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'Left 4 Dead' studio Turtle Rock returns with 'Back 4 Blood'
You're probably not going to get Left 4 Dead 3 any time soon, but you might get the next best thing. Original developer Turtle Rock Studios and Warner Bros. have announced Back 4 Blood, a team-based zombie shooter that aims to modernize the L4D concept with "new features and state-of-the-art technology." The game is so early that there isn't even a logo for it yet, but Turtle Rock said in an FAQ that it will be a "premium, AAA title" initially designed for PC, PS4 and Xbox One.
Gear VR was the 'Evolve' and 'Left 4 Dead' studio's savior
"Chaotic." That's how Turtle Rock Studios president Steve Goldstein described the 14 months between its last AAA game, Evolve, being effectively killed and now. The four-hunter-versus-one-gigantic-monster online multiplayer game struggled to retain players after it was released for PC, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One in early 2015. Last June, Evolve transitioned from a $60 game to a free-to-play one. As a result, it went from roughly 100 players per month to more than 15,000. You'd think that would have been enough to keep the lights on, but you'd be wrong. Four months later, publisher 2K Games pulled the plug, saying that while the servers would remain online for the foreseeable future, the game wouldn't be getting any more updates. "It was absolutely looking bleak, but sadly that's not unusual in our space," Goldstein said. "Everyone who works here knows that they are taking a risk, right? That's not a problem unique to us." If all you've paid attention to are headlines on gaming and tech news sites, you'd think that Turtle Rock has been on the ropes ever since. But in the last year or so, thanks to Oculus' aggressive investments in virtual reality games and other experiences, Turtle Rock has been quietly building a mobile VR safety net in case its next $100 million project goes the way of Evolve.
'Left 4 Dead' creator releases an unfinished campaign
Now that Turtle Rock Studios is no longer working on Evolve, it has some time on its hands... and it's giving veteran gamers a treat. If you have a PC copy of the original Left 4 Dead (one of Turtle Rock's best-known games), you can now install Dam It, an unfinished but playable free campaign that was meant to connect two of the shipping game's stories (Dead Air and Blood Harvest). You start at an airfield and have to make your way through an apple orchard, a ravine, a covered bridge and a campground before a climactic fight at the campaign's namesake hydroelectric dam. Unlike most other L4D tales, you're actually encouraged to split up -- you just need to stay close enough to offer support in a pinch.
One month after going free, 'Evolve' averages 15,000 players
Pick a random moment in June and you'd likely find about 100 people playing Turtle Rock Studios' Evolve on Steam. That's not a lot of players in general, but this number is especially sad for a game billed as an online multiplayer extravaganza. One and a half years after launch, it looked like Evolve was dying. And then, in July, Evolve's active player base shot up to an average of 15,400 at any given time on Steam, according to current lead designer Brandon Yanez. This didn't happen by accident: Developers at Turtle Rock knew they had to take drastic action to save Evolve and so, on July 7th, they did. They made the game free on PC.
'Evolve' added over a million players by going free-to-play
It looks like that last ditch effort to save Evolve actually worked. In under a week, developer Turtle Rock Studios says that its monstrous 4-versus-1 multiplayer game has picked up over a million new players on PC. Regardless of how many will actually stick around, that's a much higher number of players than the game saw just a few weeks ago. Peak concurrent users in June totaled 234, according to Game Informer.
'Evolve' now free-to-play as creators try to save the game
Evolve got a lot of things right. But the 2015 4-vs-1 first-person shooter also got a few things wrong. It had a tremendous amount of buzz thanks to the aforementioned asymmetric multiplayer aspect, but a lack of depth -- and the restrictions that asymmetry brings -- led to mixed reviews and middling sales. Following what developer Turtle Rock Studios calls a "DLC shit-storm," its popularity dropped further, and it soon had an average player count of less than 500. 18 months after launch, Evolve's developers are making some major changes to try and rescue the game, the biggest of which is making it free-to-play on PC.
Play 'Evolve' free this weekend on Xbox One and PC
Wondering what to do with your three day weekend? Turtle Rock Studios is hoping you'll (re)visit its co-op shooter Evolve, courtesy of a few days of free access on Xbox One and PC. Even if you already own it, it may be time to knock the dust off because besides the flood of players, it's unlocking all the DLC for you to try, and just permanently unlocked a new monster, the Meteor Goliath. Thanks to its 4-on-1, primarily multiplayer setup, having a strong base of online players is key, and this is one way to try and refresh the ranks. The free preview is already under way, wrapping up on the 7th, at 11:59PM PT on Xbox One, and at 10AM PT on PC.
'Evolve' simplifies the hunt with free deathmatch arena mode
Evolve isn't a typical multiplayer shooter. The game pits four hunters against a quickly mutating monster, with the first task usually being to find and trap the player-controlled goliath. The experience can be a little bewildering for newcomers, so developer Turtle Rock Studios is throwing in a free Arena Mode that keeps everything simple. In a best-of-three match, the hunters and monster are dropped in a small, pre-determined dome with only one goal; take down your opponent(s). The monster starts at stage two with 50 percent armour, reducing the need to devour local wildlife, and when a hunter dies they're out until the next round. It's a bare-bones take on the Evolve formula, stripping away some of what makes the game unique. Still, if you're interested in shorter rounds where you can easily hone your combat skills, Arena Mode could be a welcome change on planet Shear.
JXE Streams: Life finds a way in 'Evolve'
Steps up to mic. Cues "Muzzle" by Smashing Pumpkins. My name is Anthony John Agnello, onetime Joystiq community manager, host of Joystiq Streams and known scallywag. I've been knighted in three countries, thrown out of the Madame Tussauds wax museum five times (but only once for a good reason) and I've been writing about video games professionally for eight years. My work's appeared in The Onion's The AV Club, The Gameological Society, Edge, Digital Trends, Fast Company and many more.
Watch this six-way trailer for Evolve, the latest shooter from the makers of Left 4 Dead
With each successive round of gaming consoles, developers get a little more inventive with the available technology -- the same goes for how they tease their audience ahead of a game's launch, too. Turtle Rock Studios (the team behind Left 4 Dead) recently released an interactive trailer for its upcoming co-op shooter, Evolve. The clip follows a session of four players as they stalk and then battle the gigantic, player-controlled creature that's out to end them. The rub of it is that with a single mouse-click you can swap between the perspectives of each combatant on-the-fly, and watch how the game unfolds from their respective points of view. Want jump from bipedal-monstrosity to soldier and back again just before the former attacks the latter? Go for it.
Video: Left 4 Dead co-op zombie slaying
We have to admit it, the concept behind Left 4 Dead is awesome-on-a-stick. Like most gamers, we love cooperative gamin, we love squad based shooters, and we love killing zombies. Left 4 Dead takes all those things and combines them into a delicious sushi roll of carnal delights. Oh, and don't forget that the zombies (known as "the infected") are playable as well, which provides the final touch of wasabi to the aforementioned, metaphorical sushi roll. We rounded up a couple of off screen videos of the game from QuakeCon 2007. Check 'em out and dream of the day you can join in the fun (which should be this winter for 360 owners).Be warned: videos are violent and possibly NSFW.
Video: Shaky Left 4 Dead zombownage
Video footage has surfaced from the showdownLAN of the upcoming PC and Xbox 360 zombie vs. human shooter, Left 4 Dead. Brought to us by Turtle Rock Studios and Valve, who made a little ditty called Counter-Strike. The video above shows four survivors fighting off a bunch of the Infected. Gameplay looks fast, furious, and bloody. Not shown in the video are the "Super Infected' which are more formidable than the fodder shown above. We'll be sure to keep a keen eye on this as more details emerge.[Via Joystiq]
Left 4 Dead: co-op zombie slaying action [update 2]
Let's talk about great game conventions. Let's see, there's guns. Everyone likes those. Zombies, gotta love zombies. What else? Ooh, co-op. There's nothing like good co-op. Turtle Rock Studios, the team behind the AI bots in Counter-Strike, looks to combine all of these things in one glorious package with their latest offering, Left 4 Dead. Left 4 Dead puts players in the middle of a contemporary setting in which an incredibly virulent strain of rabies has overtaken the general populace. So, we're not dealing with zombies per se, but definitely crazed people with a penchant for biting their neighbors. Players will create a group of four different survivors, each with different personalities and backgrounds, and fight for survival. Players will cooperate in a survival horror setting, blasting their way through several different "campaigns" which are essentially a series of connected maps that end in a final standoff as players wait for rescue. But here's the twist: the enemies (the "infected") are playable as well. Whereas the human survivors have the same basic weapons and skills, the infected are divided into classes. Some enemies can vomit blood to attract other infected, others can reel in survivors with a long tongue, and the "tank" class can even power through concrete walls. Finally, Turtle Rock claims that their next gen AI technology will allow human players to drop in and out of the game without affecting the overall experience or restarting the scenario.The idea of playing an online enabled, co-op survival horror game with playable enemies is positively dreamy (though not exactly original). If all that wasn't enough, the game is expected to hit the 360 by the end of 2007. Looks like we might have one more to put up on the big board.[Via Xboxygen] Update: Replaced crappy not moving image with awesome trailer. Thanks for spotting this, Mike.Update 2: Turtle Rock implemented bots into CS. They didn't create the game.
