Turtle Rock Announces Spiritual Successor to Left 4 Dead

By Jon Ryan

Turtle Rock Studios, the developers behind Evolve and the Left 4 Dead franchise, has announced that they’re working in partnership with Warner Bros. Interactive on a “next-gen cooperative FPS” entitled Back 4 Blood.

Something of a spiritual successor to Left 4 Dead and its sequel, which were originally published by Valve, was announced via a news post in the Turtle Rock forums, and will be “designed from the ground-up as an original, premium title and marries the best of what made the co-op zombie shooter so successful with new features and state-of-the-art technology.”

“We get to return to a genre that was born in our studio with over ten years of additional experience and zombie ideas racked up in our brains,” says Chris Ashton, the studio’s Design Director and one of Turtle Rock’s co-founders.

According to a statement from WBIE’s David Haddad and a short FAQ from Turtle Rock, this is very much not Left 4 Dead 3, rather “a new gaming universe” where “You’ll be able to shoot up a lot of zombies like in Left 4 Dead, but there’s a whole lot of new stuff in Back 4 Blood which makes it unique.”

While no release date has been announced, Back 4 Blood is confirmed for PC, PS4 and Xbox One (though they said other platforms “weren’t out of the question”), and will allegedly feature a campaign as well as PvP component, though the studio has said they’ve ruled out including a Battle Royale mode. “We are not resting on any past laurels. Our goal is to take all we’ve learned and push forward,” claims Phil Robb, Turtle Rock’s Co-founder and Creative Director. “We know this title has to stand out and we fully intend to make that happen.”

JR is IGN’s Senior Editor of Features and really likes killing zombies. You can follow him on Twitter @USofJR.