Highlights
- Job listings at Turtle Rock Studios hint at the possibility of a Back 4 Blood sequel being in development, leaving fans curious about the studio's next project.
- While Turtle Rock's previous games, including Back 4 Blood, were influenced by Left 4 Dead's success, the new game could take a different direction, potentially resembling Call of Duty or Halo.
- Speculation suggests that Turtle Rock's next game will build upon the lessons learned from Back 4 Blood's development, but until an official announcement is made, it remains uncertain.
A wave of new job listings for Turtle Rock Studios' next game has some questioning whether a sequel to Back 4 Blood could be in the works. Back 4 Blood launched in late 2021 and struggled to find an audience, despite early positivity for a new Left 4 Dead-inspired shooter. Whether Turtle Rock Studios has decided to work on an entirely new project or if it wants to refine the Back 4 Blood experience is a question many are curious to find out.
Left 4 Dead and Left 4 Dead 2 were both wildly successful shooters. However, they were both released prior to the onset of modern games-as-a-service design. Many game releases in the years since have tried to capture Left 4 Dead's success, with Left 4 Dead developer Turtle Rock perhaps being the most prominent. Turtle Rock's most recent offering, Back 4 Blood, is one of the most recent examples of that. But Back 4 Blood's development has since ended and Turtle Rock is working on something new.
No announcement has been made regarding Turtle Rock's next game, but fans have been parsing the studio's job listings for clues. For example, a recently posted listing for a Senior Combat Designer lists several interesting areas of requested experience. These areas include "combat/weapons," "class design," "skills," and "boss encounters." This is all mentioned as being part of Turtle Rock's "next AAA title" currently in development.
While those areas of expertise are fairly general, there are some more specific details found in the job listing's "Responsibilities," "Requirements," and "Preferences" sections. One bullet point mentions working with Turtle Rock's maps team on "mission layouts." Another bullet point mentions having a love of "FPS, Co-op, and Multiplayer games." One preference is for applicants to have experience developing games with "first-person shooting and melee" gameplay. These all fit with the theory of a Back 4 Blood sequel being in development.
Given how general these areas of requested experience are, Turtle Rock's new game could also be wildly different from Back 4 Blood. It could be working on something more akin to Call of Duty or Halo, for example, with separate multiplayer and co-op-enabled campaign modes. All that seems clear is that Turtle Rock's next game is building off of Back 4 Blood and is more ambitious.
Turtle Rock's AAA game development experience revolves entirely around Left 4 Dead-like games. After Left 4 Dead, it worked on post-launch content for Left 4 Dead 2, then it made Evolve, and Back 4 Blood after that. It did make several VR games over the past decade, too, but there's certainly no mention of VR in these recent job listings. A sequel building on lessons learned from Back 4 Blood's development makes a lot of sense, but until there's official confirmation it's only speculation.
Back 4 Blood is available now on PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.
Source: Very Ali Gaming
