Turtle Rock Studios, which gave birth to the critically acclaimed zombie franchise Left 4 Dead, is now working on a series’ spiritual successor titled Back 4 Blood, and the mysterious game has just received a fresh piece of concept art. This is the first piece of news regarding the title after it was announced more than a year ago.
Back in March 2019, Turtle Rock shared a brief announcement dedicated to Back 4 Blood. Having partnered with Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment, the developers made a promise to bring their vision to life using the cutting-edge technology. The announcement was scarce on details, but it implied that Back 4 Blood would take the core concept of Left 4 Dead as a foundation. Basically, it means that the newest game will be a first-person co-op zombie shooter with whatever innovations Turtle Rock will come up with on top of it. Unfortunately, there has been neither a video nor at least a single screenshot since so having a fresh piece of concept art is already worth attention.
Turtle Rock has shared the latest Back 4 Blood concept art via Twitter taking the opportunity to announce that the inevitable trailer is currently being worked on. The image reveals a makeshift defensive structure fortified with towers and barbed wire, with a few survivors walking towards the gates. The whole atmosphere of the image along with the fort itself gives an impression of a prolonged zombie apocalypse. With that in mind, the picture doesn’t tell much - if anything at all - about the original universe of Back 4 Blood. Still, it is a beautiful piece of concept art, and it’s nice to see that Turtle Rock is going back to the genre that the team once reinvented and popularized.
Back 4 Blood is probably the closest the industry will ever get to Left 4 Dead 3 since Valve is not planning a sequel, as has been reiterated several times this year. The company issued an official statement claiming that they were absolutely not working on anything L4D related. It was later elaborated a bit further in a separate interview that Valve only used a few L4D assets for a Source 2 rendering test, which effectively put an end to any hopes for a sequel. However, there’s World War Z on the market utilizing L4D’s gameplay concept with the only exception of turning into a TPS title, which is fun enough to attract and engage zombie action fans.
Judging by the painfully slow reveal of Back 4 Blood, Turtle Rock is probably hard at work bringing the concept to life. Developers will likely show the first gameplay footage once they feel it is convincing and exciting enough for a proper demonstration. Until then, the community will have to wait and speculate on what Back 4 Blood might eventually offer.
Source: Turtle Rock Studios/Twitter