Back 4 Blood review: much more than Left 4 Dead

If you’ve never fought a horde of zombies while Dick Dale (and pulp Fiction‘s) “Misirlou” sounds on a beat-to-shit jukebox, by all means, give it a try. This is how one of the missions around the middle of Back 4 Bloodthe first act of comes to an end. As a group of survivors try to escape by bus, you and your team, the Cleaners, play bait. And nothing captures the attention of zombies like surf rock.

The defense of the jukebox is a rare moment in Back 4 Blood where you get to just “be cool, Honey Bunny” instead of being stressed out. As fans of Left 4 Dead, the spiritual predecessor of Back 4 Blood, know that the zombie horde is something to be taken seriously. And what is it Back 4 Blood fact: He takes Left 4 Dead seriously. Someone – or a lot of people – at Turtle Rock Studios spent a lot of time thinking about what Left 4 Dead would look like in 2021. And all of that thinking has paid off, because what’s different between Left 4 Dead and Back 4 Blood is just as interesting as their many similarities.

Back 4 Blood looks like someone dropped Left 4 Dead into a radioactive slime and let it sit for 12 years – not surprisingly, since Turtle Rock Studios is made up of many of the same developers who originally built Left 4 Dead. He emerged with the same bone structure and shape, but with some evolved characteristics more suited to the modern era. The weapons have rare colors and attachments, there is a useful ping system, it looks gorgeous, and yes there is a bit of bridge building.

Gone are the days when people just played a few acts of Left 4 Dead for fun. Now it’s for fun and progress, whether in the form of usable loot or cosmetics. Back 4 Bloodthe progression of takes the form of a game mechanic that has become familiar in recent years: cards and decks. As you complete races, you’ll earn points to spend at a store in town, permanently unlocking new cards. You can then insert these cards into a deck and play them on your next race.

These cards add yet another layer to Left 4 Dead’s already roguelike formula – turning her into a thug.light instead of. Each race, even those on the same map, is slightly different from the last. The Director – Turtle Rock’s name HAL 9000 for their zombie AI – plays a card at the start of each race. On lower difficulties, it might just trick you, like getting to the exit with all players alive. At higher levels, this will give enemies different perks to make them more lethal, or make it easier for you to alert the horde. To fight the Director, you can play your own cards, which can impact your stats or even increase your base playing abilities. One card turns your standard kick into a more deadly knife, while another can simply increase your health or cause you to deal more damage with shotguns.

As you move through the levels, play cards, and dodge the director’s shenanigans, you collect and upgrade your weapons. You also collect coins which you spend in safe houses to upgrade your weapons or pills to stay alive. These coins are only useful for the race you are on, so you have to spend them all before the final because you cannot take them with you. And while you restart with basic weapons and cash each time you start a new race, you can still buy additional cards and build a permanent deck once you return to camp.

Back 4 BloodThe cards and currencies are nice, and they make you feel like you’ll come away from every gaming session with something new in your pocket. But what surprised me the most about Turtle Rock Studios’ new zombie venture is the diversity of its levels.

Of course, the first few missions took me through factory-like areas, made me interact with objects to “alert the horde” and all the other features of Left 4 Dead. But then I played missions where I found the safe room in a matter of minutes, but I needed to save the survivors nearby before I could get inside. One mission asked me to destroy three zombie nests in search of a dead man’s arm, and when I finally found it I had to use it as a melee weapon so I could defend myself before the scanner to open the safe room. Another asked me to load and fire howitzer shells in a tunnel to shut off the horde. And then, of course, there was the jukebox.

Image: Turtle Rock Studios / Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment

Whenever I started to get bored with the classic Left 4 Dead formula, Back 4 Blood would do something like hit me with a stealth level, or have me build my own safe room. Left 4 Death 2 had a level where you had to fill up with gas in a racing car in a mall in order to escape, and it’s still the one I remember best. The Left 4 Dead series had other similar sequences, but they were mostly reserved for the big chapter finals. Back 4 Blood hit me with this variety on a regular basis, and it kept me engaged even when playing with random players or bots.

Left 4 Dead is a beautiful relic, something that I and many others spent hundreds of hours playing in high school and college. But with games like War hammer: Vermintide 2 and even Aliens: squad Elite by branching out and taking more of a class-based approach, I was sure Back 4 Bloodhis more classic bone structure would collapse under the pressure. Corn Back 4 Blood More like that makeshift, armor-clad Hummer you see in every zombie show and movie: The bones of what it once was are easy to see, but it’s been strengthened to survive in a new environment.

Back 4 Blood will roll out of its early access period on October 12 on PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Windows PC, Xbox One and Xbox Series X. The game has been reviewed on Xbox Series X using a pre-download code. version provided by Turtle Rock Ateliers. Vox Media has affiliate partnerships. These do not influence editorial content, although Vox Media may earn commissions for products purchased through affiliate links. You can find more information on Polygon’s ethics policy here.