SpawnPoint - Where Game Begins

This sequel will feature four new characters across five new campaigns set in New Orleans. Versus and Survival mode play will be supported for all of the maps on release, along with a new unannounced game mode.

Release Date: November 17th 2009.
Platforms: PC and Xbox 360.

Survivors (Nothing confirmed):

Nick - White male in the late 30's/early 40's.
Coach - "Largely built" middle aged black male.
Ellis - Young white male, early 20's.
Rochelle - Young black female in mid 20's.

Infected:

Hunter - Same as L4D.
Smoker - Same as L4D.
Boomer - Same as L4D.
Spitter - Ugly old female zombie that can spit a fiery substance. This will set fire to an area of ground for 5-10 seconds. (Created primarily to seperate the survivors, preventing "hole-ups").
Charger - New special infected that can be described in one word: Bull. This infected is powerfully built and can charge at fast speed into survivors sending them flying.
??? - A third new special infected confirmed. No details announced as of yet.
Tank - Same as L4D.
Witch - Same as L4D.

AI Improvements

The AI director has had many improvements since Left 4 Dead. Most notably, the "path" you go to complete a level can change entirely depending on how well the team is doing in general. If a team is playing poorly, the level will be set out in a more direct straight path, but teams which are playing like pro's will find themselves taking detours left right and centre.

The same applies to items. The better the team is playing, the more spread out and hidden pick-up items will be (pain pills, molotovs e.t.c).

Major Gameplay Changes

Incendiary Ammo. This new item pick-up will make all your bullets set fire to targets, burning for extra damage on special infected, or outright instant killing regular infected. The item pick-up will give you a certain amount of incendiary rounds. (Unconfirmed that you will have the choice to switch ammo at the press of a button.)

Melee Weapons introduced. These include:
Chainsaw, Axe, Baseball Bat, Cricket Bat, Frying Pan. Possibly one or two more.

Body placement and damage has been massively improved to work with the above melee weapons. In other words, swing an axe into the arm of a zombie, and the arm will be cut off, but wont kill a zombie. Chainsawing off a leg will greatly reduce movement speed e.t.c

Finales are back, with a twist. Most finales and mini-finales are now set up so that you have to keep moving until you reach a certain point, meaning you can no longer hole up until you defeat the horde as it doesnt stop until you reach the goal area.

Fixed gun locations have also been altered. Mounted guns are now more powerful, yet it comes at the price of having limited ammo (unconfirmed that the difficulty of the level and the success of the team will cause the amount of ammo to differ).

Uncommon common's have been introduced. These aren't special boss infected, yet they arent plain old regular zombies. These are level-specific zombies that have some kind of offensive or defensive skill. Their appearances are dependant on the map being played, and the current location within the map. (Much like the hospital patient zombies from L4D's No Mercy Campaign's 4th Level.)

Security Guard Zombie:
This uncommon common wears protective clothing on the front and bullets are only effective from the sides or behind.

Swamp Mud-Zombies:
This is a zombie that appears only in the swamp campaign. It sneaks underwater and only reveals itself when close to a survivor. Its regular attack (same damage as normal zombies) covers the survivors screen with mud, bit by bit. After a few hits the entire screen will be covered blinding the player, as with Boomer vomit.

? Unnamed fire-retardant Zombie:
This confirmed zombie wears fire retardant attire that simply makes them completely resistance to fire damage.

Weaponry
Confirmed to be 20+ new weapons and items.
New weapons include all the melee weapons shown above, and more variants of weapons already used. The six guns from left 4 dead will all be there. Confirmed additions are the AK-47 and a Grenade Launcher ( :D ).


As more news is released, I will update this thread.
Feel free to correct me on any mistakes, or fill in any blanks that I have missed.

not even a year. a year in november when the new one is suppose to be out.

Well, when they finished Left 4 Dead, and I mean the instant they finished, they had loads of ideas that they just couldnt implement due to whatever reasons. They started creating L4D2 straight away implementing all these ideas, which is why they already have a practically finished version of the game.

Quote from Undisciplined:

which is exactly my point.

thats just not fair to consumers...some might have just bought L4D 1 when the heard about L4D 2, and they think, what the crap, valve?!

that also means that many servers will be shutting down and moving on to numbortoo, which, again, isnt fair to the average consumer (and could turn many of said consumers off towards valve).

good ideas or not, im usually behind valve 100%, but they're making a grave mistake here, in my oh-so-humble-opinion.

you got da touch! you got da powah!

Even if it makes alot of people *grumble* towards valve, end of the day, it will be a very awesome game without doubt. That alone will make everyone buy it, angry or not.