NOT LEFT 4 DEAD 3. But jokes on you, I actually liked the trailer. A suspicious teaser for Left 4 Dead 3 was posted on YouTube yesterday, and though it's been confirmed as a fake, that hasn't stopped fans.

It’s been almost ten years since Left 4 Dead 2 was first released on Steam. Does that make you feel old? Because I’m feeling pretty ancient right now. There’s been no announcement of Left 4 Dead 3 for nearly a decade now, which is surprising—because Left 4 Dead 2 ended on a huge cliffhanger, because it was enormously popular and successful, and because rumors of a sequel have been popping up for years.As far as we know, there's still no Left 4 Dead 3, Valve even staunchly denied it in January 2020. But there have been many, many rumors to pore over.

The lack of an official announcement from Valve hasn’t stopped people from creating plenty of hoaxes and fan-made ‘leaks’ in the last few years. If this doesn’t prove just how starved zombie enthusiasts are for even the slightest hint of L4D3, then I don’t know what does.We've gone back through the last decade of Left 4 Dead 3 rumors to determine what was fake, what was plausible, and what those 'leaks' might be able to tell us. Here’s everything we learned about Left 4 Dead 3 so far. As of 2020, Valve is 'absolutely not' making Left 4 Dead 3Early in 2020, HTC China president Alvin Wang Graylin on the future of VR, including one that said, 'Valve HL Alyx/LFD3 will drive consumer and AAA studio interest.' Naturally, folks ran with the idea that this was some insider confirmation of Left 4 Dead 3, despite the acronym being slightly off.Valve quickly stepped in and provided a statement to saying, 'we did briefly explore some Left 4 Dead next opportunities a few years ago.

But we are absolutely not working on anything L4D related now, and haven’t for years.' '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.'

Graylin then clarified on Twitter that unfortunately his 'LFD4' example was just personal speculation, given that he's a fan of the series himself. Is there proof Left 4 Dead 3 is in development?Honestly, there’s little to go on. The series’ lead writer Chet Faliszek hinted at the possibility of a third installment in an interview with back in 2012, but we’ve had nothing but radio silence from official channels since. Faliszek left Valve in 2017. We were with an impressive game trailer that seemed almost official but unfortunately wasn’t, as confirmed to us by Valve itself.In 2016, it seemed like Valve had slipped up by including possible L4D3 leaks in an HTC Vive benchmark tool built using their Source Engine. ’s Tyler McVicker unearthed several references and assets in its source files, including a new special infected enemy called The Nocturnal, a day/night cycle, and an older male character.

Whether he was supposed to be an NPC or a Survivor is unknown. Nhl eastside hockey manager 2007 roster update game. A direct connection between the files and the game’s development was never found.Later that year, Valve fansite reported that employee Tristan Reidford appeared to leak proof of L4D3’s development after publishing a tutorial to Steam. The tutorial included a screenshot of his Windows Explorer favorites, with a ‘left4dead3’ folder listed at the top. The image was quickly removed and replaced with a different one. Was this a legitimate mistake or an intentional tease? Who might be developing Left 4 Dead 3?It was heavily predicted that Turtle Rock Studios, the developer behind the original Left 4 Dead, or Valve, which developed L4D2 itself, would be taking on the development of L4D3. But it seems safe to say now that Turtle Rock definitely isn't involved.

After you choose C-Team's Anthropic Principle fragment, you must escape the Rec Room. Seek a Way Out. Get the fire hook that the armor is holding. Use it to open the trap door. There is a clue on the inside of the trap door. Get the wooden hammer. Get the note from beside the chess set. Use the hammer to hit the C in the chess set. The rec room puzzle is one of the locked rooms C-Team will encounter in Zero Time Dilemma. Here’s how to solve it. Step 1: Pick up the chess rules on the table. Step 2: Pick up the wooden box. Zero time dilemma rec room walkthrough.

In April of 2019, Turtle Rock announced zombie first-person shooter and it appears to be a spiritual successor to the Left 4 Dead series. Interactive is publishing it.If Left 4 Dead 3 is in development, it seems likely it's within Valve. But that's just a guess based on some of the rumors below, which have never amounted to anything. It's even possible Left 4 Dead 3 was in development at some point, but isn't anymore.An image 'leaked' onto the NeoGAF forum in 2014, supposedly showing a L4D2 level remade in the Source 2 engine. Nothing ever came of it. What are the strongest, most believable rumors?Supposed Left 4 Dead 3 character concept art from 2013The most believable rumor comes from Valve News Network’s Tyler McVicker again.

Last month, he dropped believed to be from a 2013 build of L4D3, stating that it was in development a long time ago but has since been cancelled. Though the images look nothing like the games we know and love, it’s not hard to believe Valve canned it if it was in development.

Especially since it's never officially announced a new Left 4 Dead, despite knowing that fans utterly crave it. But who knows?

The screeenshots look more like assets for Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, and it's entirely possible they were simply used as test environments.There is some more evidence in their favor, though. Moby Francke, a concept artist for L4D, uploaded to be L4D3 concept art onto his personal website upon leaving Valve in 2013.

The art shows two men sporting guns and wearing Middle Eastern outfits. Remember the screenshots from earlier? It’s not so far-fetched to believe the two are related.The drawings are believed to be directly linked because of a series of clothing and skin textures contained within a 2015 version of Aperture Robot Repair uploaded onto the Steam Database. The textures are almost identical to the garments worn by the men in Francke’s art, leaving little room for coincidence.

Half-Life: Alyx probably means Left 4 Dead 3 is in the back of the pipelineWith the recent announcement, it seems unlikely that Left 4 Dead 3 would be following shortly after. Valve has said that Half-Life: Alyx 'is the largest game team we've had yet.' It sounds like there probably aren't any hands free to work on zombies. If there is a L4D3 still in the works somewhere in Valve's basement, it will be quite a while before we hear about it.

Left 4 Dead 3 could be VR tooA known Valve reporter/leaker has and predictions including Left 4 Dead in VR. It would make sense for Valve to continue rolling with whatever tech it's been developing for Half-Life: Alyx so L4D in VR isn't so wild a thought. Were any of the leaks?It’s very hard to believe that some of the leaks aren’t real, especially since a handful have unintentionally come from Valve itself. Nothing has ever been officially confirmed though, leaving the door for speculation wide open.

And because some of the leaks are now years old, it's again possible that Left 4 Dead 3 was in development at some point but has since been cancelled.One leak had most of the internet fooled into false legitimacy in 2018: a bogus Facebook page. Cyber sleuths hacked the and changed the Facebook link to a fake page supposedly belonging to developer Ted Carson, with the header sporting a zombie hand holding up three fingers. Left 4 Dead 3 confirmed, right? You can’t blame people for falling for it if the link was on the official site.

The excitement didn’t last long, as Valve quickly shut the rumor down by changing the link back to the.Carson’s name had already popped up in the rumor mill a few years before after a allegedly revealed that he was working on the sequel. His name was also included in a claiming to be of on a developer’s PC screen at Valve’s headquarters, showing that he made edits to L4D3 content. Neither were ever confirmed to be true.

Is a Left 4 Dead 3 release date coming in 2019? Here’s all the latest news and rumours about L4D3 – plus our wishlist for the new Valve game.

Left 4 Dead 2 came around so quickly it felt like whiplash. Remember the 25,000 signature petition to boycott what was perceived to be a rushed sequel? Perhaps Valve took it too much to heart. It’s been almost an entire decade since four unlikely heroes cut a route through Savannah and New Orleans to survive. We’ve waited long enough, and we want Left 4 Dead 3 faster than a scampering Hunter.

We’ve been patiently waiting for Left 4 Dead 3 for some years now, but we know that Valve often struggle to bring out third instalments to their flagship series – we still haven’t given up on a Half-Life 3 release date, though. However, we are always on the lookout for new Left 4 Dead 3 gameplay and trailers, so we have collected all our ideas for L4D3 here for your reading pleasure. Here’s everything we know about Left 4 Dead 3:

Left 4 Dead 3 release date

When is the Left 4 Dead 3 release date? Unfortunately we have as much of a clue as we would if we had to survive in an actual zombie apocalypse. In other words, we have no idea. If we hear anything we’ll let you know right here.

Left 4 Dead 3 news

There’s been very little Left 4 Dead 3 news to keep us going in the long years since the previous zombie co-op smasher. That said, we did get a Left 4 Dead 3 tease in 2016, whether it was intentional or not. A reference to a new Left 4 Dead game appeared in a computer file in a tutorial for the Destinations Workshop tools called “left4dead3”. The leak was removed quickly once people started to notice, which only got us even more excited.

Related: Keep the shamblers at bay in the best zombie games

Very little L4D news would surface after this episode, however. What we did get was a Left 4 Dead 3 ARG hoax in early 2018, after fans of the Left 4 Dead 2 Facebook page spotted an image of a dead hand that resembled the one from the original L4D trailer. What’s more, it only had three fingers on it, which appeared to be a classic tease for a new Left 4 Dead game. Again, it was quickly removed by the powers that be, but we haven’t heard anything else about a new Valve game since.

Left 4 Dead developer Turtle Rock revealed it was working on a new IP called Back 4 Blood. Yes, that title does look like an ever-so-cheeky nod to Left 4 Dead. That said, Turtle Rock Studios insist that while their upcoming game is a co-op zombie shooter, it’s also its own game with unique mechanics. The signs of lineage are undeniable, however.

While this does make it likely that Left 4 Dead 3 may be even further away, it doesn’t rule it out entirely. We may have to wait a while longer. Besides, Back 4 Blood may be a solid spiritual successor to tide us over in the meantime.

Left 4 Dead 3 gameplay

The thing every Valve shooter has in common is a tremendous sense of forward momentum. While in Half-Life it’s brought about by an ineffable combination of level design, music, and narrative urgency, in Left 4 Dead it’s more tangible – the presence of an AI director, either sweeping you up in the tide of the dead, or planting lone zombies along the path to act as breadcrumbs, guiding you ever onwards.

Clearly, we should expect Valve to keep that. But the other pieces of the puzzle that really define pacing and play in Left 4 Dead are the special infected – and they’re subject to fundamental change.

Each of the original special infected had a gameplay function: the Boomer’s trick was to bring down the horde on incautious teams, the Tank’s to pull them together against a mini-boss, the Hunter’s to reward twitch accuracy, and so on. But in Left 4 Dead 2, the monsters started to double up: where’s the necessity for the jockey, for instance, when the smoker already works perfectly well to isolate survivors from the main group?

L4D3 will likely add special infected who change up the paradigm and tempt survivors out of practiced playstyles, just as that first set did.

Left 4 Dead 3 characters

Perhaps just as important as who Left 4 Dead 3’s characters are is the way they’re introduced to us.

You can piece together that Coach is a 44-year-old former PE teacher whose early hopes in American football were cut short by a knee injury at college – but that’s not handed to you in heavy-handed exposition or extensive branching dialogue. Instead, it bleeds from the game’s avatars dynamically, in lines of VO that appear in some playthroughs and not others. Over the course of many campaigns, you build up a fond picture of the people you’re playing as.

We expect Valve to continue that trend towards background storytelling the new sequel. Good news on that front: Doug Church, one of the most experienced environmental storytellers in the industry with a background at Looking Glass on the Thief games, was linked to Left 4 Dead 3 in an apparent Valve database leak a few years back.

Left 4 Dead 3 wish list

Free to play

Left 4 Dead 3 could come in two different business models. The first is simply copying the business model from the first two games: a one off payment and only free DLC. The second is F2P with microtransactions for cosmetics and possibly other characters. We think that, if we get a new Left 4 Dead game, it’s going to be free to play.

Crafting

Crafting is common in games nowadays but, DIY weapons are crucial amid a zombie apocalypse. The problem, in a game like Left 4 Dead, is that it’s blessed with this brilliant forward momentum, and scouring areas for crafting supplies and then trying to fit them altogether on some sort of workbench might not fit. It would be also be a pain for the rest of your team, as they wait for you to get your shit together. Whatever can be crafted, nothing should be too powerful: Left 4 Dead 3 should be about desperation, not empowerment (at least when you’re playing as one of the living).

Stealth

Games like Amnesia, SOMA, Outlast, and Alien Isolation show that sneaking and hiding can be just as compelling as slaying monsters, and often significantly more intense. It is vulnerability not gore, violence and cheap scares that make for the best horror experiences.

Left 4 Dead already has the basis for this with its noise system, where zombies are attracted to gunshots and car alarms, but a fully-fledged stealth system would be even more welcome. The goal of the survivors is not (always) to kill zombies, but rather to make it to the next safe room and simply keep on living – avoiding confrontation is thematically appropriate.

Alternate routes, crawling through vents, throwing enemies off the scent by creating distractions – adding these options into the series’ mechanical toolbelt would also offer new experiences every time you join a new group of survivors. The trick, of course, would be to do this in such a way that it doesn’t kill Left 4 Dead’s great pacing.

Multiple teams

Co-op games can really benefit from player conflict, where friends can become rivals or even enemies. This has made for some of the most tense and emergent encounters in the likes of DayZ and The Division. Unfortunately, it only take one bad egg to ruin everyone’s fun, so adding such a dynamic to a team of survivors in Left 4 Dead might only be asking for trouble.

But what if there was a mode with more than one team of survivors? Some of the greatest moments of zombie fiction and gaming happen when two groups – exhausted, paranoid, trigger happy – collide. Do they work together and share supplies? Do they team up, becoming one big group, making it potentially easier to kill the rotting corpses that hunger for them? Or do they simply duke it out, attempting to steal the weapons and ammunition the others have gathered?

The potential for the unexpected is huge. Alliances born out of desperation, betrayals occurring at the worst possible moments, debates and arguments tearing groups apart as they decide what to do with these new survivors. What’s not to love?

Left 4 Dead 3 trailer

So there actually isn’t a Left 4 Dead 3 trailer since we’re still waiting for the game to be officially announced. But it would be remiss of us to leave you without any video goodness, so above you’ll find footage of a Resident Evil 6 X Left 4 Dead 2 crossover. We would say that the video could be give us an idea of what a new Left 4 Dead game could look like, but this is still from some years ago. If Left 4 Dead 3 was announced 2019, you can expect the blood and viscera on show to be much prettier, or as pretty as gore can be.

Ok, there really isn’t a whole lot of info on Left 4 Dead 3. But, if you simply cannot wait to pepper enough holes in the undead so that they resemble zombified swiss cheese, check out our video on the finest zombie titles on PC above.