Year: 2008
Type: Original Soundtrack (OST)
Composer(s): Mike Morasky
Number of tracks: 18

★★★★★

Heroic horror

Valve's zombie survival game Left 4 Dead not only has one of the best game titles in my opinion, it is fittingly about four survivors who shoot their way through the apocalypse and hordes of the undead; the soundtrack also has cult status and was still used to raise the hairs on the back of the neck in many fan films years after its release.

As with almost all games from the Steam company, the music comes from Mike Morasky, who, in contrast to Counter-Strike: Source , was allowed to show off his skills here. Whether the genius is also transferred to non-players of L4D is difficult for me to judge. As befits a scary game, the score serves to support the gameplay and the oppressive atmosphere.

As we wander through the dark alleyways, we always have the feeling that the next disaster could be lurking around every corner thanks to the music. This eerily beautiful threat is particularly evident in "Blood Harvest", "Dead Air", "Death Toll" and "No Mercy", which present us with variations of the main theme as map themes and teach us to fear with different accents. While at the beginning we are confronted BioShockwith a sad violin or a piano intermezzo, from the halfway point onwards, driving rhythmic synth beats begin, bringing back memories of Morasky's work on the Portal-series.

In general, the score strikes a balance between minimalist scaremongering on the one hand and complete, adrenaline-fueled panic on the other. As is well known, Left 4 Dead in 2008 introduced the concept of the zombie horde, which flooded the screen with regular frequency and accompanied by various 'special' infected such as Smoker, Hunter or Boomer (which we could also play ourselves in the asymmetrical multiplayer). An orderly advance and exploration of the situation quickly turned into a naked fight for survival, in which only teamwork promised us reaching the next shelter.

This focus on the essentials made L4D a must-play for genre and co-op fans at the time, which would probably only have been half as good without Morasky's catchy composition. I could probably play any of the remaining short tracks to gamers and everyone would be able to tell me exactly when this piece sounds: For example, when the colossal tank breaks through the next wall, "Tank!" rings out (unsurprisingly), its massive percussion heralding garbage can-sized pummeling.

Many of us will remember "Asphyxiation" or "Tongue Tied", as we hear them when we watch powerlessly as our character is either strangled or mauled and have no choice but to scream at our teammates for help. And the arrival of the horde in "Final Nail" or our last breaths in "I am so Cold" should still ring in most people's ears.

An absolute evergreen and a moment of shock for every player is the next piece that played as soon as we followed the wailing and whimpering of a little girl. She cowered in her white dress, crying and illuminated by an ominous spotlight, always at different spawn points on the map. If you got too close, "Psycho Witch" would kick in: The piano begins to hammer into the dissonances in best Hitchcock style, accompanied by a female choir and a whistling sound that is already giving me PTSD now that I'm listening to it again. As an angry one-woman army, a Witch could almost finish a round single-handedly. So the music mostly meant: Now it counts!

Unfortunately, that was it for the OST, whose 18 tracks can be listened to in just under 15 minutes. For me as a nostalgic gamer who has spent several entertaining hours with Left 4 Dead , listening to it was a nice blast from the past. The melodies are well done, the instrumentation is fitting and the mixture of fear-atmo vs. panic-action works. The only thing I can complain about is the length of both the score and the individual tracks - but well, they are typical horror game stingers for the most part and kept correspondingly short. Fans will be able to reminisce and newcomers will perhaps be able to understand why and how Left 4 Dead taught so many people to fear back then.

Nostalgia warning

The rating of the individual tracks is purely subjective and clearly colored by my own experience with the game. You can find out more in the article About Nostalgia.

Nr.	Title	Interpret(en)	Ratings
01	Asphyxiation	Mike Morasky	4
02	Blood Harvest	Mike Morasky	3
03	Blood Harvestor	Mike Morasky	3
04	Dead Air	Mike Morasky	3
05	Death Toll	Mike Morasky	3
06	Death Toll Collector	Mike Morasky	3
07	Exenteration	Mike Morasky	4
08	Final Nail	Mike Morasky	3
09	I am so Cold	Mike Morasky	3
10	No Mercy	Mike Morasky	3
11	No Mercy for You	Mike Morasky	3
12	Psycho Witch	Mike Morasky	3
13	Skin on Our Teeth	Mike Morasky	4
14	Tank!	Mike Morasky	4
15	The Monsters Within	Mike Morasky	3
16	Tongue Tied	Mike Morasky	3
17	Witch Roast	Mike Morasky	3
18	Left for Death	Mike Morasky	4