Back 4 Blood Studio Acquired
A little earlier this year, Turtle Rock Studios released their from-scratch rebranded version of Xbox 360 hits Left 4 Dead and Left 4 Dead 2 for current and next-gen consoles called Back 4 Blood. Since the studio released Back 4 Blood, the spiritual successor to the earlier mentioned Left 4 Dead series, they have gotten endless praise for the from-the-ground-up renewal of their own game as well as the uniqueness and unlimited playability of the title. Below, we’ve gone into detail on the zombie shooter game from Turtle Rock Studios, some other details that pertain to the studio, and finally, the news that the Back 4 Blood studio has been acquired by Chinese tech giant Tencent, as well as what it could mean for the future of the Back 4 Blood series.
Turtle Rock Studios
Turtle Rock Studios, before the release of Back 4 Blood, released a game that was quite the definition of hit or miss with their release of Evolve. Evolve was a very similar idea to Left 4 Dead and Back 4 Blood but instead of zombies, it features a squad of four players going up against a horde of aliens, while a fifth player controlled one of several monsters with various abilities and movesets. Turtle Rock Studios wasn’t the exact studio to create Left 4 Dead as Back 4 Blood consists of members of the original team behind Valve’s Left 4 Dead but the passion to create something new from something old, but known to be great and loved, was instantly noticeable within the effort to create this game. Back 4 Blood, on the other hand, especially when compared to Evolve, is a very different game from Left 4 Dead and Back 4 Blood. Evolve, in concept, was an incredible game that players couldn’t make a direct link to Left 4 Dead outside of the same internal team. While there were obvious similarities if you compared the two, Evolve actually came up more similar to Back 4 Blood. Evolve may have been released after Left 4 Dead but Left 4 Dead servers can be found with much more of a population within them full of players looking for potential games to play with others while Evolve has since been removed from its servers. Although online servers have been taken online, if up to 5 players that own the game join a lobby together, they can still play a portion of the game’s modes and maps.
Back 4 Blood Studio
Turtle Rock Studios’ Back 4 Blood certainly learned from the mistakes of both Left 4 Dead and Evolve with a game that appeals to various demographics, compared to either game having its own separate genre to please. Back 4 Blood and Evolve both followed similar themes, asking players to join with other players in order to destroy hordes of ravenous monsters that require a bit of skill and knowledge to defeat as neither game could just be jumped into as a newbie. When it came to games that were overly hyped before release, Back 4 Blood earned its placement as highly-anticipated by holding up the standards the game announced it would incorporate upon release, something Cyberpunk 2077 failed to do when it disappointed endless fans, even today. Back 4 Blood was very unique from the start and even now continues to add more content to the title with a second round of DLC. Turtle Rock Studios, recently acquired by Tencent, also has had a roadmap detailed for fans to be sure of what DLC is coming and when to look forward to playing it or just getting more details related to it.
Tencent
Tencent has been a long-standing name in the mobile and overall gaming communities with their own projects, as well as the continuous acquisitions of various game studios and other properties to help themselves grow. As for other properties in ownership of Tencent, some of the most popular among them are Riot Games, Supercell, Smite, and others. Tencent has also owned stakes in various companies for quite a few years now including Epic Games, Tesla, and other notable companies known worldwide. Although Tencent acquired Turtle Rock Studios, the company more directly so purchased Turtle Rock Studio’s parent company Slamfire Inc. Various studios exist within Tencent such as TiMi, Proxima Beta, NeXT, and several others, and I wouldn’t expect them to stop anytime soon as the company has a history, especially recently, of acquiring a number of different companies to be added to their ever-growing roster. Overall, the news that Tencent acquired Back 4 Blood creator Turtle Rock Studios could mean any number of things but for the most part, fans should look forward to the possibilities that could happen to make the game, and the studio even greater.
