A little more than a year after it launched, Back 4 Blood is formally finished. Developer Turtle Rock Studios announced today that it's going to "get to work on the next big thing."
"What an amazing year 2022 was for us," the studio wrote. "First off, we wanted to thank all of you for making Back 4 Blood what it is today. With three expansions—Tunnels of Terror, Children of the Worm, and River of Blood—we’ve traveled on a fantastic adventure together beyond the walls of Fort Hope. This phase of our war against the Ridden now comes to a close.
"Turtle Rock Studios is actually pretty small for a studio making AAA games. We don't have quite enough folks to continue working on Back 4 Blood content while we spin up another game—yes, another game! Given this, it's time for us to put our heads down, get back in the lab, and get to work on the next big thing."
We gave Back 4 Blood an impressive 88% in our October 2021 review, calling it "an exceptional FPS that sets a new standard for co-op zombie murderfests." The reception was somewhat less positive across Steam user reviews, which are "mixed," and it wasn't nearly the runaway success of Left 4 Dead 2, which despite being a decade older still has a much larger player base. But it still racked up pretty decent player counts on Steam, and Turtle Rock kept things rolling through three expansions released across 2022.
While there won't be any new content coming in the future, Turtle Rock noted that Back 4 Blood itself is not going away. In fact, it remains available through Xbox Game Pass and PlayStation Plus Extra and Premium tiers, and of course you can still snag it on Steam. The team will still be around too, although they aren't talking about whatever they're doing next.
"You'll also still find us hanging out in the subreddit and on Discord, as well as our official Twitter, Instagram, Facebook and website because we love interacting with you and talking about our games," Turtle Rock said. "While we may be a bit quieter in the short-term, we promise that we’ll be back, bigger, bolder and better than ever!"
