Something to look forward to: As fans have been patiently waiting for Left 4 Dead 3, developer Turtle Rock Studios has been hard at work on Back 4 Blood. Wait. What? Okay, maybe "hard at work" is not quite the right way to frame it since the game is in the early development stages and doesn't even have a logo yet.
Regardless, Warner Bros Interactive Entertainment (WBIE) and Turtle Rock Studios announced a new "original," premium title called "Back 4 Blood." Well, it's not entirely original. B4B will still be a four-player co-op zombie-shooter gore fest that the studio is known for, but made for the current generation of hardware.
"Back 4 Blood is 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," said the press release.
Presumably, the "state-of-the-art" tech being referred to are some of the newer GPU technologies such as real-time ray tracing and deep learning super sampling, but we won't be sure until much later in the development process.
"Blood is our own brand new, original IP. 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."
Turtle Rock and WBIE didn't reveal much else about the title other than the team is going "back to its roots" for this one. That is a good thing since the studio's last production, the F2P Evolve: Stage 2 never lived up to the hype.
"We are going back to our roots and at the same time innovating on them," said Turtle Rock's community manager. "We know we have some big shoes to fill, but we're going all out to surpass everything we've done before."
That would certainly be an accomplishment considering both Left 4 Dead games were solid titles.
It remains unclear whether Back 4 Blood is replacing the Left 4 Dead franchise. It certainly sounds like it since it is still a four-player co-op zombie FPS. However, Turtle Rock maintains that it is different.
"No, [this is not L4D3]. Blood is our own brand new, original IP," reads the FAQ. "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."
The studio decided to announce the game so soon because it is looking for community feedback early on in the development process.
"We love being able to announce, so we can start working with the community right away," said Turtle Rock Studios Co-founder and Design Director Chris Ashton.
Additionally, the company wanted to let the industry know it is working on something big because it is looking to hire new talent. It urges anyone interested in working on the project to check out the Turtle Rock jobs board.
The team is planning to initially release the game on PC, Xbox One, and PlayStation 4, but says that other options are still on the table. Those other options being macOS and Linux ports, which are available for the L4D series. This will also be the debut for Sony's platform which never saw release of the first two zombie titles.