Exciting news for console enthusiasts. Valve announced today that the upcoming ‘Survival’ expansion for Left 4 Dead will be free across all platforms. The expansion should be available for PC and Xbox 360 sometime this spring. The DLC offers players new game content, including Survival Mode and two new multiplayer campaigns.

Over the years Valve has done a beautiful job of constantly updating their PC releases with free content. This has been their strategy to combat piracy and to keep overall enthusiasm amongst their player base at a high level. But Valve had, until now, been unable to work out a free distribution model with Microsoft on the Xbox 360. It seems now that they have been able reach said agreement.

I am extremely interested to see where Microsoft goes from here. Will they continue this trend with other DLC? Valve and Criterion (developer of Burnout: Paradise) are two developers that seem to see the benefit in offering free content for their games, but will others view this as undercutting the DLC market? One thing I know is that Valve and Criterion have some of the most loyal fans and these consistent, free updates definitely have something to do with it.