HANDS ON - Back 4 Blood Is A Jolly Good Time

Bang tidy.
By Jay Tee
06/08/21
Previewed on Xbox Series X.
Early Beta access provided by Warner Bros.

Back 4 Blood is a proudly faithful crowd pleaser, achieving exactly what you’d expect from a game of this type whilst making logical tweaks to the formula. The bottom line: Valve didn’t make Left 4 Dead 3, and quite frankly they missed a trick. Based on our time with the Early Access beta, Turtle Rock Studios have iterated smartly and delivered the goods.

The big change from our previous experience with the Alpha is the overall game balance; where the pacing of combat was originally a bit too relentless, the beta has introduced a more logical curve across each campaign. There’s a steady ramp up towards the finale, with certain set pieces that offer spikes in intensity.

This has a profound impact on the co-op experience, where you’re now given room to breathe, co-ordinate with your team mates, and can take a minute to explore tangents and optional paths. While there’s always a clear road ahead, the beta’s second campaign introduces more “wide linear” areas, and it works so much better now that you’re not constantly under siege.

Randomised elements introduced by the card system, which can affect everything from character buffs, changes to weather, and even escalating challenges alongside the overall difficulty level, makes revisiting previous levels highly enjoyable. It’ll take a minute for you to unlock a decently varied custom deck, but it’s worth investing the time to tweak them to your playstyle.

Performance wise, the game is extremely well optimised on PC and current gen; we tried co-op across Windows 10 and Series X, and it was a visual treat. There’s a ton of environmental storytelling, lots of fine detail, and a rock solid frame rate even when the fights heat up.

The PvP “Swarm” mode is another winner, distilling the invasion style campaign mode from Left 4 Dead into a shrinking arena fight. It has its own dedicated upgrade path, and the option to mix and match enemy types. Success for both human and Ridden teams is massively reliant on good communication, particularly when combining Ridden abilities or locking down a certain area.

After extensive play testing, and with the promise of ongoing support, it’s reasonable to conclude that Back 4 Blood is going to be a long term safe bet. We can’t wait to play the final release.

TARPS?

At the bottom of some of our articles, you’ll see a series of absurd looking images (with equally stupid, in joke laden names). These are the TARP badges, which represent our ‘Totally Accurate Rating Platform’. They allow us to identify specific things, recognise positive or negative aspects of a games design, and generally indulge our consistent silliness with some visual tomfoolery.