With all the recent undead updates, I might soon have to rename this blog “The Occasional Zombie.” (And I haven’t even gotten around to writing about “Resident Evil 5” yet!) Nonetheless, I couldn’t resist the opportunity to comment on a couple of recent downloadable content-related announcements.

First, Valve announced recently that “Left 4 Dead” will be getting a new game type, Survival, as well as two new versus scenarios. It’s pretty clear from the announcement and statements thus far that the “new” versus campaigns are Death Toll and Dead Air, two existing scenarios already on the game disc. When the game shipped, only two of its four scenarios, No Mercy and Blood Harvest, had versus mode, which allows four players controlling zombies to try to take down four players controlling humans.

Survival mode, in which players will fight off wave after wave of infected, also looks to be using maps from the original four scenarios. Hopefully, Valve will charge a pittance for this content, given we “Left 4 Dead” fiends might be let down by anything that falls short of a whole new scenario or two. (Update: Valve announced a few hours after this blog post that the content would be free. Yay!)

Not to be left out of zombie festivities, an upcoming downloadable content pack for “Call of Duty: World at War” will feature four new maps, one of which is set in a zombie-infested insane asylum. I have to admit, I don’t really get the appeal of adding zombies to an otherwise fairly realistic World War II shooter, but if hacked construction signs warning of “Nazi Zombies” are anything to go by, I’m in the minority. The game’s current unlocakable zombie mode has proved a huge hit.