Turtle Rock Studios has announced that it will be ceasing development on Back 4 Blood, opting to instead focus on a new game that has yet to be announced. This news may be surprising to some as Back 4 Blood was released on October 2021, meaning that the game will have only received updates for roughly a year.
Pitched as a successor to Valve's Left 4 Dead, which has not had a new game since 2009, Back 4 Blood was meant to carry the concept of a zombie hoard shooter that strongly emphasizes cooperative play among players and places more emphasis on unlocks and progression. While it never had the same cultural impact that its predecessor may have had, it received support throughout 2022 in the form of content updates that helped expand its offerings beyond what was available at launch.
The announcement that Back 4 Blood has ended development arrived via a news update on Turtle Rock Studio's website and opens by thanking fans for their support of the game. Turtle Rock Studios' reasoning behind the decision is due to it being relatively small for developing AAA games and deciding to shift focus on its next project. Since the third expansion for Back 4 Blood, River of Blood released about two months ago, the decision to cease making new content possibly came soon after its development finished.
Turtle Rock Studios reassures fans that "this is not a goodbye" by stating that Back 4 Blood will still be playable before referencing that it is available for PlayStation Plus Extra and Premium as well as Xbox Game Pass. The update concludes with the studio saying that it will be quiet over the short term but promises to be back bigger and better than it has been before.
For those who have been enjoying Back 4 Blood since its launch, the news is likely bittersweet. Although some found it to have not lived up to the legacy left behind by Left 4 Dead, it is likely that Valve is not releasing its own follow-up anytime soon, meaning that fans who were looking for a different experience had Back 4 Blood to fall back on when it comes to new content. Still, Turtle Rock Studios is clearly ready to move on from Back 4 Blood. Hopefully, the studio can live up to the promise it made and have its next project be the best it has ever delivered.
Back 4 Blood is out now for PC, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.
Source: Turtle Rock Studios
