Following another earlier this week, a new Left 4 Dead 3 leak has appeared online. This time, a reference to Valve’s “LFD3” appeared in a presentation slide shared by China HTC President Alvin Wang Graylin.
Update: Speaking to IGN, Valve said it is “absolutely not working on anything L4D related now, and haven’t for years.” Valve said it had “seen rumors to this effect for the last couple of months,” but it did not specify if it was referring to the HTC tweet or the Valve News Network video. It did note that, a few years ago, it had explored “Left 4 Dead next gen opportunities,” but nothing Left 4 Dead-related is currently in development.
Graylin shared the slides on Twitter. A slide labeled “2020 VR Trends” contained the phrase “Valve HL Alyx/LFD3 will drive consumer and AAA studio interest,” implying Graylin knows Left 4 Dead 3 is on the way. Its inclusion in the context of the presentation also clearly implies it will be a VR titled.
ALSO: Why Half-Life: Alyx’s VR exclusivity is a great, bold choice
A few slides from my talk tonight… pic.twitter.com/bHegijjZW1
— Alvin Wang Graylin (汪丛青) (@AGraylin) January 17, 2020
The new leak comes just days after fansite Valve News Network shared supposed concept art for an old version of Left 4 Dead 3 on YouTube. The channel also claimed in December that “Left 4 Dead VR is real.” The new HTC leak seems to back this claim, listing Left 4 Dead 3 alongside Valve’s upcoming VR game, Half-Life: Alyx.
A VR-only Left 4 Dead game wouldn’t be too surprising after Valve’s Half-Life: Alyx reveal. The fact that the company is finally creating a VR-exclusive game in one of the biggest dormant franchises shows Valve means business. As Graylin’s presentation said, the goal appears to be attempting to make VR mainstream, finally giving it a triple-A “killer app” that will drive sales. Theoretically, the more VR units in consumers’ hands, the more developers that will be interested in investing into VR games. Adding another Valve VR game to the pile in the form of Left 4 Dead 3 could only improve the odds of VR’s future success.
According to a report by RoadToVR, Valve’s strategy appears to be working — at least as far as selling the company’s own Index headset goes. The publication found that all Valve Index bundles were sold out in 30 of its 31 available regions, with the headset and headset plus controllers packages available only in Japan. For now, Valve’s Index purchase page has several “Notify Me” options to let customers know when the headset will be back in stock.
