Back 4 Blood

In my Diablo 2: Resurrected review, I lamented the lack of Diablo 2 in my gaming lexicon. Somehow I had eluded such a classic game for over 20 years but relished in the opportunity to play what I consider to be the best version of the title.

Please forgive me dear reader, as I must confess to another egregious sin.

Left 4 Dead and its sequel are equally massive gaps in my gaming knowledge.

But perhaps that will color my words on Back 4 Blood slightly less glaringly.

Back 4 Blood, as I am aware, is developed by Turtle Rock Studios. Turtle Rock is the developer behind Left 4 Dead and, more recently, the mixed bag that was Evolve. Left 4 Dead featured up to four people blasting away zombie-like monsters. But it came out on Xbox 360, not PlayStation 3 and at the time I wasn’t really a PC gamer either… it looked fun, though. Evolve got some crazy good reviews, it featured up to four players hunting what was hopefully another player as a giant monster. But it came out at a time where I wasn’t going to spend $60 on a game that was best enjoyed with a group of friends I didn’t have.

Honestly, it’s no fault of Turtle Rock that I’ve never found myself in an ideal scenario to play their most popular games. Evolve tanked hard and fast and never recovered. Left 4 Dead seemed to be too old to ever justify giving it time over the embarrassment of riches I had in terms of a backlog. Thankfully, Back 4 Blood has arrived at a time when I not only got to play it but also at a time where I see myself desperately trying to sneak in moments where I can fend off just a few more zomb– I mean Ridden— hordes when there’s enough… time.

If you know that the world has gone to hell because a supposedly alien worm infects humans and transforms them into the zombie-like Ridden then you know all you need to know to know the focal point of Back 4 Blood‘s story. Something is making monsters. They aren’t undead. When you blast them, sometimes sickly worms spew out of the chunky bullet holes. They are making a dent in the human population and the pocket settlements of safety. They need to be stopped.

Most won’t need a meaningful catalyst to have an excuse to mow down ferocious enemies with guns and a crew of friends. And that’s okay. Players can ignore Back 4 Blood‘s exposition, skipping cutscenes, chat over dialog, and burst out of a safe room before any character has a chance to explain just what the hell is going on. I tried paying attention to mission and story chatter and couldn’t always follow along. It’s fine, really.

Back 4 Blood doesn’t need an involved zombie invasion story with startling revelations about Patient Zero and the inception of the first Quarantine Zone. That being said, I’ve got to hand it to Turtle Rock for actually making the effort to build a narrative into the game that doesn’t feel completely mindless. Rather, I was shocked at how chatty characters were with each other after a key story thread played out and during the mission-specific radio banter. But the real strength of the world building is the confident style and tone Back 4 Blood achieves.

Players get to know the 8 main characters by their chatter during a run, or by their reactions when in combat. Back 4 Blood‘s world is grey and grim, smeared with blood but that’s expected in such dire situations. Yet there’s always a twinge of humor or a sarcastic jab that, despite the fate of the world being in their hands, these 8 Cleaners can still crack a joke or not be too burdened or frightened by the horrific events surrounding them. While most of the game feels like it takes place when the sun has already set, color can come in an abundance. I loved the way the mass Ridden casualties amounted to more blood soaking the character models and their weapons. Fires and explosions break out, casting the streets in orange glows.

Jukebox bars, police stations, crumbling highways, and towns have enough personality to feel like real places and levels of a video game. While the various weapon and character skins players can unlock during their time are fairly grounded, I suspect Back 4 Blood will open the floodgates to increasingly bizarre looks over time. This means that despite Back 4 Blood’s increasingly difficulty among tougher and more overwhelming numbers, players aren’t bogged down by an overly oppressive world. The post-apocalypse has some room to breathe without suffocating creativity or the player’s imagination. It transforms the moment to moment gameplay into a blend of sudden scares, harrowing escapes, and bombastic triumphs.

In the time since Back 4 Blood‘s release, I’ve been surprised about the pockets of criticism aimed at how repetitive the core gameplay is. Even in my Left 4 Dead-sized emotional hole, I kind of understood that at its core, the gameplay is repetitive. In fact, I take comfort in these games when they are somewhat repetitive. The “point” is to constantly face off against wave after wave of monster or human or xenomorph or alien or zombie or Ridden and hopefully die less and less. These wave-based, horde mode kind of games thrive on a sense of familiarity with enemy and player abilities and how to change up strategies on the fly when more experience is earned through time.

Back 4 Blood‘s mission structure isn’t vastly unique in how it asks players to accomplish a task. Early highlights include team members rushing bombs into the lower deck of a ship while another group defends a bridge, or the noteworthy bar where players defend a jukebox that plays music to distract the Ridden while refugees evacuate. Some missions take a handful of minutes to complete, others are long gauntlets. There’s a combination of holing up in one location while an objective plays out, a rush to a safehouse, escort VIPs or items to a location, and any combination in between.

The whole time players are going to be watching high fences, bushes, holes in the wall, or any other scary insertion points for Ridden to come out of. What changes over the course of each new run are the combination of Ridden types and where they may appear from, all dictated by The Director, a kind of AI that attempts to change up gameplay based on how players are performing.

Gameplay in Back 4 Blood isn’t random. There’s shotguns, assault rifles, bats with spikes, molotovs, and dozens of other weapons. Shooting controls like a dream, even on weapons that haven’t been decked out in high rarity attachments. Popping the head off trash Ridden is instantly and constantly satisfying, ensuring that most guns are capable of doling out death. This is traditional first-person shooter territory and while it might not be as tight as a Call of Duty or Battlefield, Back 4 Blood holds down the fort. I think an argument can be made about the weapon system and not being able to swap and transfer attachments. It can be frustrating to have an okay gun with a great attachment, only to lose it when a better gun comes along that simply deals out more damage. But considering the pace and frequency of finding new weapons, it forces players to make choices or become comfortable changing it up.

The freshest and most unique part about Back 4 Blood is its card system. Personally, I tend to gravitate away from games with deck building systems because I don’t want random draws to completely dictate how I perform. Which is truly ironic considering my love for roguelikes and that cards and inventory items are literally the same things ultimately.

Cards in Back 4 Blood dictate playstyles and pseudo character classes. Each Cleaner has a unique perk and one they share with the team. I found these perks to be helpful but not as consequential as the cards players can earn. Want to do a melee character in Back 4 Blood? Create a unique deck that features a card that rewards health with a melee kill, a card that increases melee damage and speed for each melee kill made in the last 4 seconds, a card that rewards bonus health and speed when attacking mutated Ridden, and then stack a bunch of cards that boost stamina regen and health. Now you can bludgeon Ridden to death just as efficiently as shooting them.

While the card system has some quirks, players who spend a few runs tinkering with the basics will grow to understand what works and what doesn’t. Players should create several custom decks that apply to various roles that a team might be or that make Back 4 Blood more enjoyable to them. Running and gunning, health-giving tanks, pistol aficionados, and snipers are just a handful of builds that are possible when crafting a card deck. Cards are rewarded at the end of each level and can also be purchased or found during a level as well. Cards are received in the order they are listed in a custom deck so it’s advisable to be mindful of what buffs are useful in the earlier and easier parts of the game.

The Director also doles out Corruption cards periodically at the beginning of a level. Perhaps trash Ridden have body armor or are on fire. Maybe the world is blanketed in thick fog. Or players may get rewarded by not alerting birds or having anyone die.

The variety of the dozens upon dozens of cards available in Back 4 Blood ensure that most new games can’t and won’t feel entirely the same. Unless playing solo, players will unlock cards by using Supply Points that are earned for multiplayer play that can be used to purchase items on a Supply Line. Supply Lines contain cards and cosmetics and, thankfully, aren’t random as players can see what they will get before spending the points to unlock a Supply Line. While players will eventually run out of Lines to purchase, it will take a considerable amount of time, allowing for hours of experimentation and fine-tuning.

And what do all these cards and abilities amount to? Well… not much if you are looking to run through 9-ish hour campaign and be done. Back 4 Blood, like any game of this type, asks players to hone their skills to take on increasingly harder difficulties that further stack the odds against players. Three difficulty levels are currently available: Recruit, Veteran, and Nightmare. Recruit difficulty lowers the amount of Supply Points rewarded, removes friendly fire, and limits the amount of difficult Corruption cards. Veteran and Nightmare boost friendly fire damage and throw unruly Corruption cards at players.

Back 4 Blood‘s difficulty spikes are pretty brutal, let’s just get that out of the way. Recruit often feels like a cakewalk to allow players to become acclimated with mission and enemy structure while earning some cards to get a feel for how decks work. Then Veteran difficulty comes along and punches you in the teeth. The sharp incline can feel prohibitive when easing into Act 2 of the story. Health does not regenerate between safe houses in Back 4 Blood–a mechanic I loved–making the stakes increasingly severe. Copper, which is the currency to make in-match purchases, needs to be used wisely. Players will need to work together to buy team upgrades and select consumables and weapons that work best.

Yet the odds can definitely be stacked against players thinking they can stroll into Veteran difficulty without some serious card consideration. Personally, I barely touched Nightmare because I was not prepared for the Ridden onslaught… and it seems like most of the world is getting their butts kicked at that difficulty too. Back 4 Blood would likely benefit from one more difficulty level that feels like a balance between hard and maniacal, with just a bit more nuance.

Of course, Turtle Rock launched Back 4 Blood with the intent that four players would band together and take on Ridden. Undoubtedly, this is the prime way to experience the game. Honestly, Back 4 Blood is one of the best cooperative experiences available right now. But for solo players, it’s a shame to see that Supply Points are not rewarded and that all cards are available from the beginning. I understand the rationale behind the decision but it wasn’t the wisest. There’s not a great justification to forcing players to play online just to make meaningful progression. Why not severely limit resource gains? Additionally, bots just aren’t up to snuff most of the time. I’ve watched bots stand there and die, or shoot at nothing. Why can’t they be directed to pick up objective items so human players can do the killing?

The PvP swarm mode where two teams of players play as the Ridden or Cleaners is fun but not meaty enough to really be a lasting, meaningful part of the Back 4 Blood experience. I’m not sure why Turtle Rock didn’t include a mode where other players could invade a PvE session as special Ridden, like it was done in Left 4 Dead (yes, I did my research). I really think that Back 4 Blood would benefit from another PvE mode that isn’t potentially locked behind the annual pass. Why not include a version of the main mode except randomize card decks for players or force them into specific loadouts? Right now, the biggest draw of the game is to learn the card system and hardwire the best loadouts into your brain to take on Back 4 Blood‘s biggest challenges. It’s a daunting task that may take a lot of dedication but I couldn’t ask for it to be delivered in a more satisfying gameplay package.

Back 4 Blood is the ultimate cooperative experience, without a doubt. It may unwisely punish solo players and lack deeper launch content to attract and immerse casual players, potentially impacting the game’s community and longevity. But its core mode of pitting four players against an unyielding mob of monstrous death brings a constantly evolving, sometimes overwhelming challenge. If it weren’t for the extensively unique and clever card system and the overly satisfying gunplay, Back 4 Blood would stumble and shamble out of the gate. Yet its core mechanics provide such a fulfilling reward, that I can’t imagine not wanting to dive back in day after day and fend off the Ridden.