Left 4 Dead developer, Turtle Rock Studios, was acquired by Valve in 2008 before it regained its independence nearly one year later. The studio's co-founder Phil Robb has finally come shared the reason behind the break up.
"Whenever we were working with Valve, it was kind of crazy. They take their time, y'know? Valve time's a well-known thing, but for us it was like we want to get this sh*t done," he explained. "The culture changed a lot when we became Valve, and not all of it was what we felt was the right way to go, and it wasn't the way that we wanted to work."
After finding that they were not working in harmony with their Valve counterparts, Turtle Rock team sat down with Gabe Newel and reached a mutual conclusion that it made most sense to "go back to what we knew worked, which is us going independent again, and certainly they'd have work for us."
"Once we came back out we got a lot of it back. We had most of the Turtle Rock guys who stuck with us, and for the most part that team's still with us. Our culture has changed, but I feel really good about the way things are going."