to their death.
  - [deleted] 662346004
    
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    July 7, 2011 9:05 AM
    
    [deleted]
  - [deleted] 342332194
    
     reply
    July 7, 2011 9:09 AM
    
    [deleted]
  - Dschinghis Khan
    
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    July 7, 2011 9:11 AM
    
    Forcing this FREE CONTENT onto us. The fucking NERVE VALVE!
    - Mmmmmoo
      
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      July 7, 2011 1:31 PM
      
      It's a beta. I don't want to download anything potentially broken and or crappy.
      
      We Canadians don't have unlimited bandwidth anymore, we're all stuck with limited GBs to use per month. :(
    - DeschainVox
      
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      July 7, 2011 3:51 PM
      
      I agree. It's unconscionable that Valve would offer an incentive for gamers to help beta test a map.
- InfernoAblaze
  
   reply
  July 7, 2011 8:55 AM
  
  Great, I'm the guy who just got L4D2 for a friend on Monday and now there's a better deal...
  - TheDaFox
    
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    July 7, 2011 2:27 PM
    
    The first rule of steam sales is to never buy until the last day unless its a daily deal.... That's your own fault.
    - InfernoAblaze
      
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      July 7, 2011 6:41 PM
      
      Thx, I'll keep that in mind for Magicka :)
- james_austintx
  
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  July 7, 2011 9:01 AM
  
  Run through it on EASY just to get it over with.
  - grabbie
    
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    July 7, 2011 9:09 AM
    
    how long did that take?
    - [deleted] 342332194
      
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      July 7, 2011 9:10 AM
      
      [deleted]
      - grabbie
        
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        July 7, 2011 9:22 AM
        
        that's not too bad. I'll see if i can knock it out this weekend.
        
        james_austintx
        
         reply
        July 7, 2011 1:42 PM
        
        Sorry have not actually done it yet.....
      - Longgshot
        
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        July 7, 2011 3:27 PM
        
        Errmm, it can be done in about 15 mins on solo and easy.
    - TheDaFox
      
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      July 7, 2011 2:28 PM
      
      3 of us ran through on Normal in 40 minutes, first time playing it, stopping to have a look at the scenery and what not.
  - Tech T
    
     reply
    July 7, 2011 2:46 PM
    
    Did this yesterday and had a good time with it. Didn't run into any showstopper bugs, but found special infected getting stuck on a lot of stuff. Also a room in the memorial bridge section that had 3 purple checkerboards on the wall and the radio for help in the last bit doesn't reply back.
    - SlingBlaze
      
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      July 8, 2011 7:37 AM
      
      Yup saw both of those issues too.
      
      My team of 4 friends couldn't actually finish it, it was our first time ever playing a l4d game. Was alot of fun, and we had it on easy but still couldn't do it. I feel like a huge bucket of fail today.
- limpossible
  
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  July 7, 2011 2:49 PM
  
  I played Cold Stream with a consistent, rnadom group of pubbies the other night. I was the only one in the group to unlock the achievement after 6 tries, as everyone else died. I felt like such a huge douche :/