Tencent acquires Back 4 Blood studio, Turtle Rock

Turtle Rock Studios is the latest acquisition by Chinese tech giant, Tencent. Turtle Rock is best known as the developer studio for Back 4 Blood, Evolve, and the original Left 4 Dead.

Turtle Rock has been an independent studio since its inception in 2002, except for a brief two-year period between 2008 and 2010, when it was acquired by Valve and was known as Valve South.

As stated in the press release, Turtle Rock Studios will retain its independent operations out of Lake Forest, California, USA after the acquisition by Tencent.

Back 4 Blood developer, Turtle Rock Studios, is Tencent’s latest acquisition in the video games industry

In the last few years, the video game industry has witnessed a lot of consolidation, and the trend of tech giants acquiring smaller game development studios doesn’t seem to be stopping any time soon.

Tencent has acquired a few, and invested in even more, game development studios in the last decade. It started with Riot Games, the developer of League of Legends, in 2011. That was when Tencent became the majority stakeholder (93%) of the NA-based developers, scooping up the remaining 7% and wholly acquiring the studio in 2013.

Turtle Rock Studios is being acquired by Tencent, which has an ever-growing stake in the video games industry. Read about the purchase of the Black 4 Blood developer here: buff.ly/31YHWR3

Turtle Rock Studios is being acquired by Tencent, which has an ever-growing stake in the video games industry. Read about the purchase of the Black 4 Blood developer here: buff.ly/31YHWR3 https://t.co/qmpMCMOG7M

Since then, Tencent has invested in a plethora of game development studios, including Epic Games, Ubisoft, Activision Blizzard, Grinding Gear Games, Funcom, and more. Turtle Rock Studios is the latest to become part of Tencent’s long portfolio of game studios.

Turtle Rock Studios was one of the trendsetters in the asymmetrical multiplayer genre with Evolve, while co-op shooters have always been their forte, as is evident in the case of Left 4 Dead and Back 4 Blood. Turtle Rock has also worked with Valve on post-launch content for Left 4 Dead and its sequel Left 4 Dead 2, as well as working on Counter-Strike: Source and Counter-Strike: Global Offensive.

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It remains to be seen how Turtle Rock Studios will function after the acquisition of Tencent. While many gamers have been skeptical about the rapid consolidation of the gaming industry, prior acquisitions by Tencent have not shown any deterioration in product quality, yet.