blog Remember how US gaming giant Valve Software had to cut all the gore, blood splatter, dismemberment, corpses, burning and riot cop zombies out of its highly popular online cooperative zombie shooter game Left 4 Dead 2, when it was released in Australia a few years ago? Yeah. Here’s a heads up: Zombie games without gore just ain’t as much fun. Well, thanks to the new laws allowing R18+ video games to be sold in Australia, Valve is strongly investigating re-releasing the game locally in its original gory form. Valve staffer ‘chetf’ writes on the company’s forum earlier this month:

“No need to flood us with emails. We have been exploring the options here and what we can legally do. We will have more information on this when we understand the issues fully and how we are moving forward but don’t worry any cost associated with it doesn’t worry us, this is something we want to do.”

This is fantastic news. Now raise your head up to the picture at the top of this screen and think about how wonderful Valve co-founder Gabe Newell is. Praise the Gaben. Look at that benevolent expression. All good things come from the Gaben. Even feel free to drop him an email personally at gaben@valvesoftware.com and let him know how great a move you think a R18+ version of Left 4 Dead 2 would be for Australia. Who knows — he may even respond, in his trademark fashion. All praise to the Gaben. Bless.

Image credit: Believed to be Valve Software

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1. RocK_M
   Posted 17/01/2013 at 4:32 pm | Permalink | Reply

   Pfft! We all know the real reason he’s doing this…

   Bragging rights for no.2 spot on the R18+ games in AU since Tecmo/Koei beat him to spot 1! =P

   On a side note… very nice news I know many folks who will be very very happy to hear this :D

   • Harimau
     Posted 17/01/2013 at 9:08 pm | Permalink | Reply

     Could still be the #1 re-issue of a game though!

2. GlenBendigo
   Posted 17/01/2013 at 5:32 pm | Permalink | Reply

   Brilliant game, imho, had it on my pc for a few years. argh argh argh

3. DirtyFr4nk
   Posted 17/01/2013 at 5:55 pm | Permalink | Reply

   Sweet Holy GabeN, this would be wonderful. I’m tearing up a little imagining this happening.

4. tinman_au
   Posted 17/01/2013 at 5:57 pm | Permalink | Reply

   Good stuff, nice to see adults can finally get games that aren’t a Fisher Price version…

5. OneWholeInternets
   Posted 17/01/2013 at 6:24 pm | Permalink | Reply

   I only bought this like 2 weeks ago in the steam sales for $10.

   And the gore patch no longer works ;(

   Hopefully they will release an official patch

6. Endjin
   Posted 17/01/2013 at 9:38 pm | Permalink | Reply

   I still haven’t bought this game since release, due to the ridiculous low gore version released in Australia. If it’s released again with full gore I will buy it.

7. Goddy
   Posted 18/01/2013 at 4:58 am | Permalink | Reply

   I would laugh if they resubmitted the game for classification only for the board to give it MA….

8. Paul Thompson
   Posted 18/01/2013 at 8:20 am | Permalink | Reply

   Me and my brother use this as our ‘go to’ game whenever we have finished any other coop games. It is a brilliant game, with a lot of replayability.

   Making it so that we Australians can enjoy the game as it was originally intended and designed to be played will just make it even more fun to go back to for yet another playthrough.

   Also, I know that Gabe gets a lot of grief in some circles. But Valve are a company that gets a lot more right than it gets wrong, and Steam is an example of visionary thinking implemented well. All hail the Gaben indeed.

9. Woolfe
   Posted 18/01/2013 at 10:21 am | Permalink | Reply

   We actually play more L4D than L4D2. L4D2 is still good even without the gore. Its quite amusing when you get the beheading zombies achievement, but weren’t even aware thats what you were doing :-)

10. Stephen H
    Posted 18/01/2013 at 11:10 am | Permalink | Reply

    I have L4D2 in my Steam library, but haven’t yet played it (<—sucker for Steam sales). It would be nice to see the full game as it was written, but one wonders whether it'll be updated for people who already own it or if Valve might play the same tricks as many game publishers and release the gore as paid DLC.

    • Quiet Observer
      Posted 18/01/2013 at 5:13 pm | Permalink | Reply

      I was concerned about this too, Stephen. I flat-out refused to purchase the censored edition of L4D2 on principle – I would hate to see people who purchased this version miss out, or have to pay extra to get the uncensored version.

11. richard
    Posted 18/01/2013 at 11:27 am | Permalink | Reply

    When did Peter Griffin start working at Valve?

    • Master T
      Posted 18/01/2013 at 1:45 pm | Permalink | Reply

      LOL.

      Lost it.

12. James
    Posted 18/01/2013 at 1:07 pm | Permalink | Reply

    I hope the R18+ version is worth the weight!

13. Ned Kelly
    Posted 20/01/2013 at 4:02 am | Permalink | Reply

    I had a friend “gift” me a copy from another country (England) and it didn’t have any content removed…(full gore) a while.

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