The team behind Back 4 Blood, Turtle Rock, has been acquired by Tencent along with its parent company Slamfire Inc.
The acquisition will have no effect on Back 4 Blood itself, but the studio will become a part of Tencent. Turtle Rock will continue to retain its independence and will continue to be run by its co-founders Phil Robb and Chris Ashton.
“We are all looking forward to joining the Tencent family of studios,” said Steve Goldstein, president and general manager of Turtle Rock Studios in a press release. “Tencent’s outstanding partners, global reach, deep knowledge of gaming and unprecedented support will help us create the kinds of ambitious games we dream of, while allowing us to retain our autonomy and independent spirit.”
“We are huge fans of Turtle Rock’s games, especially their amazing approach to creating co-operative online games,” said Eddie Chan, chief strategy officer of Tencent Games Global. “We can’t wait to see what comes next, and we’re excited to be part of their future.”
Back 4 Blood recently released a patch that allowed players to earn supply points and unlock cards while playing solo. Previously the solo mode would start with all cards unlocked and was intended to allow players to experiment with their decks. However, this prevented offline or solo players from unlocking characters, cosmetics, or cards for the multiplayer component of the game.
The update also included a major rebalancing of the game’s difficulties. The middle difficulty, Veteran, now allows for more health kit uses, and also received a damage and health buff for player characters. To ease the overwhelming nature of mutated ridden, new caps have been enforced on how many of each type can spawn, and when. Nightmare difficulty also received similar changes, decreasing difficulty across the board.
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