Looks like Valve may be making a new Left 4 Dead game - eventually
A line of code for Left 4 Dead 3 turned up in a recent Counter-Strike 2 datamine, but don’t get your hopes up for a launch anytime soon (thanks, Eurogamer). The code has the multiplayer game listed as no priority, with severity categorized as “high,” but how recent and relevant the code is remains anyone's guess.
The listing led some fans on Reddit to speculate this is just leftover code no one cleaned up from previous Source-based games, which is a possibility given the mercurial nature of Valve projects and people being shuffled around between them. Even if that is the case, a few fans pointed out Left 4 Dead 3 might actually have a chance now that Counter-Strike 2 is moving forward.
The Game Awards host Geoff Keighley said in the interactive story Half-Life Alex: The Final Hours that the Steam maker reportedly began working on Left 4 Dead 3 sometime in the late 2000s or early 2010s. However, the Source 2 engine in its state at the time couldn’t handle the game the team envisioned, with its detailed environments and hundreds of zombies descending on players at once.
As Keighley tells it, Left 4 Dead 3 and several other Valve projects were put on hold indefinitely, presumably until Source 2 matured. Counter-Strike 2 runs on the Source 2 engine and seemingly marks the end of the platform's problems. If Valve hasn’t completely scrapped Left 4 Dead 3, perhaps that priority status won’t be “none” for too much longer.
