If you’ve been seeing a lot of L4D3 buzz lately, you might be wondering what exactly it’s about and what has been found out about it. Is it credible or is it just fuel for your false hopes to keep on burning? I can clear up your confusion here by stating that there are two sources that have been feeding this rumour mill lately. The first is most likely a false source and the second is most likely (and hopefully) a credible one.
The first source comes from a Source 2 L4D3 countdown webpage at http://l4d3.ru/ that mysteriously appeared a few months ago. It countdowns to 21st August 2013, the date when the fifth Gamescom will once again be held at Koelnmesse in Cologne, Germany.
Albeit the convincing graphics, the website itself is questionable. It’s URL is Russian and it comes from a private owner who registered via an easy-to-use and free-to-the-public service, GoDaddy.com (Source). This fraughts the legitimacy of the website and, in turn, the possibility of L4D3 actually coming into existence.
However, what it countdowns to exactly is definitely intriguing. Bear with me for a few minutes paragraphs.
Why? It is at this convention where both Steam and Take-Two will be attending according to PixelEnemy. This is apparently a big deal as Valve has been pretty hush about their developments lately, even absenting themselves from the mammoth gaming convention, E3, where both the Playstation 4 and X Box One took the stage for their reveals.
GamingBlend speculate a possible consumer edition unveiling of the Steam Box during Gamescom which will …
be followed up with exclusive first-year launch titles for the Steam Box that would include Portal 3, Left 4 Dead 3 and, though highly requested and very unlikely, Half-Life 3.
Now, while we should not get too excited about these speculations and rumours quite yet, ’cause it’s a known fact that Valve are quite the trolls, it’s nice to dream – isn’t it?
And here is where the second rumours (the most recent and enticing ones) come into play. I’ll save you the trouble of reading through a dozen more IGN articles today and Youtube videos, they all claim the same thing.
A few DOTA 2 players, as part of the International 3 Tournament, had the incredible opportunity to tour Valve’s headquarters in Bellevue, Washington, and (for some crazy reason) allowed take photos within the building (full album here). One guy managed to capture and leak this changelog history:
which, upon closer inspection, contains information that L4D3 is currently in development with Source 2:
For those who don’t want to squint at the tiny and slightly blur text, the above one states, “[Source2] Restored L4D3’s devtest unit test. Ran locally 6 times without an assert. There may be so…” and the below one states, “[Source2] Changed L4D3’s test_networking unit test to use the devtest level again. Ran assert-free …”.
According to IGN, this current leak complements previously leaked Valve information on L4D3 and Half-Life 3. Furthermore, this leak supports another previous leak on L4D3 mailing lists provided by ValveTime.net.
So what does this all add up to? According to GamingBlend,
Basically, what this means is that we can expect an announcement for Left 4 Dead 3 at some point soon. It would be the first of Valve’s triple terror IP, which could include Portal 3 and Half-Life 3.
As an L4D fan myself, this news is all a bit difficult to wrap my head around. For now, I will just keep my fingers crossed and continue with my daily life.
Till next time,
cumuloq ❤
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