Back 4 Blood hands-on: A fun way to cooperatively kill lots of zombies

Dorsum 4 Blood easily-on: A fun style to cooperatively kill lots of zombies

(Image credit: Warner Brothers)

Back 4 Blood has been slowly just steadily picking up steam, ever since its annunciation at The Game Awards late last year. This spiritual successor to Left 4 Dead has a like setup to the games that inspired it. You and 3 friends (or online strangers) accept command of four survivors during a zombie apocalypse. From there, y'all clear out hordes of the undead and make your style to safe rooms, collecting randomized upgrades forth the way.

It was an intriguing setup back when Left 4 Dead debuted in 2008, and it plays just as well in Back four Blood. It's still fun to shoot a bunch of zombies; information technology's even so fun to hunt for weapons and accessories in the hidden nooks and crannies of each level; it's nevertheless fun to achieve a saferoom after a difficult-fought boxing and upgrade your equipment before doing information technology all once again.

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Tom's Guide recently went hands-on with Dorsum 4 Claret, just before the game's open beta launch on August 5. What nosotros found was a straightforward and inviting co-op shooter with the potential for a lot of depth later on down the line.

Back iv Blood hands-on: Entrada

For those of y'all who never played Left 4 Dead — like the author of this piece — the core conceit of Dorsum 4 Blood is still extremely easy to grasp. The globe has fallen casualty to a zombie apocalypse (doesn't information technology always?), and survivors have clustered together in a handful of safe zones. You and iii teammates choose from a pool of eight adventurers and prepare off on a quest to articulate these undead, called the Ridden, from a variety of strategically important areas, stopping to rest in a series of saferooms forth the fashion.

The story isn't really the cardinal focus here, but the setup communicates all of the game's important ideas. In that location are four of you; there are a lot of zombies; there are limited opportunities to residuum and resupply. In gild to survive and conquer each expanse, yous'll need to coordinate efficiently and scavenge each surface area for healing items and better weapons. You tin deport a long gun, a sidearm, and a scattering of consumable items, from bandages to frag grenades. The Ridden comprise a diverseness of different enemy types, from run-of-the-factory Ridden which go down in just one or two hits, to gigantic Bruisers with expanse-of-effect attacks, to irksome-moving Exploders that can do a lot of impairment to either you, or your enemies.

The moment-to-moment gameplay in Back 4 Blood is simple and intuitive. You and your three teammates work your way through the map, mowing down whatsoever zombie resistance that you encounter along the way. And y'all will meet quite a lot of resistance: huge hordes of Ridden, forth with a few Exploders, Bruisers and other, tougher zombies for proficient mensurate. Coordinating your strategy is a big part of the experience, as is navigating the environment to find high ground. A group with a solid strategy and a varied mix of weapons is likely to become a lot farther than a group that only plows ahead with handguns and hopes for the all-time.

You'll likewise occasionally come across set pieces that give you a picayune advance warning, then pit you against huge Ridden hordes. In one level, we had to extend a span; in another, nosotros had to fill a pit with gravel. During all of these events, we had to lookout each other's backs and choice out the most strategically viable positions. For example: While fighting off the horde at the gravel pit, one of my teammates grabbed a stationary mini-gun and started blasting his way through the incoming Ridden. Merely a smaller contingent of zombies started spawning behind him — which is where I set up shop with an assault rifle, keeping him safe while he protected the residuum of the party. Back 4 Blood gives you lots of opportunities to work in concert like this, especially since it helpfully points out whatever fourth dimension a actor rescues a teammate from an assail.

At the stop of each level, you'll reach a saferoom. Hither, you lot can use whatever currency yous've picked up in the level to purchase new weapons, modifications, consumable items and even team benefits, such as actress item slots or health. So the whole wheel starts over again, until you reach the stop of the human activity, or until your whole team gets wiped out.

During my hands-on time with the game, I had a pretty good team — nosotros got through the first three levels with minimal communication, and shared all the resources we found pretty equally. Still, we were playing on the game's lowest difficulty, where friendly burn isn't a concern. Any group where the players know each other well plenty to coordinate strategies and weapon loadouts will accept a huge advantage in Back four Claret, which is where recruiting your friends will most certainly come up in handy.

Back 4 Blood hands-on: Loadouts and PvP

One twist on the "team up, slay zombies'' formula in Back 4 Blood comes in the form of loadout cards. Before you start your entrada playthrough, y'all'll find yourself in a campsite of survivors where you can cull cards to have with you on each mission. These cards confer passive gameplay benefits, such as faster reload times, more wellness or larger inventory spaces. Each time you finish a level, you'll get to apply a new card to your character, which means that you'll go more than powerful over time. Granted, the enemies will as well, giving the game's difficulty a steady upward bend.

As y'all explore the world, you can observe and purchase more of these cards, which is a adept incentive for repeated playthroughs. Furthermore, you can try to synchronize your deck of cards with your preferred playable character, as each ane has a slightly different skill ready. Evangelo, for case, can break out of enemy grabs by himself, and increases move speed for the whole team. Holly, on the other hand, recovers stamina each time she kills an enemy, and boosts the squad's stamina in turn. Information technology'south easy to see how a clever player could build an Evangelo deck based on speed, or a Holly deck based on stamina regeneration.

However, there was ane part of the beta that didn't piece of work too: the PvP gameplay. Rather than advancing through a cooperative entrada, the role player-versus-player mode in Back 4 Blood pits two teams of players confronting each other, equally they switch back and forth between playing as human survivors and playing as powerful zombie variants. Playing as the Ridden adds a bit of variety to the proceedings, but doing so is simply not that much fun, as they die hands and accept limited skill sets. There's always the sense that the estimator-generated AI Ridden are doing a better job of haranguing the other team than you are.

Either way, Back four Blood's open up beta is bachelor to play correct now. You tin pre-order the game for guaranteed access, or annals for a chance at a spot. Check the Back four Blood website for more than details, and check back at Tom's Guide closer to the game'south October 12 release date for a full review.

Marshall Honorof is a senior editor for Tom's Guide, overseeing the site'southward coverage of gaming hardware and software. He comes from a scientific discipline writing background, having studied paleomammalogy, biological anthropology, and the history of science and engineering science. Later hours, you lot tin can find him practicing taekwondo or doing deep dives on classic sci-fi.