Let’s go ahead and admit it: You’re not a team player all the time.
Sure, it’s fun to team up with friends to achieve a common goal, and sure, it’s easier when you work towards the goal together instead of going in half-cocked for personal glory.
But come on. There’s that list there. Beckoning to you. Kill the most enemies! It whispers, taunting you with your perceivable skill. You’ll look amazing! Some fall for this, and they are lured away from working as a team.
If this happens in Team Fortress 2, or Rainbow Six or any other co-op game, what happens? You go sniper, or grab a shotgun, or whatever and run off forward, killing and dying away from your team to steal the glory.
And yet, in Left 4 Dead, even the most glory thirsty player is forced to stick to their teammates fearfully. You have to work as a team, or they’ll be no glory because you will all die and the lists won’t even show up. Why is this? Surely, a good play can take an infected hoard alone on easy when he can breeze through harder difficulties.
Hunters.
Hunters FORCE you to play with your teammates like a good sport. Hunters keep you healing your unskilled teammate to keep him alive in spite of his errors, and stop you from stealing all the glory and running ahead, because if what happens if you’re caught alone by a hunter?
You die.
The hunter doesn’t care about your epic pistol skillz or your years of Counter-Strike prowess. It laughs at your shotgun and scoffs at your Uzi. There’s no chance to kill a hoard like with the boomer. There’s no two shot period to kill it like the smoker. Fire all you want, if a hunter leaps and you’re alone, you die. Pinned and taking damage, you won’t care how worthless your friend was, you’ll wish you’d stuck by him and let him get a few kills.
So thank you hunter, you terrifying hobo death machine. Thank you for making teamwork a vital part of survival.
