We haven’t seen a new Left 4 Dead game in years, and the probability of seeing a new entry is pretty nil, unless Valve manages to surprise us out of left field. That said, we’ve got plenty of co-op adventures to enjoy in the meantime, but we can’t help but wonder – why aren’t more made in the style of Left 4 Dead?
Turns out there’s some actually pretty good reasoning for that, according to Martin Wahlund, who serves as the CEO of Fatshark. That developer has produced the fun co-op game Vermintide in the Warhammer series, and the team is already hard at work on a sequel.
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Speaking with GameWatcher, Wahlund explained why we aren’t seeing more games in the Left 4 Dead mold, and the reasoning is pretty sound, for the most part.
“There are a few reasons. One thing is that people are afraid to go into Valve genres! It’s a daunting thing, we certainly were in the beginning, going up against the best in the world!” he said.
“It’s also tricky to do. The pacing system is hard, we’ve worked a lot on getting that right and balanced. Q&A is difficult too. You can play a game 20 times and only get a bug on the 21st go. For example on Vermintide just a couple of weeks before launch it crashed several times, because a Rat Ogre knocked over a bunch of rats including a Loot Rat into a barrier, which made the Loot Rat not be able to reach a certain state. It was a crazy, one-in-a-million thing that you can’t easily test for, which happens all the time.
“Furthermore the AAA teams are looking at the big money-makers like Modern Warfare, and the smaller teams are probably smarter than we are and not trying to do one of the most daunting tasks in the industry and making a melee Left 4 Dead!”
That said, some developers are trying new ideas for co-op, though we’ll still be waiting for Valve to count to three on its zombies series. But, then again, fans have been waiting for Gabe Newell to count to three for years.
Vermintide 2 is set to release next year for consoles and PC.
