Left 4 Dead – The Infected
We had seen fast zombies in video games before Left 4 Dead came along in 2008, but developer Turtle Rock was the first to build an entire game around a concept that had only recently been taken mainstream by films like 28 Days Later and the Dawn of the Dead reboot.
The media they appear in often refer to them as “The Infected” because they share few similarities to their classic source material outside of a horde mentality and the fact that they’re as likely to kill an uninfected person as they are to try and infect them.
Once infected, they are as fast and agile as a normal person, only they don’t have to worry about stamina like we do. If an infected person has a goal, they’ll follow that carrot on a stick until they physically can’t move. They’re vicious, too. Sometimes they’ll eat their prey, but most of the time — including in Left 4 Dead — all they want to do is physically destroy them.
Left 4 Dead isn’t known for its narrative, so we don’t know much about what caused the apocalypse seen in the series. All we know is it hit suddenly and spread fast, leaving few survivors. Now the unlucky few who still remain get to witness their numbers dwindle as they get gradually picked off by the fast-moving hordes or their “special” variants.
As terrifying as the infected are, in Left 4 Dead they quickly become cannon fodder. Something to mow down when it’s standing between you and the safe room. That’s where the special infected come in — an elite cast of unique mutations that resulted in creatures like the Tank and Boomer.
Plenty of games have done this, but very few have had as much thought put into their creation. Each serves a purpose, with many of their abilities complimenting each other. That’s one of the many reasons why Left 4 Dead is such a fantastic multiplayer series.
