Valve confirmed they are definitely not working on any Left 4 Dead-related content, and have in years, squashing any hopes of seeing Left 4 Dead VR.
Excitement began stirring after Valve announced Half-Life: Alyx will be coming to their HTC Vive VR headset and with it came hope fans would see a similar release for the L4D franchise. Rumors began circulating Valve was pursuing a VR adaptation of Left 4 Dead as one of several new games Valve has declared to release in building out a library of full-featured VR games; something they promised to do back in 2017.
Back in 2016, code was found in VR demos relating to both Half-Life and Left 4 Dead which made Left 4 Dead the obvious choice for the next VR title.
A spokesperson from Valve tells IGN, “We’ve seen rumors to this effect for the last couple of months. We did briefly expire 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.”
This statement pretty much squashes the rumors of us seeing Left 4 Dead VR any time soon, or ever.
Alvin Wang Graylin, president of HTC Vive China, gave a presentation in Beijing back in January, and in one of his slides he wrote, “Valve HL Alyx/L4D3 will drive consumer and AAA studio interest.”
You can see why fans would have high hopes for any kind of L4D3 game if the president of HTC Vive is presenting this information in his slides.
Later that day after Graylin’s presentation, he did say any mention of Left 4 Dead in his slide was purely speculation.
Whether Valve will release Left 4 Dead VR at least in 2020 is not likely. The desire to see a L4D VR game is clearly there, but perhaps Valve is waiting to see how the success of Half-Life: Alyx turns out before committing to another IP title such as L4D.