Demo's Spooktacular Halloween Prop Pack is tearing up the charts in the Left 4 Dead 2 Steam community—by which I mean about 1,500 people have downloaded it since it was uploaded on October 9. Honestly, that's pretty great for a game that's 9 years, 10 months and 24 days old. In this very moment I've just come to grips with Left 4 Dead 2 being released a decade ago, and I feel like I'm about as old and dried up as The Crypt Keeper (who would make a very good Left 4 Dead enemy). Ten years! And people are still making Left 4 Dead 2 mods. That rules, and this mod looks pretty great.
In a rather eloquent mod summary, Demo remarks that the changing of the leaves marks the beginning of "the spooky season." But is Left 4 Dead 2 really spooky enough? It's got zombies, sure, but what about skeletons? Pumpkins? Ghosts made from bedsheets? Bales of hay, which probably have bugs in them? It's woefully short on these essentials—stuff you'd expect to see in a seasonal event.
"Fret not eager horror-connoisseurs, I've got just the thing you're looking for to fully spookify your Left 4 Dead experience this October!" writes Demo. "Subscribing to this mod will sate your hunger for the true potential of thematic, decorated, festive environments to fight monsters alongside your friends in. No longer will you simply wade through the simplicity of mundane urban environments, now you can enjoy traversing through a world that was ready for Halloween (but not the Green Flu)! This pack replaces/modifies over 100 props and works especially well with No Mercy, Crash Course, Death Toll, Dark Center and The Dark Parish."
As with most things on the Steam workshop, this mod is easy to install. Simply subscribe, and it'll replace a bunch of objects, from tables and chairs to dumpsters and plants, into spookier versions like cauldrons and coffins. To get more into the spirit, pair it with the Colorful Autumn Leaves mod and Spooky Halloween Trash Bags to start. But if you really want to get all kinds of Halloween-y, there's a handy collection on Steam that includes tons more mods.
Grab it here: Trick 4 Treat: A Spooky Halloween Overhaul. The medkit becomes a pumpkin pie. The tank throws a giant pumpkin instead of a rock. Ammo boxes turn into candy boxes. The spitter has a spider coming out of its mouth. There's a lotta spooky goin' on here.
Once all your Halloween mods are in place, just pretend the zombies are actually sugar-high neighborhood kids desperate for more candy. Billy just had one too many mini Snickers and lost control, a little bit. He's not a bad boy. Alternatively, use one of the mods that turn them into skeletons.
It's heartwarming that a mod this fun could come out of nowhere 10 years into Left 4 Dead 2's life, but looking through the game's mod workshop, it's nuts how many mods are still coming out every day. There are a lot of reskins and strange music mods. I don't know who played Detroit: Become Human, or watched Ultraman or My Little Pony and thought "I need to put this into Left 4 Dead," but all of those things have happened, and just in the last three days. How about replacing Coach with the BK Sneak King? Or turning the Tank into a really disturbing Hulk?
Hundreds of Left 4 Dead 2 mods are still being posted on a weekly basis. If you go back in for spooky season, make sure to give the workshop a look first.
