California based developer Turtle Rock Studios, mostly known for the successful Left 4 Dead franchise and for the recent flop of Evolve, are working on a new game. They revealed as much in an interview with GamesIndustry, explaining that it will be a co-op first-person shooter with a strong dark fantasy element powered by Unreal Engine 4 and published by Perfect World Entertainment.
Phil Robb, Co-founder of Turtle Rock Studios, said:
We are developing a new franchise set in an all new universe that leverages the style of gameplay our community loves and expects from Turtle Rock Studios. We're focusing on what we do best - heart-pounding moment-to-moment online co-op FPS action. And with Perfect World as our partner, we will always make sure that our players come first by listening to them and growing the game based on how they play and interact over what we hope are many years to come. We cannot wait to show them what we have in store.
What we can say is that 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.
The folks at Turtle Rock are not focusing on VR or e-Sports for this new IP.
We're constantly coming up with new ideas to explore with [Oculus]. That said, we're not yet sure how VR might fit into our upcoming title, if at all. We don't want to set a false expectation here and imply that our next top secret co-op shooter is VR friendly, but we'll take a look after we've made the title a success. As we continue working on the game -- as well as other VR opportunities -- it wouldn't surprise me if we think of something, but VR is not what's driving this particular game.
We also probably won't have much of an eSport focus on the next title, but that doesn't exclude us from focusing on making it fun to watch. That's a very different thing. I've noticed that a lot of people immediately associate viewership with eSports, but I think that people's interest in watching great games far exceeds the competitive audience. While we aren't doing a competitive game, we keep potential viewership and how 'watchable' a game is in mind at all times. I could therefore see us having a decent amount of Twitch integration in the title following launch.
The new game won't be out until 2018, but hopefully the studio will be able to shed more details as well as images and videos of the game next year. We'll make sure to cover any such updates on Wccftech.
