My apologies for the delay in posting for those of you dedicated fans who still check this website, I’ve been hesitant to post yet another dissapointing, media-less post for you to read, tut your heads and wonder what on earth is going on.

Don’t worry! Behind the scenes our keyboards and mice are still tapping away trying to bring Raccoon City to YOU! What do we have planned? Well.

First Of all. Have you noticed how incredibly similiar Raccoon City looks to NoMercy? Its uncanny! Raccoon City is a lovely place, filled with ornate buildings and structures, yet there are only so many times we can use l4d urban building textures! Its also raining! Well we DID say the city is raining blood, but this is not the reason, the lack of atmosphere pushed me into a func_precipitation nightmare, In which I’ve very lazyily added the rain, simply because It was BORING.

The lack of atmosphere was a problem, and this too is being upgraded, new skybox, no rain, Newer textures and buckets of models to create an authentic Raccoon City look. Even creepy sound effects, crows, howling wind and the sound of Raccoon city slowing burning to the ground.

Secondly:

We’ve put about a weeks worth of work into the RPD to get it looking totally even more awesome for this new trailer we are going on about. It’s looking even more perfect each time we add something to it.We think you will really enjoy the updated look.

Thirdly:

Our Sewers are about at a closing point, We too will be showing this wonderful place off to you soon, and YOU HAVE EVERY RIGHT TO BE EXCITED ABOUT IT! Capcom Did not do a faithful re-creation of the Sewers in Darkside chronicles, they missed out our favourite parts, and butchered others. Have you always wanted to see that underground cave / canyon with the cable car in 3D? Of course! It’s still in development, but You will be spending some time there while you wait for something…After all Leon and Claire used it, so unfortunatley, its all the way over the other side! Track through the marshalling yard and find your way to the factory, which we are also working on a new skybox for, we cant go on using no mercy houses for ever

Fourthly:

We are having fun testing the finale for the campaign too. Its no secret as to where it is, if its not in a trainstation I would expect RAGE, so It is, but what you have to do, and how and why will force teams to come up with a good strategy and also offer a bit of a mixed up play for VS.

Finally:

There is more on the way, I believe a newer artistic render of the campaign poster is being developed, and also some excessive amount of time spent in ZBrush, by one of our team members,  for hmm…Well Lets find out later shall we? We also have some more sounds in the mix and hope to get those included into the trailer, or simply for you to listen to.

So keep faith, we might not talk a lot about it, more makey, less talkey. We are trying to get a faithfull RE-creation of a beloved city and bring it to you as soon as we can! As always, If you think you can help out in anyway, don’t hesitate to send us an email on the Join us page!

Thanks for reading!

Our Festive update for the campaign might be a little late, but just a reminder to check back with us in the following weeks for some new screenshots, we are also planning a newer trailer for the campaign which will make full use of our custom soundtrack and show more gameplay footage and areas than the last, look for this in the new year.

Happy holidays from the team, and a happy new year!

My apologies for the lack of news recently, I had been out of contact for more than a week and today checked back through any l4d news that I had missed out on. There still is no SDK for L4D2 so we cannot make a choice of what engine it will run under, and it’s a difficult one to make to consider what things we have managed to fit into l4d1 and now will have to be included in l4d2 as well as this so called “addon update” which will allow weapon models, zombie skins and “survivors”.

It’s clear that ever since the announcement of the project, we’ve been asked to replace zoey with Claire, replace francis with leon etc etc. Now, if this turns out to be true, (L4Dmods first reported the story, but no word from valve) Then I’m sure we might have a lot more work to do.

For example, the source claims
//Provides a new common infected model

This was possible in L4D1, with a change to the population txt file in the VPK. We planned for Brad Vicars, Robert Kendo, and Hunks Delta Team in the sewers to appear as our own uncommon common, each perhaps dropping a new weapon or say - machine gun for hunks team.
We also have a licker model, this is completed and is undergoing texture work, however the plan for this has always been more of a prop, but we have been experimenting giving him a skeleton similiar to the L4D2 mudmen that crawl along the floor. If we HAD the L4D2SDK we could give this Licker more health and change other values etc that would make him more realistic. We had managed to create a spider a few months back for the sewers which calls a horde if you are biled on by it, this was purely entity work, and perhaps we can make him better with l4d2.

The source also claims
//Provides a new boss infected model.
This is still unclear if we could also provide a new animation for the boss infected and how would the director handle them? The director has no problem spawning uncommon zombies as its all in the navigation file. But with no word from Valve yet, we cant decide on a re-occuring William Birkin Styled creature.

The final question is: What does this do to our storyline?

We had planned for the survivors to start outside the burning truck wreckage, with no idea how they get there, no way to set the scene for the introduction, no method of supplying purpose to get to the RPD. If we CAN have new survivors, we COULD have new voices to say “come to the police station, it will be a lot safer” or something. I had the chance to play the darkside chronicles for Wii too, and see a more modern adaption of the re2 storyline, which was fun. The problem I found was starting on the street outside a burning wreckage, meant this was considered a safe area, and zombie population was marked out in the navigation mesh so the streets was empty, so players are not attacked by zombies entering the safe zone, the problem is that it is not a fearful entry to the campaign. We put our heads together and came up with a new idea.

For Left4Dead 2, The one thing that is different is that the helipad that they are stranded on is a smaller division building of the RPD, labled RIB (Raccoon Investigation Bureau) - A building dedicated to more forensic work for Raccoon City, as the RPD is lacking rooms which a police force might require for a large city. The survivors were once locked in the containment cells of the building for charges of assaulting a police officer, who was infected, however the current state of Raccoon City is that no-one believed that ‘zombies’ were actually real, no one had believed Jill or Chris. Soon after the outbreak they escape from the Jail and end up waiting for Evac on the roof. We have the survivors start out in a completley different area, They are awaiting ontop of a helipad with a radio for rescue, During the introduction sequence (camera flyover) the chopper can be heard taking damage and going down, in the distance a truck is seen passing on the highway heading for the Texaco gas station. The survivors head towards it in hope of rescue.

So this adds another map into the equation, which the RIB has been built and is undergoing detail work at the present moment. What IS exciting, is that the RIB is a clone of the ORIGINAL RPD from resident evil 1.5
So finally, fans of Resident evil can walk around in a familiar, yet unexplored building. If you do not know what Resident evil 1.5 is, go here http://www.bioflames.com
We don’t normally show very uncompleted areas,especially crappy lit ones, but you should recognize the area if you are a 1.5 fan.

So, for now anyway, we will continue on some of the more slower, detailing work, but there isnt any major things we can do right now without the SDK.

However, to keep you interested:

If you recall back in August, we posted saying that we had great news that would make the campaign trueley ground breaking and stand out from every other campaign? Well, since you have been patient, The Campaign has multiple endings, so depending on how good you do, will give you more challenges in the next map, and if you are REALLY REALLY good you get the special ending which serves as an extended finale map which fires a countdown timer to the labs.

Reason 1 for playing this campaign : Its awesome
Reason 2 for the campaign: Replayability with random routes and the desire to unlock the special ending keeps you playing again and again and again!