#Back 4 blood review code#

Combined with how dark it is - it is a horror zombie shooter, after all - and it gets quite repetitive. states, alongside very cookie cutter streets. Lots of rocky, forested areas typical of the northern U.S. While the missions themselves have a lot of variance in your objectives - the Bar Room Blitz level in the first act being a particular highlight - the locales you slay through can often get repetitive. Each time the layout of the town changes however, as more ridden appear and certain paths become blocked off. Embarking on a mission usually involves leaving Fort Hope, your safe refuge on the outskirts of a nearby town, and fighting through the streets to your next objective.

#Back 4 blood review code#

Game Rant was provided an Xbox Series X code for the purposes of this review.If you’ve played Left 4 Dead, the premise is largely the same: a group of survivors are fighting their way through the “ridden” apocalypse, searching for other friendlies stuck in sticky situations. Where Back 4 Blood gets things right, it does them really well, but where it doesn’t is often quite obvious.īack 4 Blood is available now for PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X. Overall, it’s got a lot of bugs, and acceptable or not, they are clearly there.īack 4 Blood still comes out as the best Left 4 Dead-inspired game in recent memory, taking the core design and innovating on it just enough to keep everything fresh and fun.

Watching an NPC stand in place and accept death by a horde of zombies is bewildering and discouraging, while the game crashing just before the final mission and resetting to the start of the previous mission is an even bigger issue. But when they are a big deal, it can be painful for players. Its technical issues are not a big deal all the time, sometimes resulting in zombies just running into walls or not reacting to the player’s immediate presence. Others, like the PvP mode Swarm, feel like an emotionless attachment to the base game.īack 4 Blood could use some more polish for bugs, technical concerns, and more. Some of these are small, like there being no way to remove an unwanted weapon attachment without replacing it with another.

It’s hardly the only odd decision in the game, though, and it comes with other issues as well. Yet, it’s undeniable that this is a massive flaw in the game and one that feels punishing. Turtle Rock Studios is reportedly working on this and at some point post-launch, these issues are expected to be fixed. RELATED: Back 4 Blood Would Be Perfect for Local Co-Op, But Doesn't Support It A good example is the need to kill 53, 600 zombies for one achievement, but any kills made playing solo do not count toward it.

Essentially, players can not complete any of the progression-oriented tasks in the game, locking them out of everything from cosmetics to new Back 4 Blood characters to achievements. Back 4 Blood players who don’t want to go online to play with strangers or friends are punished for not doing so, as the solo experience is missing key components. Whether facing the common zombies or any of the variants like a Tallboy, Retcher, Ogre, or Snitch, players can find just enough variety to keep the gameplay enticing-especially when Corruption Cards come into play.įirst off, the sheer lack of support for solo players is incredibly disappointing. While the common infected are seen the most often even these creatures can be modified in-game to make them more challenging. The same can be said for the variety of enemies players will face. “Just enough variety” to keep a Back 4 Blood player’s attention seems to be the goal, and it works. Players may find themselves trapped with zombies in the woods, in a school, or in a mass grave, and while players will sometimes revisit locations more than once (like the area around Fort Hope), each environment stands out from the next. The varied mission goals, coupled with excellent level design, make playing through each mission as fun as the last one. By ensuring that each in-game goal variation isn’t overutilized, it helps elevate Back 4 Blood's gameplay above mindlessly killing zombies (though there is plenty of that thrown in too).