Left 4 Dead Creator Announces New Co-Op Zombie Game

Left 4 Dead and Evolve developer Turtle Rock Studios has announced a new co-op zombie shooter to be published by Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment. Back 4 Blood is said to be a premium game that borrows from Turtle Rock's history of making a co-op zombie shooter, while also having a slate of new features and current-gen tech.

The studio released a FAQ with some additional details. It shies away from any commitment like post-launch content or microtransactions, and stresses that Back 4 Blood is a new original IP unrelated to Left 4 Dead. It also says that it will have a campaign and PVP, and it is not a battle royale.

We can also glean some information from how the key figures are talking about the new project. Creative director Phil Robb said the studio is growing its team and using what it's learned from the past for this new project. Meanwhile, design director Chris Ashton stressed that the team has had this project in mind for a long time.

"It's hard to overstate what an awesome opportunity this is," Ashton said. "We get to return to a genre that was born in our studio with over 10 years of additional experience and zombie ideas racked up in our brains. We also have some of the best teammates in the business at WBIE, who understand our development process and are equally committed to our player-first mentality. We love being able to announce, so we can start working with the community right away."

Following Left 4 Dead, Turtle Rock made Evolve for 2K. Evolve borrowed some ideas from L4D, but added a fifth player as an asynchronous monster. It received a positive reception and gained a respectable audience, but Turtle Rock stopped actively developing it in 2016. Most recently, the studio was said to be working on a dark fantasy game for Perfect World. In the FAQ, it says that project has ended.