Valve Corp., developer of the Half-Life, Team Fortress and Day of Defeat series of games, announced today that it is acquiring Turtle Rock studios, which is currently working on the co-op zombie action title
Left 4 Dead.
Founded in March 2002 by Michael Booth, Turtle Rock started out working with Valve to develop Counter-Strike products for PC and Xbox. In 2006, the company announced it was at work on its first original IP, Left 4 Dead, a cooperative multiplayer game built on the Source engine.
The game pits four players against a horde of zombies, forcing the characters to share resources, keep one another healthy and stay alive. Four other players can also jump in and take control of the undead forces.
"Left 4 Dead fills a long-standing demand gamers have had for a coop first-person action experience, and it will also help Valve's expansion into the console market," added Doug Lombardi, Valve's VP of marketing.
Valve was founded in 1996 and is based in Bellvue, WA, with offices in Irvine, CA. The Turtle Rock acquisition will add a second Southern California development studio to Valve's lineup.
"We have been seeing very strong growth with Steam and Source, our content distribution and development platforms, up over 150% over the last 12 months," said Gabe Newell, president of Valve. "Given our expectations for Left 4 Dead and our long-standing relationships with members of the Turtle Rock team, this was an easy decision. It also gives us a base from which to expand our development activities in the Los Angeles area."
According to his bio on Turtle Rock's
official web site, Booth has 16 years of professional software engineering experience, including nine years of experience in the video game industry, and seven years experience in the real-time simulation industry.
"Valve has had great success bringing in projects and teams such as Team Fortress and Portal. As I spent time working and talking with the creators of those products over the past several years, it became clear that this was the right next step for myself, my colleagues at Turtle Rock, our customers, and our products," Booth said. "We are excited to be a part of such a visionary and forward-thinking company."
