Turtle Rock developed the OriginalLeft 4 Deadin 2008, inventing the modern 4-player co-op format. Games likeWarhammer: Vermintide,theupcomingRainbow Six Extraction, andRedfallmight not exist without Turtle Rock’s earlier innovation. Given the genre’s popularity, it’s no surprise Turtle Rock threw its hat back into the ring withBack 4 Bloodin October.
However, the spiritual successor is struggling to surpass the original series. Even twelve years after its release,Left 4 Dead 2is still more popular on Steam than the just-releasedBack 4 Blood. In fact, the new game seems to have reignited players' passions for its 2009 predecessor.
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Independent site SteamDB tracks the number of concurrent players on Steam games. It also allows users to compare player numbers of multiple Steam titles. Doing so forBack 4 BloodandLeft 4 Dead 2reveals something interesting.Back 4 Bloodpeaked on October 14th with about 25,500 players,surpassing the originalLeft 4 Dead’sall-time peak. However, that number fell off quickly, asLeft 4 Dead 2rises to meet it.
As of this writing,Left 4 Dead 2has about 18,000 active players, whileBack 4 Bloodis just shy of 16,000 players. Meanwhile, the last 24 hours saw peaks of about 35,500 and 25,700 players, respectively.Left 4 Dead 2also saw a massive spike on September 14th, eclipsingBack 4 Bloods’all-time high.
It’s easy to infer that players’anticipation forBack 4 Blooddrove the spike in September. However, one would expect many of those players to migrate over to the new game. Unfortunately for Turtle Rock, that hasn’t happened. And whileLeft 4 Dead 2has nowhere near as many players as its peak in September, it’s still trending upward, whileBack 4 Bloodonly seems to lose players with time.
In fairness, it is worth remembering that these numbers are only for the games’ players on Steam.Back 4 Bloodis also available on PlayStation and Xbox Consoles. There’s also the fact that only the older game runs on Mac and Linux in addition to Windows PC. Still, it’s not a great sign forBack 4 Blood.
The whole situation must be at least a little frustrating for Turtle Rock, who split from Valve in 2010. The company was known as Valve South at the time of the original game’s release. Valve retained the rights toLeft 4 Deadand developedLeft 4 Dead 2in-house.While it’s possible thatBack 4 Bloodeventually turns things around, the games undoubtedly had an inauspicious first month.
Back 4 Bloodis available on PC, PS4. PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S.
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