A tutorial posted by a Valve employee has rekindled hopes that "Left 4 Dead 3" might soon be seeing the light of day.

It has been seven years since Valve released "Left 4 Dead 2," and fans have been speculating about the game's prospective sequel ever since. Despite numerous rumors, the company has kept mum about it.

However, a recently posted development tutorial has had fans thinking that Valve is finally working on the project. The asset importing tutorial was uploaded by Valve artist Tristan Reidford for the Steam Workshop. Reidford was reportedly helping newcomers on Steam and making them feel welcome by posting photos and stuff. But the quick eyes of gamers saw that in one screenshot of Reidford's desktop, a folder was labeled "Left4Dead3."

While one folder's name wouldn't hold water in court, it was what followed that piqued gamers' interest. The screenshot was apparently removed immediately and replaced with one that only showed Reidford's default folders. Some intrepid gamers reportedly also searched Reidford's Steam account and discovered that he and several other developers had recently spent around 348 hours playing "Left 4 Dead 2." As a matter of fact, the seven-year-old game was Reidford's most-played game in the past few weeks.

Aside from one artist and several developers' resurgent interest in the game, some players have pointed out that a listing on Steam DB, which has long been considered as "Left 4 Dead 3's" hidden page, has been updated quite often the last few days, suggesting that some activity was ongoing.

It was teased earlier this year that "Left 4 Dead 3" would have new characters — a female named Katherine, Irvin the gangster, a comic book nerd named Keenen, and Kenpo fighter Garrett Jr. The game will reportedly have six separate campaigns, including fan favorites like Cliff-Hanger, Crashland, Early Destination, and No Mercy.

"Left 4 Dead 3" will allegedly come out in 2017. But fans should bear in mind that there has been absolutely no word from Valve so they should take any news about the game with a heaping pinch of salt.