Video: Designing mandatory co-op play in Left 4 Dead

"If the players could find a way that they can win, at the expense of their friends, they will."

In this free GDC Vault video from GDC 2009, Turtle Rock Studios founder Michael Booth discusses overcoming the design challenges of required co-op that became part of Valve's multi-million selling Left 4 Dead's staple gameplay, along with why survival horror was the chosen genre and how procedurallly populated enviornments added to replayability, in the talk "From Counter-Strike to Left 4 Dead: Creating Replayable Cooperative Experiences."

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