Valve has been working overtime trying to quell the backlash surrounding the announcement of Left 4 Dead 2 last week. Project lead Chet Faliszek has already said earlier that they won't stop support for the original game, and now Valve president Gabe Newell has said his piece on the subject.

"Some in the community are concerned that the announcement of L4D2 implied a change in our plans for L4D1. We aren't changing our plans for L4D1," Newell said in a statement to Kotaku. But just what are these plans, anyway? Newell elaborated:

In addition to the recently released Survival Pack, we are releasing authoring tools for Mod makers, community matchmaking, 4x4 matchmaking, and more new content during the coming months for L4D1. We also agree with our customers that there needs to be an interoperability plan for players of L4D1 and L4D2, as multiplayer games are driven by the cohesiveness of their community.

The part about interoperability between the two games will probably go some way towards appeasing the sequel's boycotters, as one of their main points was that the sequel could "decimate the community for both games." It will be interesting to find out how Valve will achieve that, though. We'll find out when Left 4 Dead 2 launches this November.

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