Valve has acquired Turtle Rock Studios, the developer currently working on the ace-looking, Source-powered zombie shooter Left 4 Dead. It means that Left 4 Dead, due for release this year, becomes a wholly owned Valve property.
"Left 4 Dead fills a long-standing demand gamers have had for a co-op first-person action experience, and it will also help Valve's expansion into the console market," added Doug Lombardi, Valve's VP of marketing.
Left 4 Dead was originally announced in November 2006 and finds a small band of humans (the Survivors) battling zombie hordes and nasty mutated beings - collectively known as the Infected - which have overrun the game's urban battlegrounds. Players will be able to play as both the Survivors and the Infected.
Hopefully this'll mean that they'll start working on a truly cinematic single (or multi, if done right) player zombie game. A real story-driven one, to rival the Romero movies. Please, please, please, Valve. I'd much rather have that than Half-Life 2: Episode 3.
I'm still looking forward to They Hunger: Lost Souls developed by Black Widow Games. It's been in development for ages now. The original series are probably my favourite mods of all time and this is looking pretty darn good too.
I just read the preview of left 4 dead in pczone...it looks amazing. Some of the ideas they have used look awesome and the inspirations from the zombie movies used are some of my favourite films. Good buy valve.
Is Left 4 Dead Multi player only or is it also single player?
Nope, it's single player as well with bots filling in the gaps. Word has it it is very hard to see the join between bot survivors and human players. The even better thing is that you can jump in and out of the game that is ongoing and the computer takes over the character. Also, and this is great, you get the chance to play one of the 4 infected bosses as well. So it can be any combo of human players upto 4v4.
I've been following this game for a long time now and really cannot wait! Release it already!
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