There's a blog post over at the official Left 4 Dead website posted by Jeremy Bennett, an artist for Valve. He's basically responsible for the game's cover art.

In the blog, he posts pictures of cover arts that could have been, and gives a little bit of information behind them. I'm a bit shocked as to how horrible they all look in comparison to game's current cover art.

The first cover art posted is just horrible in every way. Bill is the only decent looking one: Francis looks like a gay biker, Louis looks like a mix of Denzel Washington and Michael Jackson, Zoey looks like a transvestite. The background is horrible, and I would have hated this boxart if it ever made it.



This one is my favorite. By no means is it great, but it's probably the best in the blog. It's definitely the most creative, but it doesn't look all that great. The survivors look weird and two of the zombies in the front middle look as if they're hugging. Still though, with a bit more work, that could have been cool.

After seeing the final cover art, I can safely say it is by far the best. It has meaning behind it, the no red on it to kill the cover, easy on the eyes, and I have to say it's a bit iconic. So, what do you guys think of the old cover arts and which one do you like most?

I kinda like the one with them surrounded, but I can see how the clutter was going to make it get lost on shelves.

lol the first one is absolutley horrible! final one is a bit plain but it works, i didnt relaise they chopped the thumb off to leave 4 fingers, clever. wonder if any chaps have made there own custom cover art

they're all terrible imho.

I like the final one, it's eye-catching. The rest just look... bad. Though the surrounded one is kinda nice.

That is a kick ass cover art thing. The colors make it look really cool.

I'd never even thought about the left hand for dead joke. :s

Excluding the large wall of text cover, the one in the original post, and the final cover, the experiments were pretty awful.

i think they could have use pretty much any of the campaign posters or something similar, they are good, eye catching and i think they all say left 4 dead?plus they have some cheap corny caption!