Left 4 Deadis a classic survival horror shooter. Valve found lightning in a bottle with the game’s frantic pace, easy-to-handle mechanics, and short, concise campaigns. Fans gravitated towardLeft 4 Dead, and elevated it with additional modded content. Thefan campaigns forLeft 4 Deadoften feel just as solid as the originals featured in the game. For a community that generally shows a lot of love, it is strange that theLeft 4 Deadwiki was hit with a bit of vandalism, introducing a “cut” character to the game’s lore.
The originalLeft 4 Deadwas released in 2008, with the sequelLeft 4 Dead 2following just one year later. While support for the game has remained high both from Valve and its fans, it is surprising thatLeft 4 Dead 3never released. It does appear that aspiritual successor has been created inBack 4 Blood, as many of the staff who worked onLeft 4 Deadare still with Turtle Rock Studios, theBack 4 Blooddeveloper.
RELATED:Back 4 Blood is Missing the Most Popular Left 4 Dead Zombie Archetype
While various pieces of concept art for aLeft 4 Deadsuccessor have floated around for a while now, there has never been any mention of a “Purple Francis” that showed up mysteriously on theLeft 4 Deadwiki recently. The addition of Purple Francis came with an incredible amount of nonsensical lore for a character that, until this post appeared, never existed. Purple Francis once owned a root beer factory and raised two sons, Cungulus and Skibbity, and a daughter, Johnson.
The author of that post had such a bizarre and elaborate history for the character that it seems the plan to post all of this unusual lore had been brewing for a while. That it was noticed immediately, and fans decided to run with it, shows the community is still enthusiastic about the game, and it is whyLeft 4 Deadis one the games fans have wanted Valve to revivefor some time. Little bits of fan art started to appear shortly after in support of the character.
The community has taken the unusual bit of vandalism in stride. While the mods of the wiki have removed Purple Francis, they did create aLeft 4 Deadmod that players can download turning Francis purple. Fans are continuing to create delightfully strange content for the game, that wayValve can spend more time on franchises that aren’tLeft 4 Dead, letting the fan communities run the show. Now that Purple Francis has appeared, it might not be long before other color variants of the main heroes show up.
Left 4 Deadis available now for Mac, PC, and Xbox 360.
