Valve: Left 4 Dead was originally a "flying fairy game"

Fold your hands. Next, turn your eyes skyward. You are now looking in God's general direction.

Now thank him. Thank him so hard.

"There were a few failed starts to build Left 4 Dead," Valve's Doug Lombardi told PC Gamer.

"Well, there was the flying fairy game. Is that the one you were referring to?" Gabe Newell chimed in.

“It was so bad,” he said, “you wanted to ask yourself: ‘How could we make a game that was this bad? And how should we make a game?’ And we said we should focus on what we do really well, so why are we doing this game which was kind of a… it wasn’t really an RPG… it was this action fantasy sort of role playing game that had no story."

"And then we said ‘OK, that’s so horribly wrong. What we should focus in on is AI and playing in co-op, and that’s the interesting opportunity.’ That was where Left 4 Dead came from.”

Again, forces that control the universe, we can not stress the whole "thank you" thing enough. Granted, it's a shame that - in order to counter Valve's constant awesomeness - you had to create M. Night Shyamalan to keep the universe in balance. But we forgive you.