Back 4 Blood is a new cooperative first person shooter game developed by ‘Turtle Rock Studios‘ and published by ‘Warner Bros Games‘. Back 4 Blood is said to be coming out 22nd of June 2021 on the Xbox Series X, PS5 and PC. You can describe this as a zombie game. This game looks like it has potential. Let’s take a look.
The creators of Left 4 Dead are behind Back 4 Blood. Also Turtle Rock Studios are the guys who made the awesome game ‘Evolved‘. So Back 4 Blood has a lot of minds and behind this one and the expectations are high. So the story here is basically the typical that there’s a serious infected horde of creatures out here and humanity is near extinction but conveniently a small group of humans are fighting back and out here trying to save humanity. Yet whole armies lose and get folded but four people and a guy with a sloppy mid section (his belly) can win but whatever.
Let’s go over Back 4 Blood this quickly. For starters most of the characters look like they could survive. Some look like complete losers but it makes sense that it’s random survivors as in they would look different to each other. There’s 8 characters to choose from, referred to as ‘Cleaners’. They are immune to the virus (off course they are). The missions are overall a simple format in a sense that it’s all about fighting off against a horde of enemies. Does reminds us of world war z in this regards. You must work together, stick together and cover each others backs as there are some mechanics that will mix things up and even ruin an entire mission. Many of you by now have seen some gameplay and so you know what to expect.
Your primary weapons in Back 4 Blood are guns and something for melee like a baseball bat, knife etc. Expect the typical arsenal of weapons like pistols, assault rifles and off course shotguns. Head shots are the key and best way to take down regular infected called ‘Sprinters’. They just run at you and try to swing and beat you to death. That’s right, there’s some variety to these infected creatures. Retches are the fat ones who create acid pools on the ground so common sense says don’t step in them. Bruisers are the big tall ones with a clearly mutated arm which they use to smash you around and crush you. Keep your distance. The Ogre is the big bad boss one. It’s huge, towers over you and has wide range sweeping melee attacks and can even throw a large projectile at you. Hockers are the annoying ones who likes to trap you and your allies leaving you vulnerable.
Here’s where some of the problems show up in Back 4 Blood. The bruisers also come straight for you and they become top priorities as they will destroy you if you get too close. Like with other infected Bruisers have weak points of their bodies which you need to hit to take them down efficiently. So accuracy is needed and not mad man spraying of bullets. You can easily run out of ammo. The Hockers are the worst as they fire ensnaring web like stuff that incapacitates you. They see to hit you from nowhere at times but oh boy the infected can sure hit you while you are trapped. You need an ally to come along and free you by melee-ing you. So make your shots count, aim for weak points, keep an eye on your team mates, stay away from bruisers and don’t step in pools of acid. Our main probably is the lack of variety of infected though. We hope there’s more that they haven’t shown yet. Games like this could easily benefit from a large variety of infected like ones but let’s see how they pull this off with their current cast.
There is some competitive stuff to Back 4 Blood as you can go against players. Either be human or the ridden and off course both sides have their own abilities and weapons. So it’s like Overrun in Gears of War Judgement where one side is human while the other is the Locust. Off course modes like this have a tough time balancing everything but they will learn as they go along. Do your best developers. The other thing is that. There’s also a card system for your characters that definitely mix things up. Get different builds all the time and work with what you got. We definitely like this mechanic as it adds more layers of strategy, options and tactical approaches to the different situations. Card builds are game changers and when done right definitely adds to the game.
We checked out some back 4 Blood gameplay and it’s exactly what we thought it would be. It’s the Left 4 Dead formula which many gamers enjoyed. Group of four, working together, shooting and fighting through a horde of infected creatures who are all out here ready to destroy all humans. If someone in your squad dies, you can bring them back. They show up glued to a wall and cannot get out. You must approach them and save them. Reminds us of the bring back system in Gears 5 in Escape mode for a dead teammate. Being careful with your ammo, finding awesome weapons during the mission. There was a powerful machine gun that literally was like the answer to these infected creatures. It was rapid fire, heavy destroying rounds and left nothing alive. Oh and rightfully so, friendly fire is a thing so don’t go unloading shotgun shells in the backs of your friends. It hurts. X35 Earthwalker once took a shotgun shot and it had no effect whatsoever. He actually didn’t know he was shot until he turned around.
Overall Back 4 Blood looks like it’s going to be a fun game for sure. We really enjoy multiplayer games, especially cooperative games. This looks like a casual shooter and survival against a horde. The popular fictional survival scenario. Causal on the surface but on the harder difficulties we know this game gets really hard to beat. We had hoped this game is very difficult and glad to hear that it is. It’s been positive reports s far and that’s good. The developers ‘Turtle Rock Studios’ have a done a very good job so far. We at X35 Earthwalker will keep an eye out for this game. Now Back 4 Blood may have dangerous infected but they are all fodder against… the ‘Earth Walk!’
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