After almost a decade since the game's release on Mac, Valve's iconic co-op zombie shooter "Left 4 Dead 2" has just got a huge update thanks to new content pack "The Last Stand."
It has been many years since the infection first hit. Radio silence, no sign of life, nothing but lingering hopes... CEDA is not going to save us. But there is hope! A few brave souls have continued the fight against all odds, and soon we can all benefit from their resilience.
Created by the L4D2 community and officially endorsed by Valve, the update includes over 1,000 changes to the game, including 26 new survival maps, new weapons, new enemy types, new animations, and unused dialogue. There are also several new achievements, many bug fixes and a handful of user interface enhancements to make the game feel fresh again.
The only downside to today's development for old-school gaming fans is the dawning realization that "Left 4 Dead 2" for Mac remains a 32-bit game, which means it's currently incompatible with macOS 10.15 Catalina and later, and the chances that Valve will update the title to 64-bit anytime soon don't look great. (Aspyr, it's worth noting, stopped selling 32-bit Mac games last year.)
If your Mac is still running macOS 10.14 Mojave or older, then you won't have a problem playing 32-bit games like "Left 4 Dead 2." For everyone else, Valve suggests a couple of remaining options:
- After upgrading to macOS 10.15 Catalina, consider installing macOS 10.14 Mojave on a separate APFS volume on your computer along with Steam. This will allow you to flip over to macOS 10.14 on restart of your computer where you can continue to play all of your 32-bit Mac games. More information here.
- Use Bootcamp on Mac to launch your games in Windows on your Mac computer. More information about Bootcamp can be found here.
It bears repeating that Boot Camp will not be supported on forthcoming Apple Silicon-based Macs and likely never will, with Apple preferring to emphasize virtualization going forward. Ultimately though, the hope is that the performance gains of Apple Silicon will prompt developers to make triple-A games native for Mac.
Find your friends, dust off your guns, and face the zombie horde one last time in The Last Stand Update, a massive Left 4 Dead 2 update built by the community. Left 4 Dead 2 is also FREE this weekend starting right now, and on sale for 80% off! https://t.co/mwhl6NIZCC pic.twitter.com/U0waG0NiQT — Valve (@valvesoftware) September 24, 2020
As a launch promotion, Valve has made "Left 4 Dead 2" free to play for the duration of the weekend, and for anyone who wants to keep playing beyond Sunday, the game is available for just $2 on Steam.
