BACK 4 BLOOD
Left4Dead’s original creators are back with a co-op zombie shooter that’s both comfortingly familiar and surprisingly new. Can it live up to its spiritual predecessor?
By Morgan Park
It’s telling of Left 4 Dead’s quality that there still isn’t a co-op shooter that has quite outdone it. Unlike many popular multiplayer games of 2021, Left 4 Dead doesn’t ask you to theorycraft a build or study a meta. There’s nothing to understand beyond a few core principles: Shoot and keep moving. That purity is why it was a foundational game for my friends and I over a decade ago and why we still squad up to mow down zombies 13 years later.
We’ve seen plenty of fantastic games riff on Turtle Rock Studios’ original template since the series was unceremoniously shelved in 2009, but only now are its original creators jumping back into fray. With Back 4 Blood, Turtle Rock is staking its flag in the ground and taking back the genre it created. Well, that’s the idea.
NEW BLOOD
Turtle Rock’s first official action as zombie co-op reclaimers? Ditch the survivor narrative. According to Turtle Rock co-founder and design director Chris Ashton, Back 4 Blood’s playable characters are hunting the zombies, not the other way around. “Our setting is a year after the apocalypse and answers the question ‘What happens next?’. Now we’ve got stable communities of people in strongholds. We call our hero characters ‘Cleaners’ because they voluntarily go out into the wild and take on missions to try to put an end to the Ridden,” Ashton says. “In our world, there is hope for a future. This theme has a trickle-down effect into all elements of the game.”
You feel the tonal difference as Back 4 Blood’s characters quip in a more lighthearted, confident way, but the basics really do feel like Left 4 Dead 3. Campaigns follow the same exact four act structure. Each mission is a familiar mad dash from one safe room to the next. Special infected include a Spitter that can root you in place, a Tallboy with an oversized right hook, and a bloated Retch that will expunge gallons of hordattracting acid when its belly is pierced. Yep, there’s also an AI director pulling the difficulty strings behind the scenes. Treading this ground is a comfortable proposition, but its familiarity is cut by key additions that make Back 4 Blood a deeper and more complicated game.
With one foot firmly in the past and the other dabbling with modern conventions like sprinting, aiming down sights, and character-specific abilities, it’s clear that Turtle Rock is after something bigger than a spiritual sequel.
That was cemented when I fired up Back 4 Blood’s first mission and
discovered how brutal it can be. Weapons and items have to be purchased from safe rooms using in-game copper. Between weapons, attachments, throwables, and all-important healing items, my group’s shopping list felt as crucial to survival as shooting straight.
TOUGH CROWDS
Speaking to teamwork, Ashton says Back 4 Blood’s less forgiving elements come down to giving players more ways to succeed (and fail). “The simplest way to drive teamwork is to design a game where it’s hard to win otherwise. Players really want to win. So if that means sharing ammo or first aid kits, that’s what people are going to do. A less obvious but related philosophy is that we have to leave
TURTLE ROCK IS AFTER SOMETHING BIGGER THAN A SPIRITUAL SEQUEL
room for teams to be bad. The more room there is for a team to fail, the more room there is for a team to be extra awesome,” he says. “It’s important to give teams the space to stand above the rest.”
Like several aspects of Back 4 Blood, I’m skeptical of what this economic shift truly adds to the game. Turtle Rock is trying to encourage tactical decisions at the start of a round, but to me it feels limiting at the moment.
Through several playthroughs I saw few opportunities to loot support items off the beaten path. With no promise of another medkit along the way, I noticed a reluctance in my squad to let loose even on the base difficulty. When you do use up resources, it’s easy to find yourself on the backfoot heading into the next chapter. Ammo is a big factor in that too. Gone are L4D’s universal ammo piles in favor of limited ammo drops divided by weapon type. The last thing I want to do while a horde of 40 zombies chase us down is litigate who needs rifle ammo the most.
DECK SLAYER
An early winner in Back 4 Blood’s new formula is its