Back 4 Blood is the Left 4 Dead 3 we'll never get from Valve
The Back 4 Blood alpha starts next week
Turtle Rock, which is a developer formed by bunch of developers that worked on Left 4 Dead and Left 4 Dead 2 announced Back 4 Blood at The Game Awards 2020.
The game apparently wears its influences on its sleeves, as it's a four-player co-op survival game against a zombie horde, with plenty of special infected to keep it interesting. Basically, it's Left 4 Dead 3 in all but name.
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Turtle Rock also showed off a bunch of live gameplay, and all the key elements of L4D are alive and well. The game also looks like it will take advantage of next-generation hardware to give players the chance to play a game with this classic formula that looks like it came out this century.
While we don't know when Back 4 Blood will actually come out, the game will go into Alpha starting next week, so you and your friends can get in on some zombie killing action soon. You can play it on PS5, PS4, Xbox One, Xbox Series X, Steam and the Epic Games Store.
This is probably as close as we'll get to a Left 4 Dead 3
It's become sort of a joke that Valve doesn't know how to count to the number 3, as we're still waiting for Half Life 3, Portal 3 and, of course, Left 4 Dead 3. We haven't seen much movement on any of these titles, except for Half-Life Alyx, which came out for VR earlier in 2020.
Luckily, most of the creative team behind Left 4 Dead stayed with Turtle Beach when it became independent from Valve back in 2011. So, while this definitely isn't the Left 4 Dead 3 we've been waiting for since 2009, it will definitely scratch the itch, and looks way better than Left 4 Dead 2 to boot.
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We'll just have to wait until the Alpha opens up next week to see if it really feels like the classic co-op title.
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Bill Thomas (Twitter) is TechRadar's computing editor. They are fat, queer and extremely online. Computers are the devil, but they just happen to be a satanist. If you need to know anything about computing components, PC gaming or the best laptop on the market, don't be afraid to drop them a line on Twitter or through email.