Valve has announced the acquisition of Turtle Rock Studios, the company responsible for the development of the very promising shooter game, Left 4 Dead. Both companies have worked together well until now, so Valve kind of decided to say something like: "Hey guys, we like you. We bought you!" Still, not a big surprise for anyone.

One thing's for sure following this acquisition: Left 4 Dead will definitely be a great title, since Valve just bought a company for it. And we must admit that they have an eye for hit games if we think about their Half Life, Counter Strike, Day of Defeat or Team Fortress games.

"Given our expectations for Left 4 Dead and our long-standing relationships with members of the Turtle Rock team, this was an easy decision. It also gives us a base from which to expand our development activities in the Los Angeles area," said Valve's president, Gabe Newell

Turtle Rock Studios are, as you may have noticed already, no strangers to Valve. The California-based studio has created various maps for Counter Strike: Source and collaborated in the development of Counter Strike: Condition Zero. They sure did a great job and they have no intention to do otherwise with their new title.

"Valve has had great success bringing in projects and teams such as Team Fortress and Portal," said Michael Booth, founder and CEO of Turtle Rock Studios. "As I spent time working and talking with the creators of those products over the past several years, it became clear that this was the right next step for myself, my colleagues at Turtle Rock, our customers, and our products."

If you don't know it already, Left 4 Dead is an ambitious and exciting multiplayer game where two teams of up two four people battle against each other in a horror zombie-like challenge. One team acts as the "survivors" while the other are the "infected" or, better said, brain-hungry zombies. It's a fast and furious game that already impressed lots of people. So, as we said before, Valve surely knows what it is doing.