Are Left 4 Dead Players Coming Back 4 Blood?
Turtle Rock’s spiritual successor to the Left 4 Dead franchise has big shoes to fill
Unless you’ve been living under a rock these past couple of months, you should know that Left 4 Dead developer Turtle Rock Studios has been working on a spiritual successor to the critically acclaimed franchise.
So is this actually a potential Left 4 Dead 3? Or will it cause Left 4 Dead fans to go crawling back to the iconic Left 4 Dead 2?
For those who don’t know what Back 4 Blood is (or indeed, Left 4 Dead), the concept is simple: it’s essentially a four person cooperative zombie shooter. In other words, very basic and very fun — especially with friends. In Back 4 Blood, you play as “cleaners”: a group of mercenaries whose main goal is to clear ridden from the area surrounding Fort Hope.
What are the ridden? They don’t differ wildly from typical zombie tropes. In Back 4 Blood, a parasitic worm has spread across America, turning people into mindless killing machines. It’s fairly basic, sure. But not all ridden are your garden variety zombie.
Ridden vs Infected
Actually, this brings me to one of my issues with the game. In Left 4 Dead, “special” infected were easily identifiable. You instantly knew what you were up against, be it a tank, witch, bloater, jockey, hunter, or a charger. Turtle Rock cleverly utilised sound design in concert with animation and behaviours to clearly flag each enemy type. This is important in a game where you’re making important tactical decisions on the fly (especially when faced with hordes of enemies in quick succession). It’s clear that the team tried to replicate this in Back 4 Blood, but I don’t think it’s worked to quite the same extent. Some special ridden — like the ogre (as shown in the above screenshot) — are pretty easy to identify. But good luck telling the difference between a reeker and a breaker.
There’s another apparent change in Back 4 Blood that’s worth noting in the context of enemies: the hordes. I noticed that, in general, hordes were a lot thinner on the ground here than in Left 4 Dead. We’re talking maybe 15–20 ridden at a time. Compare that to Left 4 Dead, where a horde would attack you from all sides, with the number of infected sometimes climbing well over 50. Don’t get me wrong; the game’s still highly enjoyable. But I feel it lacked the gut-wrenching feeling of knowing that I’ve got to face another 20 ridden with almost no ammo or health. It’s certainly not a deal breaker for me — and it’s easily fixed — but it’s definitely something to consider, especially if it isn’t changed for release.
Another issue is the lack of friendly A.I. — or, it might be more accurately said — the lack of intelligence in that friendly A.I. Generally, I was lucky to be matched with three other human players. But I’d occasionally be dropped into a game with bots. Now, to be fair, my friends and I used to laugh about running back through a level to pick up Coach (who had gotten stuck in a doorway) in Left 4 Dead. But that was 2009. It’s now 2021, and even now, I saw bots running off the edge of a cliff for no apparent reason. Again, this is something that can and should be addressed over time if not at launch.
Joys of the Apocalypse
Okay, that’s enough whinging. What did I actually like about Back 4 Blood? Quite a lot, really! The thing I enjoyed the most was definitely the combat. In this game, combat is fast and gory. When the ridden start coming at you and you start shooting/slashing away, you can’t help but lose yourself in the combat loop.
You’ll emerge from an encounter drenched in ridden viscera with a severely-overworked trigger finger.
PS5 players get an added bonus here due to the adaptive triggers, which add a whole new dimension to the combat experience, ultimately making the game far more immersive. Although I should note that the implementation could use some tweaking — guns need a bit more differentiation.
Then there’s the cast: the cleaners themselves. As you might expect, each cleaner brings something special to the team: a unique personality, individual dialogue, and practical/functional differences (for example, 10% extra speed in one case). Right now the characters don’t feel quite as fleshed out as those in Left 4 Dead, but that might be more about their newness; I haven’t yet spent sufficient time with them.
Icing on the Bloody Cake
There are two final pieces here to touch on that I really like. One is the card system, which adds a significant degree of variability to each run, making the campaign highly replayable. I’ve already played Act 1 of the campaign three times already as a result.
And then there’s cross-platform multiplayer. It’s a total godsend. I predominantly play on PlayStation, but I’ve got friends who play on Xbox and PC. We initially thought we weren’t going to be able to join each other’s sessions — meaning we’d have to pass on the game entirely — but, fortunately, that isn’t the case.
It’s clear that Turtle Rock have their work cut out for them. Back 4 Blood is due to ship in two months. But even if the launch experience is only slightly better than the beta, it’ll likely be a triumph that will do big numbers. It might not exactly be the Left 4 Dead 3 that many of us have been waiting for, but it’s certainly the next best thing. And I for one can’t wait to be Back 4 Blood.
