'Left 4 Dead' Devs Announce New Fantasy Game With 'Huge Focus On Co-Op FPS'

Turtle Rock Studios has announced its team-up with renowned publisher Perfect World Entertainment to bring a new fantasy-driven first-person shooter title to life.

As one would expect, the as-yet-unnamed game will be co-op focused, which puts it in the realm of titles like Warhammer: End Times - Vermintide. Sadly, this won't be an expansion to the studio's now cancelled Evolve Stage 2, which went free-to-play earlier this year.

We all played Evolve, the final game by former Left 4 Dead developers Turtle Rock Studios. Evolve showed promise and the intent to grow and stay relevant. It managed to keep fans entertained with its revolutionary gameplay mechanics and PvP elements. It combined what fans loved about both #MOBA and #FPS genres, and gifted us with the fun of monsters being hunted by trappers. This approach was a departure from #Left4Dead, which has managed to keep fans throughout the world entertained to this day.

President of Turtle Rock Steve Goldstein stated to GamesIndustry.biz:

"We are definitely going back to our moment-to-moment gameplay roots with a huge focus on co-op FPS. There will be plenty of baddies to shoot up, but it is not a 'zombie game' or anything post-apocalyptic. What we can say right now is there's a strong dark fantasy element to it."

According to Turtle Rock Studios, the game is being built on the Unreal Engine, but won't be ready until at least 2018, which is a bitter pill for fans to swallow. The developers insist their #VR titles Other Worlds and Face Your Fears are their primary focus at this point in time.

If Turtle Rock does what it did with Evolve Stage 2, we can assume the future title will be free-to-play, while its new publisher Perfect World is also known for free-to-play titles like Blacklight: Retribution and Star Trek Online.

Goldstein, who believes being able to react to players' behavior instantly is very important, says he expects to be releasing regular updates to the new game when it launches:

"We can't overstate how helpful [free-to-play] is to us as developers. It's a direct line toward taking the game that we wanted to play when we first started working on it and ensuring that it will be a game that our community wants to play for years to come. This completely changes the dynamic of how we make games."

We can't wait to see what you have ready for us, Goldstein. We can't wait.

[Source: GamesIndustry.biz; Polygon]