Left 4 Dead 3 is Not Happening

In a statement to IGN, Valve officially put those Left 4 Dead 3 rumors to bed. 

“We did briefly explore some Left 4 Dead next-gen opportunities a few years ago. But we are absolutely not working on anything L4D related now, and haven’t for years,” says Valve regarding recent reports which suggest that Left 4 Dead 3 is in active development. “It’s clear some people are having fun creating misinformation to spin up the community and other outlets. Unfortunately, for now, a new L4D game is not something we’re working on.”

The recent rumors Valve refers to come from sources that are now clearly not worth naming. Basically, though, they suggested that Valve was working on a new Left 4 Dead game that was likely going to be a VR title. That now appears to not be the case. 

We can’t help but be a little curious regarding how much exploration went into those next-gen Left 4 Dead opportunities, though. If we had to guess, we’d say that Valve probably momentarily flirted with the idea of making a new L4D game but that they probably didn’t go beyond hearing a few pitches. We highly doubt that anything was being worked on beyond that.

Still, they had to leave that window open by saying they’re not working on a new game “for now.” The truth of the matter is that Left 4 Dead is probably a lot like Half-Life 3 in the minds of Valve. The effort and resources it would take to actually make the game probably wouldn’t justify the expectations it would have to overcome. There’s also no shortage of games out there that play roughly similar to L4D. 

Having said all of that, we’ve got to admit that a VR version of Portal or Left 4 Dead would be pretty cool. Besides, if Valve is willing to sell VR devices by making a new Half-Life game, then who knows what’s next? 

Matthew Byrd is a staff writer for Den of Geek. He spends most of his days trying to pitch deep-dive analytical pieces about Killer Klowns From Outer Space to an increasingly perturbed series of editors. You can read more of his work here or find him on Twitter at @SilverTuna014.