The Making Of. Left 4 Dead

Chet Faliszek knows more about the living dead than is healthy. In October 2008, a month before the launch of Valve’s zombie-horror game Left 4 Dead, the writer was standing in a supermarket ice-cream aisle when a girl came running over and enlisted his help in settling an argument with her boyfriend. “Hey, mister,” she asked without a flicker of embarrassment. “Can zombies swim or not?” Faliszek, Valve’s resident undead expert, stroked his beard and offered an extensive insight into the aquatic abilities of ambulatory corpses. “She was horrified by the depth and detail of my answer,” he laughs.

Everyone gets zombies: they’re dead or infected, they shamble or charge, and they want to eat your brains. Human nature is rather more slippery. When the L4D team began running external playtests for its horror shooter, it was shocked by what players got up to. “It was kind of like watching a lab rat experiment,” recalls Mike Booth, then CEO of Turtle Rock Studios, where L4D originated. “Some people would declare themselves the leader and bark instructions, whether they were qualified to or not. Other guys just wanted to help out and make sure everyone had health kits. A few would just wait for the moment to stab you in the back.”

Ask Valve staff about their favourite playtest moments and the stories come thick and fast. There were the LAPD cops who arrived in full-on bravado mode and were instantly turned into zombie chow. Then there was the time when four newbies spawned on the rooftop at the beginning of the No Mercy map and turned into lemmings.

“The first one just jumps off the roof and ledge hangs,” remembers Faliszek. “The other three just inexplicably followed him. Why they would do that, I don’t know. I think they thought the first one knew what they were doing so they followed. We decided to call that an outlying data point and just hoped it never happened again!”

Perhaps the most illuminating anecdote, though, is the one about the kid who brought his dad to play alongside two Counter-Strike pros. As the father failed badly, the kid began ignoring him – but the veterans ushered him through. “They protected him – they went back for him when he trailed behind,” remembers Faliszek. “In return, he was able to help them up when they were incapacitated. Watching that interaction between strangers and realising that it could happen in the game was one of those moments like: ‘OK, this is going to work. We’ve really got something here’.”

Just like in the best zombie movies, the real drama in L4D lies in the relationships between the living, not the dead. The infected are just a pretext for collapsing the social order and forcing people to depend on one another to survive. It’s the ultimate online co-op experience, a game that requires not just headshot skills but communication, collaboration and confidence in your fellow player.

L4D began in the offices of Turtle Rock Studios in 2004, just after Valve’s favourite Orange County developers had shipped Counter-Strike: Condition Zero. Terror Strike was a B-movie horror mod that saw a team of counter terrorists planting zombie bait on a night version of the CS: Italy map, then fending off an overwhelming horde of living dead. It was an incredibly intense experience.

When Booth showed the prototype to Faliszek and Erik Wolpaw, the Valve staffers couldn’t stop playing it. Big deadheads, who’d worked on an unrealised online text game called Zombie World in the ’90s, they instantly saw the appeal. “It captured the thing we always loved about the zombies,” says Faliszek. “It’s you and your buddies – its co-op, it’s social, you’re hanging out laughing and having fun and these horrible things are happening and coming at you.”

Although cut from the finished game, the Screamer lives on: his horde-attracting abilities evolved into the Boomer’s vomit attack, while his ear-piercing vocals are used to announce each horde wave during the finale events.

By that afternoon, Valve’s CEO Gabe Newell had heard about the prototype and offered Booth the assistance of Faliszek and Wolpaw in developing it further. It was a brilliant piece of co-op matchmaking, Turtle Rock’s formidable AI skills combining with Valve’s passion for storytelling (Valve eventually acquired Turtle Rock in January 2008). Together, the two studios proceeded to thrash out where to take the prototype. “We realised we had this nugget of gameplay where a small co-operative group had to deal with hundreds of melee monsters,” explains Booth, a veteran programmer with a passion for AI systems.

“We wanted certain things to happen at certain places, sort of the traditional scripting methods of having dramatic experiences. But we immediately ran into the fact that players are smart and they memorise all that stuff. We’d come from the background of Counter-Strike and we wanted to create something that was infinitely replayable.”

What they set out to do over the next few years of constant playtesting and iteration was blend two seemingly opposed objectives: emergent, co-op gameplay and a dramatic interactive experience that would mimic the peaks and trough of a horror movie. Much like the living-yet-dead zombies, it seemed like an impossible mash-up. But if the dead could walk, was it possible to make a game that was emergent and yet structured at the same time?

No one forgets their first horde. They run towards you screeching like birds of prey, eyes flashing hatred, limbs flailing and teeth bared. “One of my favourite reactions, when people play L4D for the first time, is when they see that mob running at them from a distance,” laughs Booth. “They’re like: ‘Oh my, here they come. Oh, oh, oh… OH MY GOD!’” It’s hard to believe, then, that L4D only ever has 30 zombies in the world at any one time. The game’s procedural population system constantly adds and removes them behind your back to give the illusion of thousands of living dead.

Pulling the strings behind the scenes is the AI Director, an artificial intelligence system that’s responsible for creating the highs and lows of the in-game drama. By controlling where and when zombies, mobs and special infected spawn, and by guiding the audio cues and weapon/item drops, the AI Director can modulate how the game responds to players’ actions and abilities. “We needed to make sure that certain tempos and pacing happened on a regular basis to keep people’s excitement and attention going,” explains Booth. “For L4D that was basically just me and some C++ code making that happen. In L4D2 we generalised it into a larger tools framework.”

This is how technologists approach the art of drama, a technique that marks the gulf between storytelling in games as opposed to more traditional linear media. Monitoring players’ actions and emotional responses – how agitated they seem, how accurate their shooting is, how well they are co-operating – the AI Director is able to form a strategy to respond to their experience. Forget Hollywood’s three-act structure, this is something much more dynamic and flexible.

In fact, L4D could be the videogame equivalent of hooking up a horror movie audience to ECG machines and letting a filmmaker adjust scenes on the fly to drive them to the brink of a heart attack, then calm them down before unleashing the next onslaught. Imagine if Alfred Hitchcock – or better yet, schlockmeister William Castle, the canny, carny genius behind gimmicks like the vibrating auditorium seats that accompanied 1959’s The Tingler – had access to that kind of interactive, realtime audience feedback.

The genius of L4D was that it took emergent narrative to the next level. No surprise, then, to discover that Valve’s in-house psychologist Mike Ambinder has since been experimenting with new ways to tailor gameplay to players’ emotional responses: monitoring facial expressions, testing alternative control methods (eyeball aiming, for instance) and developing techniques to measure players’ physiological signals. In years to come, L4D may mark the beginnings of the ultimate horror videogame: one that uses biofeedback to delve into your subconscious and scare you witless.Horror films were big in the Valve office.

“One of the goals of L4D’s art direction, from day one, was to try and capture the feel of a horror movie,” explains art director Randy Lundeen. “We ended up using a whole set of cinematic effects for our visual formula – colour-correction, film grain, vignette and local contrast. We also relied heavily on lighting to create a sense of an abandoned post-apocalyptic setting.”

The chief inspiration was 28 Days Later. “That movie did such a great job of creating a creepy post-apocalyptic setting,” Lundeen continues. “Their environments gave such a detailed background of the events happening outside of the main plot – abandoned vehicles, notes left by survivors, survivor holdout areas. We loved the idea that the setting could tell the story of what had happened before the players arrived.”

Like the rest of L4D, the survivors went through a variety of iterations. “With the first set of designs, all three male characters looked like they came from the same place and could hang out at a bar,” explain modeller Miles Estes. One of the biggest changes was Louis, who morphed from a hirsute, religious nutjob into a nine-to-five office worker based on a buddy Faliszek and Wolpaw had back home in Cleveland. “I remember helping him move house,” says Faliszek. “He dropped something, ruined it and still made a joke about it. That’s the perfect guy you want in the zombie apocalypse.”

One of L4D’s best horror techniques is its clever use of anticipation, the sobbing of an unseen Witch, or the screech of a nearby Hunter scaring you before the monsters even appear. Yet for many players, the game’s most terrifying enemies aren’t the special infected but the zombie masses, the wanderers that populate each map. Lying around, leaning against walls and vomiting, the ghouls initially appear harmless. “It’s easy to identify with the zombies and say: ‘Oh, they could be me’,” explains Booth, who cites fears over a potential bird-flu pandemic in 2005 as an inspiration.

“We kind of pushed on that with the wandering infected, how they stumble around and vomit and just look like they’re having the worst flu ever. We wanted that combination of pity and ‘it could be me’ with ‘this is horrible’ and then ‘Oh my God, here they come, we have to survive’.” Indeed, German censors were so appalled by the juxtaposition that they ordered the ‘passive’ animations cut. If a German player joins your online session, the zombies will stop lying down. They’ll still try to kill you, though.

Ask Valve staff what they were most afraid of during the years the game was in development and the answer isn’t zombies, or Boomers or even the Witch. It’s the real-life players for whom they designed the experience. Back in 2005, online co-op was still such a new game mode that nobody was certain L4D would survive its encounter with the unpredictability of human behaviour. While the AI Director crafted the drama with scientific precision, it amounted to little if the game didn’t encourage its players to invest in the fiction.

“We had no idea whether in the wild random people would go out of their way to let somebody out of a closet [the chosen respawn point for dead players in campaign mode],” admits Booth. “We really pushed the design of the game so that you wanted to have that extra gun and it worked.”

In playtests, Counter-Strike veterans often found it hard to adapt to the game’s strategies for forcing co-operation. “They would ignore their team and run off with just a pistol – ‘I’m going to do the Rambo thing’,” Faliszek groans. Of course, they were quickly pounced on by a Hunter, something that underlined the role of the Special Infected in promoting group cohesion. Boomers, Smokers, Hunters, the Witch and the Tank were all designed to break up the group – thereby forcing players to stick together more.

Cohesion was so important that when ideas were floated about the possibility of dead players joining the horde, the developers decided against it. “It’s in the zombie canon: don’t get bit or you’ll turn,” says Booth. “Honestly, there is a lot of really interesting gameplay fodder there. Like, if you knew you had been bitten and you’re going to turn in five minutes, do you tell your team yet or not? Frankly, though, that’s a different game.” Faliszek agrees: “It’s like in Team Fortress when you get team swap at a bad time and you get mad. We really wanted the survivors always to know that the person on their team was going to have their backs; they were working for them, working with them.”

When the game was released in November 2008, the impact of the co-op approach was quickly felt. One surprise was the unprecedented number of female players who ventured into the traditionally testosterone-soaked world of the online shooter. “I think it’s one of the first games where you’re not just playing but being social, and helping each other in a very direct way that is meaningful,” Booth suggests, then adds with a chuckle: “I’m proud that we’ve prepared future generations for a zombie apocalypse.”

Read more from Edge here. Or take advantage of our subscription offers for print and digital editions.

Sign up to the GamesRadar+ Newsletter

Weekly digests, tales from the communities you love, and more

By submitting your information you agree to the Terms & Conditions and Privacy Policy and are aged 16 or over.

NPCs

An army chopper takes off from Mercy Hospital’s roof.

Among the characters involved with the Left 4 Dead series are a number of Non-Playable Characters that help—or, in some cases, hinder—the Survivors along the way. Often, they are either a roadblock forcing a Crescendo Event or they are a “good Samaritan” providing the Survivors with a ride to safety. Some of these characters become Infected (such as the Church Guy), are killed (such as the News Chopper 5 pilot), can be presumed dead as they are never seen again (such as the C-130 plane pilot), or continue to survive the apocalypse (such as Virgil and Whitaker).

Contents

• 1 In-Game characters
  • 1.1 The Church Guy
    • 1.1.1 Notes
    • 1.2.1 Notes
    • 1.3.1 Crashing Plane
    • 1.3.2 Leaving Choppers
    • 1.3.3 Unknown Bus Driver
    • 1.3.4 Military Jets
    • 1.4.1 News Chopper 5 Pilot
    • 1.4.2 John and Amanda Slater
    • 1.4.3 C-130 Cargo Plane Pilot
    • 1.4.4 Rescue 9
    • 1.4.5 Chopper Pilot at the amusement park
    • 1.4.6 Virgil
    • 1.4.7 Papa Gator and Rescue 7
    • 1.5.1 Military bombing from Cold Stream
    • 1.5.2 Chopper Pilot from Cold Stream
    • 1.5.3 Plane crash during The Last Stand
    • 1.5.4 John Doe
      • 1.5.4.1 Notes
      • 1.6.1 Crazy Ron
      • 1.6.2 Rescue 2
      • 2.1 Keith
      • 2.2 Jacob
      • 2.3 Distant Survivors
      • 2.4 Chicago Ted
      • 2.5 The Midnight Riders
      • 2.6 Angels of Death
      • 3.1 Ray
      • 3.2 Wade and Carolyn
      • 3.3 Sandra
      • 3.4 Duke, Danny and Francis’ gang
      • 3.5 Major Everly
      • 3.6 Lt. Mora
      • 3.7 Sergeant Downey
      • 3.8 Sergeant Hendricks and his team (Brooks, Davis and Peña)
      • 3.9 Jeff and Annie
      • 3.10 The Doctor
      • 3.11 Rivera
      • 3.12 Jim and Nate
      • 3.13 Other Soldiers at Millhaven

      In-Game characters

      These characters are encountered within both the PC and Xbox 360 versions of the Left 4 Dead series.

      The Church Guy

      The Church Guy is a mentally unstable man who is never actually seen until he turns Infected, found in chapter three of the Death Toll campaign, The Church. He is afraid of the Infection, locking himself in the safe room that the Survivors must reach. It is later revealed that he was bitten by a Survivor who claimed to be immune, yet became an Infected; as a result, he suffers from extreme paranoia of Survivors, coupled with the growing insanity caused by the Infection. After waiting for an hour, he assumes that he is immune. Ultimately, it turns out the Church Guy isn’t immune after all; he will change into either a Hunter, Smoker, or Boomer.

      He repeatedly says “Better safe than sorry”, and causes a Crescendo Event where he rings the church bell to attract a Horde to kill the Survivors, apparently viewing this as a way for them to “prove their immunity/humanity”. After the event, the safe room door can be opened and a Special Infected will emerge, providing a conclusion to his change. The Infected he will change into can be foretold by listening to the Church Guy starting to growl (Hunter), cough (Smoker), or gurgle (Boomer) before the door is opened. After opening the door and ascending to the second floor of the safe room, the Survivors can see that the Church Guy has written his motto all over a wall, over 180 times.

      The Church Guy is voiced by Nathan Vetterlein, who also voiced the Scout from Valve’s Team Fortress 2.

      The Church Guy’s audio clips can be heard here.

      • No, no, no, no, no! No, no! You said that last time! You said that last time! I trusted you last time!
      • Really? Only when you can prove you’re immune. And I know just how to do it.
      • Only when I know you’re human.
      • Get ready for the test.
      • I’m the one who decides who gets through this door!
      • I, I opened the door before and I got bit for my trouble. No. Better safe than sorry! Better safe than sorry!
      • Do you think I care how old you are? No!
      • You think you’re special? With your, with your, with your leather jackets and your fancy blood?
      • Nobody rides for free!
      • Ding dong!
      • I am not a mental moron!
      • Can you really?
      • You don’t sound like cops!
      • Your words mean shit to me!
      • Trying to intimidate me? Didn’t help!
      • Well, you’ll have to be alive to do that.
      • I’m not letting you in until I am sure you’re immune!
      • Not infected? NOT INFECTED?! Prove it!
      • Ding dong! Ding dong! Dinner’s served! COME AND GET IT!
      • No, no, no one gets in here until I know you’re immune.
      • I’m gonna ring this bell! I’m gonna ring the bell! And they’ll come and they’ll finish the job!
      • No! No! My safehouse! I’ve got the bell! You stay the hell out! My safehouse!
      • Come here! No! No, stay out!
      • Slide your guns under the door!
      • No! Go away! Better safe than sorry!
      • Better safe than sorry! Better safe than sorry!
      • No one gets in!
      • Go away! No one gets in!
      • I can make you leave! Don’t believe me?! HOW ABOUT NOW?!
      • Better safe than..(Growling), better safe than. better safe than.. (Growling).
      • Better safe than. (Growling)
      • (Coughing and growling)
      • (Growling)
      • (Panting)
      • I trusted you. You said you were immune. You said you were immune! That’s.
      • Better safe than sorry, better safe than sorry.
      • (Panting) I can’t believe he bit me! I never should’ve let him in. Won’t fool me twice. I can’t believe he bit me.
      • I can’t believe he bit me. That’s.
      • Better safe than sorry. No. No matter how human they look. won’t be fooled twice.
      • It’s been an hour. It’s been an hour! Must be immune. That’s right! (Panting) No, I have to. I have to be immune.
      • Better safe than sorry, better safe than sorry, better safe than sorry, better safe than sorry, better. better safe than sorry.
      • Who’s there?
      • Is someone there?
      • Don’t make me use this bell!
      • I’ve got a bell in here!
      • I’m gonna start ringing this church bell if you don’t say something!
      • What’s going on out there?!
      • I can hear you out there!
      • I heard that!
      • Better safe than *bleurghhh*. better saaaafe tha- *gulp* *bleurghhhhh*

      Notes

      • Despite ongoing rumors and popular belief of a slim chance of it occurring, he will never turn into a Tank after the Crescendo Event. According to the left4dead/scripts/population.txt file, it appears that there is a 50% chance of a Boomer appearing, and 25% each of either a Smoker or a Hunter appearing. No mention of the Tank or the Witch are included in this file, making it clear that there is no chance of the Church Guy becoming a Tank unless there is a server-side mod in use. He will also never transform into a Witch, as Witches are only created from women. Alteration of the population.txt file to force the Church Guy to transform into a Tank or a Witch can create very strange results, thus verifying the fact that the Church Guy will never spawn as a Tank or Witch.
        • On the Left 4 Dead 2 port of Death Toll, he will not turn into a Jockey, a Charger or a Spitter either. Before The Last Stand update, he turned into the L4D2 renditions of the of the Boomer/Hunter/Smoker, but now he turns into the L4D1 renditions.

        Whitaker

        Whitaker as seen in a Valve advertisement.

        “Now I’ve barricaded myself on the roof with ample provisions… but in my haste, I forgot cola!” ―Whitaker

        Whitaker is a 60-year-old survivor [2] who owns a gun store located in front of Liberty Mall in the Dead Center campaign. By the time the Survivors arrive at his gun store, he has already barricaded himself “on the roof” with large amounts of ammunition and provisions.

        When the Survivors enter his store, he is contacted over an intercom and offers to clear a roadblock that is preventing The Survivors from reaching the mall, on the condition that they go to the nearby Save 4 Less supermarket and fetch him a six-pack of Cola. A Crescendo Event is triggered when the Survivors enter the supermarket and set off the burglar alarm. Once the cola has been deposited in the delivery tray in his safe room door, Whitaker launches a missile at a flammable truck near the roadblock, destroying it and allowing the Survivors to continue to the mall. Whitaker’s final fate is unknown though due to his large arsenal and due to being fortified, he probably survived until at least his supplies ran out.

        • Well, hello there. Why don’t you grab yourselves some of my guns and come on upstairs. I got something you can help me with.
        • Hello there. My name’s Whitaker. I own this establishment. Take anything you need and come on upstairs when you’re done.
        • There ain’t much time. Grab yourselves a gun and come upstairs, I’ll explain on the way.
        • Well, now. This might just work out after all.
          • Help yourself to the weapons. Take anything you need.
            • I’m in a bit of a quandary, you see, and I suspect you’re just the people to help me out of it.
              • Come on upstairs when you’re done.
              • Take anything you need. I’m in a bit of a quandary, you see, and.
                • Get your hands off my store you sonofabitch.
                  • and I suspect you’re just the people to help me out of it.
                    • Come on upstairs when you’re done.
                    • But you happen to have caught me at an opportune time.
                      • Take what weapons you need and come on upstairs. I reckon we can come to an accordance.
                      • Now, normally when four bloodstained looters break into my store, I would shoot them where they stand.
                        • But you happen to have caught me at.
                          • get your hands off my store.
                            • caught me at an opportune time.
                              • Take what weapons you need and come on upstairs. I reckon.
                                • Climb that, you green-skinned sonofabitch.
                                  • reckon we can come to an accordance.
                                  • I’m guessing you four’d be heading to the mall for rescue.
                                    • And I further guess you won’t get there, as the road is blocked.
                                      • I know because I watched CEDA block it.
                                        • So here’s what I propose.
                                        • I also guess you’re gonna have a hell of time doing it, seeing as how those government fools blockaded the road getting there.
                                          • So here’s what I propose.
                                          • My name’s Whitaker. I own this gun shop.
                                            • I’m guessing you four’d be heading to the mall for rescue. I also know the road is blocked. But I can clear it for you, in exchange for you running over to the store next door and picking me up some colas.
                                              • I’m in need of some colas. You four run over there and procure some for me, and I’ll clear the roadblock to the mall. Because I’m that’s where you’re headed, and you ain’t getting there without my help.
                                              • But in my haste I forgot to pack cola.
                                              • But in my haste I forgot cola.
                                              • So the matter on the table is: do you four have the nuts to get me this cola?
                                              • I need cola and I won’t let you through the barricade until I get it.
                                                • Now go.

                                                Responses to Survivors

                                                • You could try. I own a LOT of guns, son.
                                                • Not only will I help you get to the mall, I’ll even throw in the guns you stole from me, free of charge.
                                                • I am a man of my word, sir. Procure my colas and I’ll clear a path to the mall for you. The guns are on the house.
                                                • Procure my colas and my help is guaranteed, sir. Consider the guns a generous donation to the cause.
                                                • I am not a man to weasel out of a deal. I’d shake on it with you, but there’s no way in hell I’m going back down there.
                                                • I been on this world sixty years, ma’am, and I’ve weaseled nothing from nobody. You got my word as a gentleman.
                                                • I’m a man of my word, ma’am. You got my word on that.
                                                • On my word as a gentleman I will do no screwing, sir. I’d come down there and shake on it, but I already welded the door shut.
                                                • Cola, ma’am. For my cola and nuts.
                                                • And how fortuitous that we do, else which you would have nothing to bargain with, and no way to the mall.
                                                • No, sir. Diet don’t get the right flavor. I better not see no cherry neither. It’s straight cola or no deal.
                                                • If they can be of service to you in your endeavor, please keep them.
                                                • Only your promise that you’ll put them to good use.
                                                • Only your promise that you’ll put them to good use. And, as I mentioned, the colas.
                                                • No thank you, ma’am. I have five restaurant-sized boxes of them up here.
                                                • Those ARE my terms, sir.
                                                • Then I’m willing to let you keep it, son. Hell, I’ll even cover you once you get outside.
                                                • Then it’s all yours, girl. Hell, I’ll even cover you once you get outside.
                                                • I like a woman who appreciates the subtle perfection of a well made firearm.
                                                • I didn’t realize you’d need this much preparation. Can I bring y’all a pillow and blankets while you sleep on it?
                                                • You folks best hurry before I change my mind.
                                                • Y’all don’t get moving, I might just rescind my generous offer. I got a hell of a view up here to watch y’all die.
                                                • Perhaps I should have mentioned this bein’ a limited time offer.
                                                • You folks wanna get a move on?
                                                • I’m getting mighty thirsty up here.
                                                • Any time now.
                                                • Throat. so dry. can’t think straight. must. rescind offer. to these lazy people.

                                                Supermarket door open, alarm on

                                                • There’s the alarm! Now go!
                                                • That’s the alarm! Move, now, move!
                                                • There’s the alarm! GO! I’ll cover you! (Unused)
                                                • I’ll cover you! Go get what I need! (Unused)
                                                • Come on now, move! I’ll help where I can! (Unused)
                                                • Back, you creatures! (Unused)
                                                • I’ll cover you! Go! (Unused)
                                                • Back, ya sons of bitches! Let ’em through! (Unused)
                                                • Remember the cola! Leave a man behind if you must, but get the cola!
                                                • Sacrifice yourselves if you have to! The cola is that important!
                                                • Leave the girl behind, just get the cola!
                                                • Leave the little fella, just get the cola!
                                                • Leave White Suit behind, just get the cola!
                                                • Forget the fat man, just get the cola!
                                                • Here they come!
                                                • Awww, hell. Here they come. It was nice knowin’ you.
                                                • Damn, that’s a lot of zombies. If they kill you, don’t worry! I don’t need the cola that bad!
                                                • Ohhh, hell. I regret this agreement already. What a waste of guns.

                                                Putting Cola in the slot

                                                • Put the cola in the slot.
                                                • You got the cola. Put it in the slot.
                                                • There’s my cola. Quick, put it in the slot.
                                                • Yeah, put it in the damn slot.
                                                • Hey, put the cola in the slot.
                                                • Put the cola in the slot, will ya?
                                                • Okay, that’s my cola. Yes, yes. Put it in the slot!
                                                • Thank you kindly. And to prove I’m a man of my word.
                                                • Thank you for that! Now, turn around. Y’all ever see a tanker explode?
                                                • Just a six-pack? I’ll go through that in a day! Ahh, hell. A deal’s a deal. Here y’are.
                                                • I’ll take you at your word that ain’t diet. Cover your ears, this might get loud.
                                                • Thank you, generous strangers! Let me get rid of that barricade for you.
                                                • Much obliged. Now go screw yourselves, I ain’t helpin’. [laughs] I just wanted to see the looks on your faces. Here you go.
                                                • Good luck now!
                                                • Best of luck! Take care of those guns!
                                                • Good luck to you.
                                                • Good luck to you, gang.
                                                • God watch over you.
                                                • Good luck gettin’ to that mall.

                                                Notes

                                                • Some players believe Whitaker may be using a rocket launcher or rocket-propelled grenade because it has a different sound effect from the Grenade Launcher featured in the game, and its projectile trails a line of smoke to its target.
                                                • Originally, Whitaker was supposed to provide covering fire to the Survivors during their trip to the supermarket (a concept reprised in The Passing Finale). [3]
                                                • Whittaker uses an “uninfected” version of the Fallen SurvivorUncommon Infected model. Considering he is stated to be 60 years old during the events of the game, the model is possibly a placeholder.
                                                • Whitaker is very similar to the character Andy from the 2004 film Dawn of the Dead. They are both apocalypse survivors who own barricaded gun stores and stayed on the roof but lack ‘important’ supplies (food for Andy, cola for Whitaker).

                                                In-game vehicle NPCs

                                                Crashing Plane

                                                The plane shortly before blowing up.

                                                At the beginning of Runway Finale, a civilian plane will try to land on the airport and crash, apparently leaving no survivors. Judging by the amateurish way the plane is turned before crashing, one can assume that it wasn’t the genuine work of an experienced pilot. It is likely that a zombie killed the pilots and crashed the plane.

                                                This plane is different from the others during Dead Air and The Swamp: it is blue with white stripes, while every single other plane is white and orange. It suggests that this plane belonged to another airline.

                                                It is worth to note that during the level the sound of the plane crashing does not draw Infected, but the sound of a fuel pump starting up will. This plot inconsistency never was addressed by Valve or the developers. However, this might be just for balancing reasons, since if such a large plane blew up, a horde that’s as large as it is would be attracted. Another theory is, a horde was indeed summoned by the loud noises but took some time to reach the area. While waiting for the plane to fuel up, the Infected finally caught up to the Survivors.

                                                Leaving Choppers

                                                At the beginning of The Hotel, a CH-53 Sea Stallion (the same type of chopper used by Papa Gator) can be seen leaving The Vannah hotel. It’s unconfirmed if Papa Gator and/or Rescue 7 themselves participated in this evacuation.

                                                The introduction of the game and the official TV spot show that, actually, there were other helicopters on nearby buildings leaving as well, suggesting more evacuations going on the town. It should be noted that the TV spot version of the scene is slightly different from the introduction, showing only two CH-53 while the introduction shows four.

                                                Unknown Bus Driver

                                                During The Underground, the tour bus of the Midnight Riders can be briefly seen driving around on an unreachable street. Judging by the graffiti throughout Dark Carnival, it is possible that this bus was transporting evacuated survivors to Whispering Oaks rather than the Midnight Riders themselves. More likely, it was taking the Midnight Riders to Whispering Oaks where they were evacuated by helicopter, the bus presumably making it before the car pile up caused by the Infection started.

                                                There is no way for the survivors to draw the attention of the bus; it’s unknown whether the occupants either don’t notice them or refuse to stop the bus and help. If any infected comes across the bus it will simply run over them. When the survivors spot the bus they comment that they may be “seeing things”, as if in disbelief.

                                                Left over in the games files are unused voice lines that reveal a Midnight Riders tour bus was once planned to be the escape vehicle in an earlier version of Dark Carnival. The tour bus in The Passing likely reuses assets from this early ending, though this is unconfirmed.

                                                Military Jets

                                                Numerous times during The Parish campaign, two F/A-18C Hornets military jets can be seen bombing buildings and streets of New Orleans, apparently trying to slow down the spreading of the Infection and/or kill the greatest number of infected as possible. Some dialogue of Rescue 7 also imply that they were looking for surviving carriers as well to order rescue, and that they are piloted by Rescue 7 members.

                                                The first time they are seen is at the very beginning of The Waterfront, which the Survivors will note and assume as a good signal that the military is still here. Their last known action is blowing up the Veterans Memorial Bridge.

                                                On the E3 2009 teaser, a third jet can be briefly seen, but only two will appear simultaneously during the game.

                                                Fighter jets are used presumably to leave as much potential survivors alive as possible with precise strikes, as carpet bombings with a bomber or using WMDs would put the military under great criticism even in a non-functional society. It would stand to reason that these were precision strikes on concentrations of infected to hold out the bridge for any last evacuees before blowing it up and determining what can be salvaged and if the city needs to be razed by bombers to stop the Infection from spreading.

                                                Evacuation Personnel

                                                During the finale of every campaign, other than Dead Center, The Passing, The Sacrifice, and Crash Course, a Survivor in a vehicle must arrive to rescue the four main characters from their evacuation point. These Survivors are never seen and have no active or dynamic role in gameplay. These Survivors include the helicopter pilot from No Mercy, the boat drivers (John and Amanda Slater) from Death Toll, the C-130 pilot from Dead Air, and the APC driver from Blood Harvest. In every case, players communicate with them via radio. In Blood Harvest, verbal exchanges between two military evacuation personnel are heard on the radio once the mic is keyed.

                                                Each rescuer has separate motives for rescuing the Survivors:

                                                • The helicopter pilot in No Mercy can appear to be affiliated with either the military or CEDA with a role of evacuating civilians to an unknown safe zone. However, since he flies the News Chopper 5, it can equally be assumed he was simply a former news pilot evacuating civilians out of good will. If this is the case, he was part of a fairly large news network considering there are advertising posters for the helicopter in The Subway.
                                                • John and Amanda Slater (owners of the Saint Lidia II) are civilians hoping to gain additional firepower as they escape from Riverside. John supposedly want them on the ship, but his conflicted opinions with Amanda presumably forced the survivors away.
                                                • The C-130 pilot appears to be stranded at the airport due to a lack of fuel, fearing leaving his plane and exposing himself to the Infected.
                                                • The APC driver in Blood Harvest, Lieutenant Mora, is a member of the U.S. military who was ordered to evacuate the Survivors to an unknown (but presumably the northern) safe zone.
                                                • The helicopter pilot in Dark Carnival is never directly contacted, but presumably looks for Survivors for the same reason as the News Chopper 5 pilot, out of good will.
                                                • Virgil is a boat owner who presumably picks up the Survivors out of a combination of kindness, potential loneliness, and expediency based on his need to get fuel from the mainland.
                                                • The military helicopter pilot in The Parish has been expressly tasked with orders to pick up the Survivors if they make it to his aircraft before the bridge is bombed and destroyed. He is never seen and he is separated from the passenger compartment of his helicopter by a rigid bulkhead and the windows are opaque.

                                                News Chopper 5 Pilot

                                                “To anyone who can hear this, proceed to Mercy Hospital for Evacuation. Repeat, proceed to Mercy Hospital for Evacuation.” ―News Chopper 5 Pilot

                                                The Chopper pilot is seen in the intro video to Left 4 Dead, and in the start of No Mercy, he tells anyone who can hear him to proceed to Mercy Hospital where they can contact him with a radio and he will pick them up and bring them to an unknown location. During the rescue at the top of Mercy Hospital, he will engage in communication with the Survivors, where he will reveal he had an “incident”, implying he attempted another rescue earlier but was attacked by the Infected.

                                                Unfortunately for the Survivors who are rescued and taken to apparent safety, the pilot is Infected, turns mid-flight, and is shot by Zoey, forcing a crash landing. The Survivors, being Carriers of the Infection, may be the reason the News Chopper 5 pilot became Infected as stated in The Sacrifice comic or he may have been Infected during his street pickup as he stated in the Rooftop Finale.

                                                Although his cap appears to have associations with the United States Marine Corps possibly showing a military background, his civilian clothing may also indicate he is currently not affiliated with them. The headphones he wears are Aero-X Orbital 2000’s.

                                                The pilot is voiced by Dennis Bateman, who also voiced the Spy and Pyro in Team Fortress 2, as well as the Civil Protection in the Half-Life 2 beta (only a few of his voice lines survived to the final retail game, such as “Take him down!” when Gordon is ambushed in the apartment).

                                                John and Amanda Slater

                                                Saint Lidia II, with the Slaters inside.

                                                John and Amanda Slater are a couple with a troubled marriage, who managed to survive by staying with supplies on their boat, named Saint Lidia II. They are stationed near Riverside Park, with John intending to rescue some survivors with firearms while Amanda urges him to abandon the idea and think only of themselves. It seems that their marriage was troubled even before the apocalypse, as they have arguments often. John mentions that Amanda “was against buying the boat too,” when said boat became crucial to their survival later.

                                                The Survivors contact John Slater by radio at the end of the Death Toll campaign. He and his wife pick up the Survivors in their boat and get them away from Riverside. John Slater’s motives are evidently those of self-interest and survival because he makes it clear that he is expressly interested in hearing from “anyone out there with firearms”. This point is reinforced when, according to the comic (specifically Francis), the Survivors were later thrown off the boat and left for dead. Judging by his dialogue, however, it seems that he was genuinely intending to keep the Survivors and have them as “security guards” for the boat (even though it is unnecessary, as the infected cannot swim). Another possibility is that Amanda insisted to kick them off, as John mentioned that their opinions are in conflict.

                                                It’s ambiguous if John and/or Amanda managed to survive. Two copies of their boat (the Saint Lidia II) can be found in The Sacrifice: one is partially sunk and the other is floating safe and sound next to its sunken sister ship. However, this is likely a re-use of the asset by the developers. Also, during the The Sacrifice campaign, Bill constantly explains his desire to escape in a sailboat by arguing that he doesn’t want to stop “every fifteen minutes” to refuel a motorized boat; this could be a generalized assumption, or an allusion to the Survivors being forced to search for fuel by the Slaters during their time together. The latter theory is not as likely, since Virgil, whose ship is around the same size, did not frequently demand fuel from the L4D2 survivors.

                                                John Slater makes a return during The Last Stand finale as the rescue. His boat can be heard in distance during the campaign and the survivors turn on the old Lighthouse in order to draw his attention.

                                                John Slater is voiced by John Patrick Lowrie, who also voiced the male Citizens and Resistance Rebels from Half-Life 2 and the Sniper from Team Fortress 2. Amanda was to be voiced by Ellen McLain, but her lines were cut from the game before release. [4]

                                                • “Hello? See Amanda, I told you someone was still out there!”
                                                • “Yeah! Yeah…ok…Amanda. They’re doing fine. Yes. Boy. Go…”
                                                • “They’re not doing that well. Listen, if I had guns I could do the same thing.”
                                                • “Great. Okay, okay, sweetie. Yeah. It’s…okay.”
                                                • “On our way. But let’s be clear: once you get on this boat? Your job is keeping our asses alive.”
                                                • ” …Guess that makes two of us…”
                                                • “You were against buying the boat too, Amanda.”
                                                • “Your problem, Amanda, is that you don’t think about the little guy!”
                                                • “We’re not coming in with that Tank there. Take care of it or you’re on your own.”
                                                • “Almost there! Get ready. We don’t want to sight-see when we get there.”
                                                • “Amanda, goddammit, this needs to get done.”
                                                • “Amanda, if the world is ending — well, then it’s ending. Can’t hurt to spend our last hours trying to do some good, eh?”
                                                • “So what, then? We leave ’em to die? I can’t do that, Amanda.”
                                                • “You know, I could come to my senses and start listenin’ to my smart, beautiful wife here.”
                                                • “You know, we can hear you right now. You need to press the button again to get off the frequency.”
                                                • “You know, my wife’s been making some very good points here. You want me to put her in charge?”
                                                • “Yeah, go ahead and weigh your hundreds of options.”
                                                • “I don’t want our first act of kindness to be our last”

                                                C-130 Cargo Plane Pilot

                                                The plane with him inside.

                                                He is the plane pilot that evacuates the Survivors out of Newburg in the Dead Air campaign. According to his dialogue, he rather cowardly fears leaving his aircraft to fuel it himself after his co-pilot (named “Terry” in cut dialogue) was killed trying to do so. He also mentions his ex-wife, but only in a joke about her appearance, making it unclear as to whether she actually exists.

                                                In the comic, Francis mentions the plane later crashed, but it’s unknown why this happened or what became of the pilot. There is a chance that, because the Survivors have been identified as Carriers, they could have unintentionally Infected the pilot without realizing it. Another possibility is that the crash was purely accidental and he died in it. Even if he survived, it is possible that he was not immune to the Green Flu and became infected. Since he also mentioned a fear of being shot-down, thinking the survivors may have destroyed the previous plane, it is likely that he was risking both himself and the plane, and it might have crashed after being attacked by anti-air weapons.

                                                In beta versions of the game there was a constant tension between Francis and the pilot: numerous times during the finale Francis would insult the pilot for not helping to fend off the Infected, to which the pilot would answer. Also, at the beginning of Blood Harvest, one of Francis’ introduction lines was him summarizing his hatred for the pilot, stating that he couldn’t even fly the plane, implying the plane crashed and the pilot died. The pilot would have had a larger role in the cut campaign Dam It, as the campaign starts at his wrecked plane, but no additional information is available.

                                                The pilot is voiced by Gary Schwartz, who also voices the Heavy and Demoman in Team Fortress 2.

                                                • “Someone gonna help that oldtimer?”
                                                • “Man, that thing looks like my ex-wife! [Chuckles] Don’t forget to tip yer waitress, I’ll be here all week.”
                                                • “Ain’t nobody gonna help that pretty young thing?”
                                                • “Nobody gonna help that little girl?”
                                                • “Hey guys, I think suit and tie’s down.”
                                                • “Holy shit, lookit the size of that thing!”
                                                • “Man, I almost wish I was down there! That looks like fun!”
                                                • “Look out, folks. That sneaky zombie’s around somewhere.”
                                                • “Uh oh. You see where that sneaky guy went?”
                                                • “Hey, that big greasy fella’s down!”
                                                • “Hey, Vest! Behind you!”
                                                • “Man! No offense, but I can’t believe you guys’re still alive right now!”
                                                • “I’d be out there with you if I didn’t have all this pilot stuff to take care of!”
                                                • “That thing’s jumpin’ around like spit on a hot skillet!”
                                                • “Man, that thing’s got a big tongue!”
                                                • “Yeah yeah yeah, I’m a coward for not helpin’ ya. Guess I’ll just sit up here in my cockpit, flyin’ you out of this hellhole, like I flown everyone else who came here lookin’ for help. But no, thank you for bein’ honest!”
                                                • “You callin’ me a coward? Get this straight! I can fly planes! You can run around gettin’ killed! In a post-apocalyptic world, that makes me valuable and y’all worthless!”
                                                • “You sayin’ I’m yellow? I been riskin’ my life flying people outta this airport all goddamn day! Then the government dropped a bomb on me! So excuse me if I don’t skip down there and pick a rifle!”
                                                • “Jesus crow, look at the size of that one!”
                                                • “Uh oh. Well, nothing wrong with a lighter load.”
                                                • “Shit. Well, there’s more room for the rest of us, I guess.”
                                                • “Man. I bet that fellah works out.”
                                                • “Looks like we just got an opening for first class.”
                                                • “Hoo. Well, I guess the rest of us can stretch out in the plane now.”
                                                • “Ohhhhhhh, shit. That is unfortunate.”
                                                • “Huh! I thought your bacon was cooked for sure!”
                                                • “Uh oh! Fuel tank’s leaking! Nah, just kidding!”
                                                • “Hooo! Bet you don’t want to do that again!”
                                                • “Did you guys shoot that plane down?

                                                Rescue 9

                                                Rescue 9 (Blood Harvest Rescue Driver), drawn by Michael Avon Oeming.

                                                Rescue 9 is not just one person, but a platoon of soldiers who respond to the Survivors when they communicate via radio. Rescue 9 sends out an Armored Personnel Carrier to pick up the Survivors at the end of the Blood Harvest campaign. The Sacrifice comic reveals Rescue 9 brought the Survivors to Millhaven instead of the Echo Safe Zone to find a cure to the Infection. In addition, the comic reveals one of the soldiers in the APC was Lt. Mora, who went with the vehicle so he could witness the Infected for himself.

                                                The soldier on the radio is voiced by David Scully.

                                                Due to some of the unused lines, one could think the farmhouse was supposed to be blown up after the truck picked up the Survivors.

                                                • “Sit back and enjoy the show. We can take it from here.”
                                                • “Glad you made it. Why don’t you sit back…and enjoy the show.”
                                                • “We’re gonna send these things back to Hell.”
                                                • “BOOOOOM!”
                                                • “Ah ha ha ha! Yeah, baby!”
                                                • “Blow it up!”
                                                • “If you’ll look slightly to your left…boom!”
                                                • “And to your right, boys…bam!”
                                                • “BOOM!”
                                                • “Now that’s what I call a show!”
                                                • “Get on so we can get our asses out of here.”
                                                • “The zombies are no more, BOOOOM!”
                                                • “Man, you guys are lucky to get here.”

                                                Chopper Pilot at the amusement park

                                                During their passage through Whispering Oaks, the survivors will come across a chopper pilot flying over the park, presumably looking for survivors. It’s unknown if the pilot is a CEDA operative, a U.S. soldier, or just an ordinary civilian trying to help. The survivors then manage to turn on the pyrotechnic show of the Midnight Riders in order to draw his attention. He was infected and turns mid-flight. Nick kills him (evident by the argument between him and Ellis), causing it to crash.

                                                Contrary to the other NPCs, his background and the way he was infected are completely unknown: he has just a few lines of dialogue calling the survivors to the chopper when he arrives. The fact that he was piloting a UH-1 Huey further suggests that he is a civilian, maybe even the same pilot who took the Midnight Riders off the park.

                                                In beta versions of the campaign, during the finale, the chopper pilot was going to approach the Survivors during the second Tank battle and command them to kill the Tank so he could land. These lines were restored with the Last Stand update, but are used out of the original context.

                                                Virgil

                                                Virgil’s boat with him inside.

                                                “Now this is a’far as Virgil goes, but y’all can make it to the bridge from here.” ―Virgil

                                                Virgil is a character appearing in Left 4 Dead 2. He has a Cajun accent and is first heard in Swamp Fever. He left a radio behind at the plantation to see if there would be any more passing Survivors and after hearing voices on the radio, proceeds to pick them up. After the Survivors fend off a large Infected attack, he blows up the gate with a rocket-propelled grenade (similar to how Whittaker did) and gets the Survivors to safety. Later on, in Hard Rain, he drops the Survivors off at Ducatel to search for fuel, and after they get some, finally drops them off at a dock during The Parish. He leaves in search for other survivors.

                                                It’s possible that he’s immune to the Green Flu and is aware of his immunity to it, as he is confirmed to have remained alive for a long time after having contact with the main characters, who are likely to be carriers (due to the extremely high infectivity and the fact that he was never turned, he is also a likely carrier). Furthermore, he comments that he is now a widower after his wife was killed by an Infected bite, which may mean that he had direct contact with the Infected as well.

                                                His fate after the events of the game is unknown, but it is likely that he survived due to his apparent immunity, and the fact that infected cannot swim, meaning that his boat is completely safe from them.

                                                His boat is named the Lagniappe, a reference to the Louisiana custom of the same name, meaning a small gift given to a customer by a merchant at the time of purchase.

                                                There is a running joke that states that Virgil is a talking boat. This “theory” is substantiated by Chet Faliszek who stated that “Virgil is not a man” when someone asked why Virgil existed during the “Last Man on Earth” Mutations. A technical explanation would the dialogue not being removed when the mutation was loaded. [5]

                                                • “Why hello there. I haven’t another voice out here in three days. Where y’all at?”
                                                • “Signal at me when you get the gas.”
                                                • “Now this is a’far as Virgil goes, but y’all can make it to the bridge from here.”
                                                • “That was real smart that Burger Tank sign, haha!”
                                                • “C’mon, get on the boat now!”
                                                • “Here they come, here they come, get on the boat now!”
                                                • “Look out for that big fella!”
                                                • “Watch out for that big fella!”
                                                • “Bonjou! It’s real nice to hear from somebody out there, it’s been quiet out here now.”
                                                • “How is yola? Let me tell you, it’s been real quiet out here on the water since my wife got bit!”
                                                • “Now tell me, what kind of downfall ya now.”
                                                • “Hey now, where ye at?”
                                                • “Where is ya’ll?”
                                                • “Tell me now, where is ya?”
                                                • “Where is ya at?”
                                                • “What?”
                                                • “Say again now, what?”
                                                • “Say what now?”
                                                • “I can’t quite hear ya now, what?”
                                                • “Ai, real good, I’m coming for you now, stay right where you all are.”
                                                • “Get on the boat!”
                                                • “Now get on the boat now!”
                                                • “C’mon, hurry up, get on the boat now!”
                                                • “Now c’mon now, get on the boat now!”
                                                • “C’mon now, they are coming after ya’ll, now get on the boat!”
                                                • “Alright, I’m coming!”
                                                • “Now c’mon, c’mon!”
                                                • “C’mon, c’mon, hurry up now!”
                                                • “C’mon now, hurry up!”
                                                • “Alright now, hurry up!”
                                                • “Halo, halo! Ya’ll reach back after now, c’mon c’mon!”
                                                • “Here they come now! Hurry up!”
                                                • “Hoo! Alright now, hahahaha! You made it! Hoo I doubt bout that now! Haha! Now welcome my board now! Haha!”
                                                • “Virgil don’t get off the boat, ya’ll gonna go and get the gas and come back here now.”

                                                Virgil’s boat and himself saying “I’m on a boat” as he and his boat appear in the steam’s 20th anniversity.

                                                Papa Gator and Rescue 7

                                                At the start of The Bridge in The Parish, two military soldiers can be heard speaking over the radio. They are known by their codenames “Papa Gator” and “Rescue 7”. After the Survivors grab the radio from the dead soldier to get their attention, they realize the Survivors could be potential carriers, but take them in regardless, with Rescue 7 stating that the military is properly equipped for potential carriers.

                                                Based on their dialogue, Rescue 7 was the last rescue leaving New Orleans and was just waiting some minutes before leaving, with Papa Gator being the callsign of a commanding officer. It is presumable that Rescue 7 is an entire team of soldiers just like Rescue 9, and that they sent the Helicopter specifically to rescue carriers. Papa Gator will clearly warn Rescue 7 not to attack targets that may be carriers mistaken with the Infected. This further demonstrates that the military is concerned about rescuing as many carriers as possible in order to study their immunity, instead of killing them like depicted in the Sacrifice comic. It is likely that Rescue 7 and Papa Gator are going to a facility or vessel properly equipped to handle carriers, while Rescue 9 was isolated and thought it may have had to kill carriers.

                                                Quotes

                                                Papa Gator: Rescue 7 this is Papa Gator, over. Rescue 7: This is Rescue 7, over. Papa Gator: Rescue 7 what is your repair status? Over. Rescue 7: Repair ETA is 10 minutes over. Papa Gator: Did not copy, say again Rescue 7, over. Rescue 7: Ten minutes, over. Papa Gator: Copy that, all lambs extracted, last buzzard starts running in 15 minutes, copy that? Over. Rescue 7: Roger that Papa Gator, 15 minutes. Ah, be advised, we have seen flashes on the west bank, ah… visually confirm west bank is clear, over. Papa Gator: West bank is clear Rescue 7, ah… sector is clear, over. Rescue 7: Negative. We are seeing something, over. Papa Gator: Rescue 7, are you… ah… seeing Whiskey Delta, or friendly? Over. Rescue 7: Ah… unclear, it- Papa Gator: Whiskey Delta, or friendly? Over. Rescue 7: Papa Gator, we’re not sure, we’re seeing… ah… multiple personnel and small arms fire. What is our current ROE? Over. Papa Gator: Rescue 7, all lost lambs are accounted for, targets should be considered hostile. Only prosecute targets that are a clear threat, over. Rescue 7: Roger Papa Gator, all personnel on floating LZ, clear for last buzzard run, over. Papa Gator: Affirmative Rescue 7, keep the bridge deck clear. Last buzzard run will start in 15 minutes. Out Rescue 7: Ah-ffirmative, out.

                                                Original NPCs from non-linear campaigns

                                                It should be noted that Cold Stream and The Last Stand were officially released by Valve, but they were created by the community. They are not part of the mainstream timeline, not canonical.

                                                Military bombing from Cold Stream

                                                The bombing plane, briefly seen in-game.

                                                Near the end of Memorial Bridge chapter, a military plane will bomb the titular bridge. The bombing sets off a car alarm, starting an unavoidable Crescendo Event.

                                                Despite its hindrance, the sighting of the plane gives the Survivors hope as it implies the military are still in the area.

                                                Chopper Pilot from Cold Stream

                                                On the final level of Cold Stream, Cut-throat Creek, the survivors find themselves in a fenced woodland area with a storage building. Inside the storage, there is a radio that they use to call a nearby chopper. The pilot them heads to a forestry technical service depot that was taken over by CEDA as a processing facility, where they are successfully rescued. Since Cold Stream is not part of Left 4 Dead canon and never was officially continued, it’s unknown what happens with the pilot and the survivors after the pickup.

                                                In early versions of Cold Stream, this character was part of the US Military and there was a cutscene of his helicopter crashing. The Survivors were rescued by another military helicopter found near the crash site.

                                                Plane crash during The Last Stand

                                                At the beginning of The Junkyard the Survivors will see a single-engine plane on fire. Later in the same chapter, they will find out the plane crashed and started a forest fire. A dead body, presumably from the pilot, is found besides the burning fuselage.

                                                This plane is an original prop from The Sacrifice DLC. An identical plane can be found crashed near the beginning of The Sacrifice campaign.

                                                John Doe

                                                At the beginning of the Lighthouse Finale, in the top of a watch tower near the safe room, there is an apparently non-interactive radio inside of a bedroom. However, if the player does try to use the radio, a man named “John Doe” will answer but is immediately cut by static and the radio device stopping to work. He is coughing, indicating that he may have been infected.

                                                John Doe is voiced by Salad, one of the members of The Last Stand Update Team.

                                                Notes

                                                • Near the watchtower there is a small cabin with an infected-like corpse and a radio, possible this being John Doe. This theory is supported by the fact that John is heard is coughing, indicating that he may have been infected, and the man in the cabin has written obsessively all over the wall about fixing the radio in a fashion similar to Church Guy when displaying the psychological symptoms of the disease.

                                                Original NPCs from Featured Custom Campaigns

                                                Custom-created Survivors or NPCs are created by the community for their custom campaigns and not by Valve.

                                                Crazy Ron

                                                “Well this here is Crazy Ron riding the night train. Any Survivors still out there got your ears on, well I’m your last fucking hope…” ―Crazy Ron

                                                Featured in both Suicide Blitz and Suicide Blitz 2, Crazy Ron is a Survivor who drives a train all around Fort Harris County searching and aiding any other Survivors within the city to get to the Fort Harris County Stadium for evacuation. He can be heard throughout both campaigns blowing the horn of the train and will contact any other Survivors by radio. However, there are some other Survivors who hate and don’t trust him due to his absence when promising aid, which leads to the death of their teammates while waiting for him to show up (as stated in some Graffiti).

                                                Crazy Ron is voiced by the campaign’s creator, R.T. Frisk, who also provides the elevator voice in the first map, as well as additional voices.

                                                • Hoooly shit! We got Survivors back there? Hold on guys lets get outta here!
                                                • Survivors? Oh shit I thought you were all dead. Oh, well lets roll!
                                                • Oh shit I hit the wrong button. Oooohhh. Hold on for a minute.
                                                • D’oh shit that was my fault guys, give me one minute!
                                                • D’oh shit I’m a little. I’m a little drunk. Don’t worry I’ll get it right!
                                                • Come on and start up you piece of shit!
                                                • Come on baby start! Start!
                                                • I think I almost got it!
                                                • Hell yeah guys! Here we go!
                                                • Rock annnd Roll! We are on our way!
                                                • Hell yeah! We are outta here!
                                                • All right Survivors all you gotta do is make it to the stadium and get the hell outta here. Good luck. Glad I ain’t going.
                                                • Well that’s as far as you go Survivors. Make your way to the stadium and hopefully you don’t die. Good luck.
                                                • Well this here is Crazy Ron riding the night train. Any Survivors still out there got your ears on, well I’m your last fucking hope.
                                                • (Suicide Blitz 2: The Law) Survivors, survivors, this here is Crazy Ron riding the night train all over Fort Harris County. If you can make it to the South train low crossing near the Atlas Theaters, I can run you all to the stadium free of charge. This is my last trip so I’ll be there in about an hour. Hope to see someone there. Good luck. Crazy Ron out.
                                                • (Singing) Weird things a going, weird things a coming, weird things are happenin. around here.
                                                • (Singing) Oh Suzanna, oh don’t you cry for me. Cause I come from Alabamy with a banjo on my knee. tusk.
                                                • Singing Con Te Partiròopera.

                                                Rescue 2

                                                Its implied to be an entire platoon of soldiers, just like Rescue 9 and Rescue 7. They are in charge of evacuating survivors in the area around a stadium and carry strategic bombings to slow down the advance of the Infection. These unseen characters in Suicide Blitz 1 and 2 include:

                                                • The soldier talking to command at the Fort Harris County stadium, voiced by Dani Cox.
                                                • A pilot in generic banter, voiced by Steve Antash
                                                • The older commander on the radio, voiced by R.A. Frisk
                                                • The finale radio pilot, voiced by Gabriel “ilcannibal” Fayerweather

                                                Nondescript Survivors

                                                As well as the eight playable Survivors, there are also known to be many more uninfected humans fighting the Infected and trying to escape the area that the twelve campaigns take place in. All except the chopper pilot and Whitaker remain unseen and most are unnamed; however, they are evident by graffiti left around most of the chapters, mainly in the safe rooms. The safe rooms themselves are proof of other Survivors, as they are created before the playable Survivors get to them, which implies that other humans have created the safe rooms to give other Survivors a place to rest and stock up on ammo. Also, mostly in city chapters, gunfire can be heard in the background.

                                                In some graffiti, it is also stated that there were more Survivors who were immune; whether they’re immune or not, however, is not mentioned.

                                                The Survivor’s perceived relative scarcity of other nondescript human Survivors is hinted at in the The Passing campaign of Left 4 Dead 2, which features a sexual innuendo dialog between Nick and Rochelle wherein Nick implies that she cannot afford to be choosy as there are “only about ten men” left on Earth.

                                                Keith

                                                Sometimes, Ellis mistakes the Fallen Survivor for Keith.

                                                A friend of Ellis. He is often mentioned in stories Ellis tells while in a safe room. If Ellis’ stories are to be believed, Keith has suffered from third-degree burns over a major percentage of his body twice (95% making fireworks, 90% deep frying turkey), lost two fingers and a thumb to frostbite, broke both of his legs after driving his car off a cliff, been stabbed by “a guy dressed up like a ghost”, was tear-gassed by the police (the effects of which lasted for a year), snuck a paintball gun on a roller coaster, got attacked by an alligator, bombed by the military (among the bombs, Ellis claims, were nerve gas and cluster bombs), (nearly) drowned in the Tunnel of Love, has done time in prison, got cut up by his own “bumper-car” lawnmower leaving him with wounds over 90% of his body, got cement paved over him in a sewer after falling down an open manhole, lived in a graveyard for a year after getting kicked out of his house, invented several types of soft drink, hung spit on the overhang in the Tunnel of Love, fell off a roller coaster onto the tracks with the ride still going, got a tattoo on his forehead saying “I’m a moron” for a dare, winning $200, ate three pounds of raw chicken (the in-game subtitles say catfish), he no longer recognizes his brother Paul and lost sensation in his right foot because of the three pounds of chicken, attempted to build a house out of mud, was attacked by owls, turned a recreation of Colonial times into a raccoon fight in his backyard, pretended to be homeless, had a water balloon fight with balloons full of urine, drove across a river without using the bridge, married a couple, and would have even gotten married himself, had he not ran away from his wedding.

                                                It is likely that Valve simply added Keith as comedic relief in the serious game. At one point during Hard Rain, Ellis even confuses the Survivors fighting their way through the burning hotel in Dead Center for something that happened to Keith. It is unknown if Keith is still alive and/or uninfected, or even real. If Keith is real and is indeed alive, it is very possible that he is fighting the Horde, seeing as so many incidents failed to kill him. However, in certain cut lines, Ellis states that Keith was evacuated, claiming he was the first on a helicopter.

                                                There are two pieces of graffiti that make mention of a “Keith”, but don’t specify if this is the same man that Ellis is friends with: One piece of graffiti in The Lighthouse reads, “My name is Keith Marshall (new line) And I’m going to die here”, which, if this is the Keith that Ellis is friends with, could mean that Keith has made it to the lighthouse, but he has given up hope. Seeing as The Lighthouse is in Left 4 Dead, and seeing as Left 4 Dead 2, in which Ellis talks about Keith, takes place a week after the start of Left 4 Dead, he could have already died. There is also graffiti written that reads “Keith: Waited 3 days at the meeting spot after we got separated. I can’t wait anymore. Meet me at Mercy Hospital — Krista”

                                                After contacting Gabe Newell, asking if Keith is actually real, he answered saying, “Keith isn’t imaginary, except, well, it is a video game, so it’s all imaginary”. [6]

                                                Ellis sometimes mistakes the Fallen Survivor for Keith, but then notices he isn’t Keith.

                                                A full listing of stories concerning Keith by Ellis can be found here.

                                                Jacob

                                                Rochelle mentioning Jacob.

                                                Sometimes when Rochelle is in low health, she briefly mentions a man by the name of Jacob saying to herself: “Girl, you should’ve stayed with Jacob!”. Jacob might be a close friend to Rochelle, a boyfriend, a family member or an acquaintance from her old place of work. The line implies that she was with him at the time of the Infection before meeting the others, got separated from him (voluntarily or otherwise) and doesn’t know what happened to him.

                                                Should be noted, Rochelle rarely says her only line citing him in comparison to her other lines for low health. This may hint that Rochelle doesn’t like to remember about Jacob for some reason, but even so, believes he may have made it to safety without her.

                                                Distant Survivors

                                                In the campaigns Dead Air, No Mercy, Crash Course, and sometimes at the end of The Town (as well as the main menu), occasionally, a distant gunshot, explosion, or gun burst may be heard. It can only be assumed that these are other Survivors fighting off the Infected. As they are infrequent, however, it is likely that few of them survived, or simply moved out of hearing range. Not to say that none of them do, as, from The Sewer, looking very closely at the roof of Mercy Hospital in the distance, a white helicopter (different from the red, white, and blue chopper used by the Survivors) can be seen flying in and out, hinting at more than one evacuation.

                                                The News Chopper 5 pilot will also sometimes comment to the Survivors “Looks like you’re gonna be my final run”, further indicating that he had been saving other Survivors from the rooftop. As this may be true, in Crash Course, Francis and Zoey fight constantly over the dead pilot. He can be heard saying he had an “incident”, and that maybe he is trying to help them get away as far as he can before transforming into an Infected. He seems aware that he is going to die. His lines were to be used in the game, but was omitted because it left players with a bitter taste after their victory. The Survivors do argue about it in the Crash Course DLC, however, confirming their canonicity.

                                                It should also be noted that the pilot’s model seems to be in Left 4 Dead 2 taking the Survivors from the finale of Dark Carnival and eventually crashing, as in Crash Course. This is assumed to be a reuse of assets, as the News Chopper 5 pilot is confirmed dead before the Dark Carnival pilot dies.

                                                Chicago Ted

                                                Chicago Ted’s graffiti message

                                                Chicago Ted is an unseen character, most likely originating from or connected to the city of Chicago, who claims that “No Zombie Is Safe From Chicago Ted”; this is either hubris on Chicago Ted’s part or he is actually effective at killing the Infected. It is possible that Chicago Ted wrote the graffiti himself, or a fellow survivor wrote it out of respect or awe. Whether Chicago Ted is still alive is unknown. His name may be a reference to Ted Phillips, the president and CEO of the Chicago Bears in 1999.

                                                Chicago Ted has also gained a Chuck Norris-style reputation among players being featured on modded maps and in low complexity humor.

                                                The Midnight Riders

                                                The Midnight Riders are a Southern rock band who were supposed to play in Whispering Oaks Amusement park, but due to the Infection, they had to cancel, so they were picked up by a helicopter. Their status is unknown but the pilot was fine (at that time) so one can assume they were when they were dropped off. They are mentioned several times throughout Dark Carnival but never encountered, though one can occasionally see their tour bus speeding by in The Underground.

                                                They have their own webpage which can be found here.

                                                Angels of Death

                                                The Angels’ trademark graffiti (Crash Course)

                                                The Angels of Death are a group of Survivors who appear to be rather successful, and very proud of their accomplishments. They appear through graffiti twice in the Left 4 Dead series, once in Crash Course and once in The Sacrifice, each time drawing a collection of customized skulls labeled with the members’ names. Originally, there were seven members (Brenda, Jerry, Chris, Phil, Sean, Brock, and Jason), but during the course of the next week, they collected an eighth member (Jaime), making them the largest known group of Survivors.

                                                The Angel’s trademark graffiti (The Sacrifice)

                                                Like the original Survivors, they probably started out in the greater Philadelphia area, as their first set of graffiti can be found in Whitney County, and over the course of the Infection, have traveled at least as far south as Rayford, Georgia. In Whitney County, they marked 600 tally marks, presumably representing the Infected they killed while held up at that point. In Rayford, they make the claim that they are “clearing the way” for other Survivors, killing every Infected they come across — though this does not explain why there are still numerously Infected in both campaigns other Survivors cross.

                                                Their cockiness does not seem to be taken well by other Survivors. In Whitney County, their graffiti is commented on by others writing “Sick Bastards” and “World coming to an end and they are drawing pictures”.

                                                Characters from The Sacrifice comic

                                                The following characters are only encountered within the Left 4 Dead comic released with The Sacrifice

                                                Ray

                                                Ray on the phone to Louis.

                                                Ray was a fellow co-worker and friend of Louis at a business called “Franklin Brothers” in Philadelphia PA, until two days after the first Infection. Ray decides to call in sick to work much to Louis’ dismay, claiming he does not want to go to work because of the rapidly spreading Infection and would rather stay home than risk getting exposed to the Green Flu. His fate is unknown.

                                                Wade and Carolyn

                                                Wade and Carolyn arguing over Zoey’s lack of interest in school.

                                                Wade and Carolyn are Zoey’s parents, who are either divorced or separated. Zoey was living with her father at an apartment near her college for one semester, while Carolyn lives at their family home with a man named Kevin. Her mother is upset that she wants to quit college after just one semester, while her father is more easygoing and thinks she would do well in the family business in the police force.

                                                Unfortunately, Carolyn is infected when a common infected invades. She soon turns and attacks Wade, who kills her in defense. Wade reminds Zoey of all the zombie films they watched when she was younger where the protagonists have to shoot someone before they turned, which she does after their final words of love with each other. Zoey is horrified to learn later on from the military Doctor (when he assumes that Bill is her father) that the Carrier gene runs on the father’s side, meaning that she and her father is in fact, immune, and that his death is unnecessary, since he cannot turn.

                                                Sandra

                                                Sandra taking Francis to the back room at the bar.

                                                Sandra was Francis’ girlfriend, seen at a bar with him and his friends. Francis doesn’t seem to know her that well, as he keeps calling her “Becky”. She ends up turning into an Infected while she and Francis are kissing in a back room at the bar, vomiting on his vest and biting his neck. Francis’ friend Duke kills the infected Sandra before she can attack Francis.

                                                It is quite possible that Francis, being a carrier, was the one who infected her: she is not shown with symptoms of the Green Flu before Francis kisses her, and saliva is heavily hinted to be a vector of the disease. If it is true, Sandra is the only known character to have been infected by a carrier, while the other possibilities (the C-130 pilot, the chopper pilots, etc) are just speculation.

                                                Duke, Danny and Francis’ gang

                                                Danny (left) and Duke (right).

                                                Duke and Danny were friends of Francis who were with him and Sandra in a bar at the time the infected began to take over the streets. When Francis’ lover Sandra turned into an Infected and he didn’t realize that she was about to kill him, Duke shot and killed her with a shotgun.

                                                Duke may be considered one of the more conscious-minded characters, albeit extremely paranoid: he is aware that the Green Flu is not really an influenza and that it is spreading fast. He wears a Midnight Riders T-shirt and appears to believe in government conspiracies as well, stating that heroin, satellites and cell phones were somehow always meant to lead up to the zombie apocalypse.

                                                Danny was the only other one to aid Duke in carrying the Jukebox to the rooftop of the bar and join in with their gang in the shooting spree. He is more quiet than Duke, and, at first, he seems to be genuinely worried about what is happening, but later he can be seen smiling while shooting the zombies with the rest of the gang.

                                                It seems that, along with Duke and Danny, there were other three or so unnamed members of Francis’ gang on the bar. They are last seen making a stand at the rooftop, and their fate is unknown. The most likely is that they were not immune to the Infection, and eventually became zombies. Alternatively, they may have been overrun before being infected or overrun while being immune. Based by Francis’ tattoos, it seems that the gang is named “Hell’s Legion”, but there is no confirmation.

                                                Major Everly

                                                Everly discussing the extraction report with Mora.

                                                The man in charge of Millhaven, Major Everly does not believe in the Special Infected’s various abilities, nor in their existence, and refuses to believe the Infected are capable of climbing the twenty-foot walls surrounding Millhaven, and the existence of Smokers and Hunters that can easily destroy the formation of the guards. Major Everly is eventually overthrown by Lt. Mora after the Lieutenant sounds the alarm and storms into the Major’s office with two other soldiers from his platoon. While Mora and his soldiers attempted to make their way out of the facility, Everly rallied those soldiers still loyal to him to attempt an evacuation via helicopters. Unfortunately, the rampaging Tank that killed Mora attacked Everly’s helicopter as it was departing from the base and threw it at the Survivors, causing it to explode and kill all of its passengers.

                                                It is interesting to note that during Mora’s mutiny by sounding the siren, Everly asked if Mora knew what he was doing. Just before this, Zoey and Bill were informing the Doctor that the Infected were, in fact, drawn to sound. A tad more than speculation concludes that it is possible Everly knew more of the predicament than he was letting on. This is supported by his ignorance pertaining to the fact that HQ had been compromised for the last six days and never disclosing to his men, choosing to simply dismiss Mora’s initial concerns as opposed to try and calm him or directly refute his arguments thus implying that he either believed that the news of the extremely dangerous special infected being spread would badly damage morale and thus he feigned ignorance or that he was under orders not to reveal anything. Due to his death, this cannot be conclusively determined. Ironically, the tank who blows his helicopter up also killed Mora immediately before Everly’s death.

                                                Lt. Mora taking order over Major Everly.

                                                Lt. Mora

                                                A paranoid soldier of relatively low rank* (Lieutenants are the lowest ranked officers in the US Army and it is not specified whether Mora is a 2nd Lt or 1st Lt, which are entry level Officer ranks and 1st Lt is senior to 2nd Lt) who is concerned about the safety of Millhaven under the leadership of Major Everly, as well as believing that Carriers and Infected are as risky as each other. Lt. Mora personally took part in the rescue mission of Bill, Francis, Louis, and Zoey in order to witness the Infected for himself, especially the Special Infected. Lt. Mora believes so many Carriers in Millhaven is a bad thing, and overthrows Major Everly due to disagreements on the safety of the military outpost as well as refusing to risk his platoon in a supposedly “unsafe” outpost, or for Carriers who might as well be on the Infected’s side.

                                                During the events of Part 3, Lt. Mora fought alongside his soldiers, ensuring all of them gets to safety before he does so; however, an Infected manages to tear off his gas mask before he could get himself to safety. His soldiers refuse to help him, as he is now compromised, and decide to leave him for dead, much to his anger. After barely surviving a horde of Infected, he confronts the Survivors, who appear like monsters to his eyes; it is unknown if this is due to the Infection or just as a result of his dazed state. Francis comically convinces him that everything is Louis’ fault, but before he can attack, Bill punches him and then his head was knocked off by a Tank, before it grabs Major Everly’s helicopter and kills him as well, as the four continue to the train station.

                                                *Mora refers to himself as “Captain” Mora on page 38, and later Sergeant Downey calls him Captain, implying that he may have been recently promoted and that due to the chaotic situation he is still being called Lieutenant as people may not have had enough time to be informed.

                                                Sergeant Downey

                                                Sergeant Downey was Lt. Mora’s confidant at Millhaven, much like Sergeant Hendricks. At the moment the protagonists had reached Daughtery Farm and called Rescue 9, he was discussing with Lt. Mora about the safety of Millhaven. Unlike Lt. Mora, Sgt. Downey doesn’t believe that the army must get rid of the carries because of the danger of spreading the Infection, and he doesn’t share Lt. Mora’s belief that the carries should not be treated as innocent citizens and fellow humans.

                                                Probably because of his disagreement with Lt. Mora, he was not one of the soldiers recruited to overthrow Major Everly. In fact, he is not seen or mentioned at all during the fall of Millhaven, so it’s possible that he left before the zombies came and likely escaped.

                                                Sergeant Hendricks and his team (Brooks, Davis and Peña)

                                                Sergeant Hendricks was one of the military soldiers of Millhaven who rebelled themselves, along with Lt. Mora, and decided to just flee the base rather than staying and trying to defend it. After Lt. Mora had his mask pulled, it seems that Hendricks became the one in charge of the team (presumably due to the fact that he is the senior Non-Commissioned Officer left after Mora, a Commissioned Officer, is compromised) and left Lt. Mora to die in order to keep their own safety.

                                                Should be noted, Hendricks and the three soldiers with him (Brooks, Davis and Peña) are the only characters introduced on The Sacrifice comic with real chances of having survived Millhaven’s downfall, excepting Sergeant Downey who likely left prior to the mutiny and Millhaven being overrun due to it. The last time he is seen, he is with his fellow soldiers on a safe spot, looking for a vehicle so they can reach the Safe Zone Echo. Presumably, some other mutineers and loyalists may also have survived.

                                                Jeff and Annie

                                                Jeff (left) and Annie (right) watching Francis as his threats are muffled through the door.

                                                Soldiers who guard Louis and Francis’ cell at Millhaven. Louis explains the various Special Infected to them, which they know nothing of (the only exception being Lt. Mora giving them the name of the Smoker). When the compound is attacked by Infected, Jeff and Annie follow Louis’ instructions in avoiding a Witch, which they repay by freeing the two Survivors from the cell and taking them to the armory to get firearms. They encounter a soldier-turned-Boomer, which Jeff shoots at initially, but is thrown off-balance by Louis while Francis dispatches it. Jeff then arms Louis with a pistol, while Francis takes one off the now-dead Boomer.

                                                Jeff and Annie allow Louis to take point due to his superior knowledge of the Infected. During Part 3, both of them along with the doctor follow the Survivors, thus making them the only few Survivors making it out of Millhaven alive. Nearing to an end, Jeff and Annie decide to leave for another choke point, stating that their gas masks might eventually fail. In page 126 of The Sacrifice comic two soldiers can be seen making a dash to the train but it is unknown who they are. A soldier that shares very close resemblance to Annie was last seen being attacked by the Infected with her mask being ripped off at the end of Part 3 and it is extremely likely that this was her (Same hair color, same armor, and same gasmask). Jeff is not seen in detail at any point after the scene of them holding out against a large horde, but is presumed dead. However, there is a chance, albeit small, that Jeff survived. On the final page of Part 3 you can see the corpse of The Doctor, a soldier’s corpse being pounded by a tank, a corpse of a soldier which is shown from the back and the head of a soldier who’s gasmask resembles Jeff’s very closely but it is possible that this is another soldier’s mask as the mask that Jeff wears is commonly used among the military, though even if he was still alive at this point he was likely killed as there were too many Infected between his last known position and the safe zone with vehicles Sergeant Hendrick’s team was last seen at.

                                                The Doctor

                                                The doctor as he explains that there is no cure for the Infection.

                                                A doctor at Millhaven, who collects saliva from Zoey in an attempt to find a cure. He is pessimistic about his chances, and states that the Army will kill him when they realize he can’t stop the Infection, as he is a carrier. He offers to help Bill and Zoey escape from Millhaven, providing they can get him out as well. He accompanied the Survivors from Part 2 to Part 3, and attempted to tag along with the Survivors to head down to the south. However, he failed to get on the train before Bill started it up. His final moments show him being pounced by a Hunter while reaching out just inches from the train’s door until the Infected swarm him. Zoey, wanting to help him, tells Bill to stop the train. Bill, however, ignores her. He was killed by a Smoker. As a consequence, Zoey detests Bill for this action (as seen at the beginning of The Sacrifice)

                                                Rivera

                                                Rivera presenting the wounds on Zoey’s wrist for The Doctor to see.

                                                A soldier guarding Zoey and Bill while they are tested at Millhaven. He outraged Bill and Zoey when he threatened her at gunpoint, so Bill distracted him while Zoey hits him with it. His gas mask being dislodged in the struggle, Rivera entered a state of panic, fearing Infection from Zoey and begging her not to approach him. His fate is unknown as he is carried off by another soldier who arrives on the scene when the Doctor shouts out “Rivera’s down!”. His ultimate fate is unknown, presumed to be dead as the military was known for taking no chances with those possibly Infected and he may have been shot dead by his fellows out of paranoia or as a mercy kill or left to die by those soldiers who managed to make it to the vehicles.

                                                Jim and Nate

                                                Jim and Nate were two soldiers tasked into guarding one of Millhaven’s walls. They were aware of Lt. Mora’s plans of overthrowing Major Everly, and were grateful to him. Ironically, they are also the first ones to die when Lt. Mora sounds the alarm. Nate is pounced by a Hunter mere seconds after the alarm began sounding, and Jim is pulled by a Smoker before he can do anything to save his comrade. Although their deaths aren’t explicitly shown, it is presumed that they are dead as they probably didn’t have time to be infected while being mauled and asphyxiated to death respectively.

                                                Other Soldiers at Millhaven

                                                There are other soldiers present at Millhaven base, either leaving before Lt Mora’s mutiny against Maj Everly (presumably along with Sergeant Downey who is assumed to have left before the mutiny), taking part in the mutiny or staying loyal. It is likely that a majority were either killed during the mutiny which may have sparked infighting or were overran or otherwise killed during the infected attack. At least some were shown to have been infected, with several Special Infected being seen in military uniforms. Presumably, at least some of both sides of the mutiny survived to escape (presumably along with Sergeant Hendricks and his squad who are assumed to have escaped after leaving Mora to die when his gas mask was compromised despite following him to mutiny).

                                                Notes

                                                • In-game NPCs are invincible, mostly because they are unseen.
                                                • On Left 4 Dead: Survivors, every single NPC character got a new voice actor, even the original Survivors during The Passing, which were dubbed in Japanese.
                                                • Chicago Ted’s graffiti is based on a real piece of graffiti found by Erik Wolpaw and Sean “Seanbaby” Reilly. [7]
                                                • The helicopter pilots in the No Mercy and Dark Carnival campaign and Whitaker in the Dead Center campaign (using noclip) are the only Survivors players can see not-infected and in-person.
                                                  • The helicopter pilot at the end of the Dark Carnival campaign uses the same model as the one in No Mercy of the original Left 4 Dead and coincidentally befalls the same fate.
                                                  • Helicopter pilots becoming Infected in mid-flight appears to be a running gag in Left 4 Dead games. However, the CH-53 Pilot likely survived since the Chopper was already properly equipped in case if it was required to transport carriers.
                                                  • The character Virgil is a possible reference to Virgil of Dante Alighieri’s Divine Comedy, an Italian poet that guided Dante through Hell and Purgatory. Virgil of Left 4 Dead 2 provides a similar role in guiding the Survivors from one area to another.

                                                  Whitaker as he appears in the Team Fortress 2 blog post.

                                                  • Whitaker had a letter written from his perspective on Left 4 Dead and Left 4 Dead 2 Price Slashes at 66% during The Sacrifice’s release. The Message is found here. According to it, he’s been the number one seller of “bullet related merchandise” for the past twelve years, approximately since 1998.
                                                    • Whitaker also makes a cameo in a blog post announcing the Team Fortress 2 update releasing Ellis’ hat and the Frying Pan as unlockable content. [8]
                                                    • Whitaker’s in-game appearance is vastly different than how he is portrayed in the recent artwork, though it’s possible the in-game model was merely a placeholder as usually the player’s not supposed to see him up close. The fact that his model is just a clean version of the Fallen Survivor posed with a grenade launcher gives more proof of his model being a placeholder.
                                                    • Due to the contagiousness of the Infection, it can be implied that Whitaker likely will turn if he is not immune/a carrier as the cola given to him by the Survivors would likely be covered in their germs.
                                                    • However, the APC’s drivers also cannot be killed, despite featuring windows that are not bullet-proof, and it is evident that they can at least drive a land vehicle properly. However, since the APC is from the military, they considered that it would be better to obey than resist.

                                                    References

                                                    1. ↑http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1h1PjXFaQLI
                                                    2. ↑ Whitaker sound files, conversation06.wav: “I’ve been on this world 60 years, ma’am…”
                                                    3. ↑ game_sounds_whitaker, DefendChatter07.wav: “I’ll cover you! Go!”
                                                    4. ↑https://youtu.be/mlAmqIAwxh8?t=1631
                                                    5. ↑http://img718.imageshack.us/i/capturefm.jpg/
                                                    6. ↑http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Quotes/ShrugOfGod
                                                    7. ↑http://www.seanbaby.com/cleveland/part5.html
                                                    8. ↑http://www.teamfortress.com/post.php?id=4441&p=1