Left 4 Dead slips to 2008

Left 4 Dead won't be released until next year on either PC or Xbox 360, Valve has told Eurogamer.

"We're saying early 08," Valve's Chet Faliszek told us at QuakeCon. "Really we just want to make sure that when it's released it's great."

Yes, we're upset too, but they insist it's for the good of the game, and given how good the game already is we're sort of okay with it.

Also on the plus side, they're dropping big hints that Steam's capacity for things like free weekends might be used to help promote the game when it does come out. We suggested that perhaps a free launch weekend would be a good trick to pull. "All that's been talked about and bandied about, and I can't say if we're going to do one thing or the other yet. But definitely Steam allows us to do things on the PC side that no other developer can do, and we definitely don't ignore that," Faliszek said.

As for the reaction at QuakeCon, Left 4 Dead's been chocka the whole time. Valve reckons there's a constant two-hour queue, and Faliszek said it was "humbling".

We'll be bringing you a fuller update on the game, what's changed since we last saw it, and a few other cool bits and pieces about what Valve has planned on the Internet side in the near future, so don't go away.