So about that leaker…

"Mike: Can you tell us any ideas that were left behind for Special Infected? / Chet: So I can then be tormented by the tons of emails that come in?"
wow, you were extremely percipient 14 years ago. you were only wrong about the medium that will torment you

It speaks volume how quaint and mostly unremembered the "L4D2 Boycott" movement was lol

The boycott was so stupid and I vividly remember having the dumbest argument with a close friend just because I was so excited to get more Left 4 Dead so quickly. Given how agonizing Valve Time is, I was over the moon when L4D2 was announced. L4D2 had all new maps with a new story, new characters, new enemies/special infected, new weapons and melee, new game modes, and free maps throughout its life. It literally had every single thing you could want from a sequel, and we got it in a year from Valve of all companies. Other game series like Call of Duty and every sport title under the sun were well into their annual churns at this point. Valve does it one time and 100% knocks it out of the park, and they get a boycott lol Hated that so much, but loved that game with all my heart.

Another thing I won't forget is you guys had a day or two when The Passing dlc came out and several of the devs made anonymous L4D steam accounts to play with the community and talk to them about the new map. The game I managed to get into and the person I got paired with was you! You had the spitter profile picture. Getting to talk to you about the design of the map and the attention to creating great versus mode moments(walk that plank!) was such a joy. Thinking back on it now, that was such a great period of my life in general lol Thanks for the memories and the awesome games

This is why beta research is so tricky, cause to the fans it's this mysterious new thing, but to the devs it was just another tuesday lol.

I'm the same way a lot. I don't have time to remember everything. I do remember some things that no one else does because it was something that either I directly handled. But even major things that were routine... nah. In my head and out to work on the next thing.

Man, I could really need a L4D3 today

Happens all the time. I've done like... 6 variants of the main enemy in my next game? Don't even remember all of them, they were almost all done during some free time on a friday afternoon before heading home for the weekend.

Did the concept of “The Meatwall” ever go past the idea of a concept?

Man, I often think about how you guys had to create the charger, spitter and jockey to get players not to camp and like... doing that would just be the dream job for me.

Not saying that it sounds easy, far from it, I just find the problem-solving aspect of it fascinating.

Was there ever any plans to continue the left 4 dead 2 survivors story through dlc or a comic like left 4 dead 1 had? Or was the plan always to fill in the blanks like with the passing campaign. I still find myself thinking about what happened to them and what the military would do this time.

No worries. Things move so fast in game dev. It's hard to remember it all.