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Back 4 Blood is an apt title for Turtle Rock Studios’ latest release. Created by the developers of Left 4 Dead, this game captures the manic cooperative gameplay of its predecessor, and the love for that series shows in this spiritual successor. Back 4 Blood is more than just a Left 4 Dead with some new characters and updated graphics: the system has been overhauled with a new card system and randomly generated events that make no two runs the same.
In Back 4 Blood, the world has suffered from an event known as “the Collapse,” and a parasite known as the “Devil Worm” has infected most humans. The parasite gave rise to “the Ridden,” a zombie-like force set on wiping out the last remnants of humanity. As the “Cleaners,” players are apocalypse veterans who have adapted to their harsh new reality, fighting back against the undead threat. Back 4 Blood is bloody fun, and the essence of Left 4 Dead feels like it is back and reinvented for the next generation.
There are eight Cleaners to choose from at launch, with more to be added down the line via DLC. Each Cleaner has special attributes that make them play slightly differently than their fellow survivors. For example, Holly gains ten stamina per Ridden that she kills, making her the ideal choice for players that want to get their hands dirty and focus on melee kills. Hoffman gains ammo from killing Ridden, so players who want to tote heavy machine guns will find him to be a good choice. Karlee is the only Cleaner who can sense dangers in the environment, which is very useful for players who find themselves ambushed often by special ridden and flocks of noisy birds. Although these abilities lend themselves to certain play styles, any Cleaner can use any weapons they come across in the environment, allowing players to choose based on their personal preferences.
Despite the environment being grim, it is also a lot of fun to interact with its elements. Propane tanks can be left in strategic places to eliminate large amounts of Ridden at once. There are also modifications for guns, such as stocks, magazines and barrels, allowing players to customize weapons throughout a run. It’s worth mentioning that these mods can’t unequip unless replaced by another, so trading it for another can be risky but rewarding.
The meat of Back 4 Blood‘s appeal is its quite substantial campaign mode. Missions throughout the campaign consist of different objectives, such as barricading safe rooms, helping out survivors, finding weapon caches for Fort Hope (the survivors’ main base of operations) and more. As a Cleaner, it’s the player’s job to obliterate Ridden threats and help provide for Fort Hope. On the surface, a campaign mode that is the bulk of a multiplayer-centric game would seemingly hurt a game’s replayability. However, Back 4 Blood is a highly replayable experience thanks to its unique card system and randomly generated threats that make each run feel like a unique experience from the last.
In one mission, Bar Room Blitz, the Cleaners have to turn on a Jukebox and fight off hordes of Ridden while giving survivors a chance to escape the vicinity. On a potential first playthrough, the Cleaners scavenge what they can, turn on the Jukebox and begin to slaughter incoming, randomly-generated Ridden to the song Ace of Spades by Motörhead with Molotov cocktails and machine guns. Playing the same mission again can yield a different experience: the Jukebox powers on and plays Black Betty by Ram Jam, and the cleaners use baseball bats to eliminate a newly generated horde.
Small changes to the gameplay can make the same story a unique experience on repeated playthroughs, and that isn’t even mentioning the use of cards that apply to every run. Before a run starts, players can make decks from unlocked cards that add modifiers to their Cleaner and team. There are numerous cards to choose from, with most unlocked from accomplishing in-game milestones or spending currency. Cards can do anything from increasing melee damage and speed to providing the team with faster revival rates, so players are encouraged to build a deck that suits their playstyle. Some of the most powerful cards also come with caveats. Sure, “Methhead” increases melee speed and stamina efficiency by 40%, but it also disables the ability to ADS. “Mean Drunk” increases melee damage by 75%, but sprinting becomes disabled. It is crucial to build a deck with cards that synergize to get the most out of this system. A card that increases stamina efficiency when sprinting is useless if sprinting is disabled, so read the fine print.
This card system isn’t only for the players, as the AI Game Director will play cards of their own, making the upcoming run unpredictable, even if a player has completed it multiple times. The AI Game Director is an unseen force that determines what mutations Ridden and the environment will have in the upcoming run. Maybe it adds a large number of birds to the mission, so the Cleaners will have to be on the lookout for them, lest they trigger the horde. The same mission played again could contain a power outage that makes the world dark and makes peripheral vision useless or a fog that makes it hard to respond to incoming threats before it’s too late. The enemies vary between playthroughs as well, where the first playthrough offers a swarm of common Ridden and a few Tall Boys and the next ambushes players with a boss-type enemy such as an Ogre. This unpredictability works in Back 4 Blood’s favor and makes the story a rewarding experience, even after multiple playthroughs.
Back 4 Blood‘s other primary mode is Swarm, where two squads of four players take turns as the Cleaners and the Ridden fight to see who can outlast the undead onslaught the longest. Swarm can be a fun distraction from the game’s campaign mode but doesn’t have the same replayability. Playing as the Ridden is fun to experience, but Swarm feels more like the side dish to the campaign’s main serving.
Back 4 Blood also has a system for its unlockables known as Supply Lines. These Supply Lines are the primary method of unlocking new cards and cosmetics and require Supply Points to purchase, which are earned by simply beating missions in the game. Thankfully, there are no microtransactions nor loot boxes, so players will have to play to earn these rewards.
Despite Back 4 Blood‘s solid gameplay and fun replayability, it does falter in places. Even though the dialogue between characters is unique and the voice performances are high quality, character models remain static and lifeless, save for a moving mouth, making the cleaners seem less lively than the undead Ridden. There have also been multiple times where bugs have impacted gameplay, such as hanging off cliffs that don’t exist, hindering progress, and the more frustrating game crashing. These are fixable and even forgivable issues; the game is in early access at the moment, and patches can bring stability to the game.
More frustratingly, players are only rewarded with content if they play online matchmaking. Players who have trouble finding a match or want to play on their own will see themselves punished for doing so, as they can’t earn achievements, supply points or unlockables through the solo campaign, which, despite its name, still requires an internet connection to play. It is, however, a great place to try out different ideas for decks or card synergies, as the solo campaign provides all the cards in the game from the start.
Overall, Back 4 Blood does right by its undead predecessors, and the Turtle Rock Studios’ love and experience in this genre are on full display. Fans of the Left 4 Dead series will find a lot to love about the latest title. Still, the exclusion of multiple functionalities in the game’s solo campaign, along with the requirement for players to be connected to the internet while playing, may be a turnoff for players who want to enjoy the game on their terms.
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