Summary
A wave of new job listings for Turtle Rock Studios' next game has some questioning whether a sequel toBack 4 Bloodcould be in the works.Back 4 Bloodlaunched in late 2021 and struggled to find an audience, despite early positivity for a newLeft 4 Dead-inspired shooter. Whether Turtle Rock Studios has decided to work on an entirely new project or if it wants to refine theBack 4 Bloodexperience is a question many are curious to find out.
Left 4 DeadandLeft 4 Dead 2were 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 tocaptureLeft 4 Dead’s success, withLeft 4 Deaddeveloper 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. ButBack 4 Blood’s development has since ended and Turtle Rock is working on something new.
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No announcement has been made regardingTurtle 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 aBack 4 Bloodsequel being in development.
Given how general these areas of requested experience are, Turtle Rock’s new game could also be wildly different fromBack 4 Blood. It could be working on something more akin toCall of DutyorHalo, 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 ofBack 4 Bloodand is more ambitious.
Turtle Rock’s AAA game development experience revolves entirely aroundLeft 4 Dead-like games. AfterLeft 4 Dead, it worked on post-launch content forLeft 4 Dead 2, then it madeEvolve, andBack 4 Bloodafter 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 onlessons learned fromBack 4 Blood’s developmentmakes a lot of sense, but until there’s official confirmation it’s only speculation.
Back 4 Bloodis available now on PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.
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