Valve gobbles up Turtle Rock Studios

By Robert Purchese Published 10 January, 2008

Left 4 Dead team now in-house.

You won't be shocked, but Valve has announced the acquisition of Turtle Rock Studios.

The pair were previously working together on impressive co-operative zombie outing Left 4 Dead, in a sort of Valve helps out and distributes it on Steam kind of way.

But evidently it made more sense to bring the Turtles in and add a Southern California office to Valve's repertoire - for parties and things as well as a being a base to expand from.

"Given our expectations for Left 4 Dead and our long-standing relationships with members of the Turtle Rock team, this was an easy decision," said favourite person Gabe Newell, who also does some sort of business work at Valve.

Left 4 Dead is an ambitious and exciting multiplayer project where two teams of up to four people battle each other, one team as four survivors, the other as the Infected, or yucky zombie-like things that want to eat humans. You can also let the AI control the zombies if all your friends are stupid.

It is fast, furious, and overwhelmingly popular, as Tom found out at QuakeCon; watching endless lines of people queue to play it, overlooking star attraction Enemy Territory: Quake Wars.

This resulted in us, read: Tom, writing quite a lot about it, which you can eyeball over on our Left 4 Dead gamepage.

Left 4 Dead is due out on PC in the second quarter of 2008, with a 360 version to follow.

Picture of Robert.

About Robert Purchese

Bertie is Eurogamer's Senior Staff Writer. When he's not hunting down news stories he's often found playing with his kids or gabbling about fantasy games and strange online worlds.

Read more articles from Robert by visiting the Robert Purchese archive page.

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Comments (12) Latest comment 4 years ago

Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • Freelancepolice #1 4 years ago

    gah second quarter?

    Good news anyway

  • Darkedge #2 4 years ago

    "star attraction Enemy Territory: Quake Wars"
    which i've seen the spesh ed version on sale for 15 quid in shops... I think you have to call thats a flop.

  • Dizzy #3 4 years ago

    Left4Dead is gonna be my GOTY 2008. Good news.... Valve is really turning into a quality powerhouse.

    >with a 360 version to follow.

    BTW 360 version will follow very closely. It is almost 100% same codebase.
    Edited by 1 at 10/01/08 @ 17:07

  • penhalion #4 4 years ago

    @Darkedge

    Took the words out of my mouth. I've also seen unreal tourney 3 going for a song in all the sales at game, hmv etc. etc. Looks like that bout of sequel-itis is finally clearing up then ;)

  • HyperShadow #5 4 years ago

    "which i've seen the spesh ed version on sale for 15 quid in shops... I think you have to call thats a flop."

    UT3 is £15 in Gamestation, is that a flop too? Quake Wars was out in September and seemed to have sold quite well too, so that would make it sale fodder.

    Anyway, can't wait to play L4D. Feels like I've been waiting too long for that game. But with Turtle Rock now part of Valve, let the extended delays begin!

  • crozon #6 4 years ago

    hold on a second as crysis is still not on sale, i guess its not a flop ..............:)

    on more important matter can't wait for left4 dead.........please release a beta so i can play it now

  • Caffo #7 4 years ago

    @crozon

    I think the stores are smart enough to know that anyone who needs to buy crysis in the sales is not going to have a pc powerful enough to play it ;)

  • NickNack #8 4 years ago

    Playing through Orange box on 360, and three years later Half life 2 is still the best FPS ever made. Haven't even started on the episodes, can't wait. Left 4 dead will be amazing, luckily for me it's on 360....

  • zoidberg #9 4 years ago

    Dizzy, Valve has been a powerhouse since 1999

  • Svecke #10 4 years ago

    This is the first multiplayer game I've looked forward to since ever. o_o

  • DAN.E.B #11 4 years ago

    looks like a great co op game shame about the wait tho

  • kangarootoo #12 4 years ago

    "which i've seen the spesh ed version on sale for 15 quid in shops"

    A flop is a game that fails to make profit. Shop floor price at any given time is no guide to anything by itself.

  • Dizzy #13 4 years ago

    >Dizzy, Valve has been a powerhouse since 1999

    Have they produced anything since 1999? :)

    No seriously... they have been but have had only a few of releases. By acquiring more good design "studios" if hope we will get more and more interesting releases from them.