This involves casting four main characters, each of whom have nothing much in common with one another but who are thrown together to face a challenge. To portray their personalities Valve uses (perhaps deliberately and with tongue firmly in cheek) a standard screenwriter ploy to populate B-grade action, Western, sci-fi, sitcom and costume drama scripts with characters that are instantly recognizable to 'popcorn' audiences. When controlled as AI Bots, Survivors will have preference over specific weaponry, and will attempt to choose that type if possible. Every Survivor plays the same their physical differences are purely cosmetic and do not alter gameplay. Players can choose which Survivor they control in the lobby, or be automatically assigned to a Survivor that is not being controlled by a player when they join a game that is already in progress. In the comic, the Survivors are referred to as 'Tango-Mike' (T-M in the NATO Alphabet) by the APC Driver, probably in reference to Typhoid Mary, the most notorious real-life carrier known in America.Įach playable Survivor has his or her own unique appearance, personality, dialogue, and backstory, making them easier to identify at a distance. There are also non-playable Survivors that players will meet throughout the campaigns. At the start of the first campaign in Left 4 Dead 2, the playable characters have just met each other and do not even know each other's names. In Left 4 Dead, it is never explained how they met up with each other, or how long they have been together (although judging by the timing given by the intro cutscene and The Sacrifice comic, it is less than 12 days by the start of the first campaign). In addition, The Sacrifice comic presents the hypothesis that the Survivors are carriers of the Infection―and as such are a positive danger to any uninfected humans they encounter. Although the playable characters are immune, a comment by Bill suggests that they could become an Infected at any point. The term, however, is commonly used to refer to the eight playable characters from the Left 4 Dead game series.

The Survivors are people in the world who either have not yet contracted the Infection (by virtue of natural immunity) or are carriers of the disease but who display none of its symptoms―and who may thus falsely believe themselves to be immune.

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