And if you fail, it’s not the end of the world to start a stage from the beginning, which is good, since you’ll probably die a lot. Most of the 30 or so stages, divided into 4 acts, take somewhere in the realm of 15-20 minutes at most, so it’s easy to pick up and play a level or two in your downtime. None of the stages overstay their welcome, either. I usually played as Holly, whose bat is as satisfying as it gets and can get you out of a pickle quickly. Guns stray a bit on the loose side, but overall I found myself enjoying combat at every turn. Many of the enemy types are clearly related to those from the Left 4 Dead games, and I do wish there was more variation in the Ridden, as it feels like there are even highly similar character models between them. Of course, the Ridden are the stars of the gameplay show, and carving through every enemy from the normal grunts to the larger and more terrifying Bruisers or Reekers is a blast.
Like Left 4 Dead, it’s structured into a series of shorter, linear levels with a handful of tasks you need to complete, which can range from delivering a package to destroying Ridden nests or surviving a horde. Luckily, Back 4 Blood’s core gameplay is both satisfying and highly replayable. It’s good to have someone on your team act as the team medic or the commando, but no one really controls any differently, which makes for an ability to play any character without hiccups but also feels like a missed opportunity to allow for more diversity in gameplay. Regardless, whoever you decide to play as handles in about the same way. Some, like Doc, have team-focused abilities that allow for healing or extra equipment slots, while others, like Jim, improve themselves with things like damage boosts in certain scenarios. In gameplay, the Cleaners each have unique enhancements that differentiate them as well as unique individual starting weapons. " Back 4 Blood is everything a Left 4 Dead game would be if it were brought to the new consoles, and that’s great news." Some lines are more story-focused, though most are the usual asking for ammo or wondering who was responsible for the friendly fire, but even hearing specific callouts and interactions between different characters lends the game an air of authenticity. Whether playing online or solo, you’ll always be in a group of 4 so-called Cleaners, each of which has contextual dialogue with each of the others, so even within gameplay you’ll find characters saying specific lines to another member of your party. This group of 8 seeming misfits is where the diversity of Back 4 Blood’s writing is given permission to shine through, from Holly’s excitability to Walker’s gruffness. But while it would’ve been interesting to see some more context around how this group of people came together or how they set up so many safe rooms along the way, the sparse amount of explicit storytelling leaves room for the gameplay to breathe and lets the characters speak for themselves.
There isn’t an overwhelming amount of story thrown in aside from a cutscene or two inserted between acts that show the cast of characters moving from place to place and getting an update on their next mission. Back 4 Blood skirts around that word for the most part, but what the game calls The Ridden are zombies through and through.
It wouldn’t be a Left 4 Dead game, or much of a co-op survival shooter at all, without a zombie outbreak. Developer Turtle Rock seemed to take so many of the genre-defining aspects from past Left 4 Dead games and infuse them with modern sensibilities to make a game that’s not just nostalgic for the people who have put hundreds of hours into the original series but, if you can look past a handful of bugs and a somewhat myopic focus, is massively satisfying as a modern experience in its own right. From the numeral 4 in the title to its being developed by the same studio to most things about its co-op zombie shooter gameplay, Back 4 Blood is everything a Left 4 Dead game would be if it were brought to the new consoles, and that’s great news.
For all intents and purposes, Back 4 Blood can be thought of as Left 4 Dead 3, and it wastes about as much time trying to divert your attention from its spiritual predecessor as I did, that is to say almost none at all. It’s hard to talk about Back 4 Blood without talking about its obvious influence.