Back 4 Blood Review 

“If you don’t have 3 friends to play with” Bruh I felt that…

Valve never could count to three

I played with total strangers for 2hrs yesterday, no mic. It was so much fun. We found our groove and I can’t remember when the last time was that I had such a strong team feeling

They definitely need to fix the spawn rates on pretty much everything. Zombies and especially the special infected literally spawn right in front of you. Like actually right before your eyes, like a bad spawn in call of duty. And the forced multiplier can make it difficult to find a game, don’t know why you can’t just start a game an have people drop in later. And if you can start a multiplier game with out matchmaking for ten minutes then they need to make that options a little more clear because I can’t find it.

These cons seems pretty unanimous between reviews and players. Hopefully they can just patch most of that.

_"You really need a group of friends to enjoy this game."_ Welp... I'm out.

My only reaaaal valid complaint atm is I feel the special infected spawns are too high. I feel like if they slowed their spawns down to like half of what it is now then it would be way more balanced on all difficulties

One of those games when you actually need friends to play with cause these ransoms mannnnnn

Really need the local split screen to come back 🥺

Back 4 Blood is a great game. I have accumulated over 40 hours of play so far. I don't regret the money for the Deluxe Edition, but I have a few suggestions for improvement: - Gore effect compared to other zombie games (e.g. Left 4 Dead or World War Z) rather weak and should be revised. When you shoot the zombies, in most cases you won't see any bullet holes and the zombie bodies remain intact. It was really more intense in Left 4 Dead. - No rewards / no progress in the solo campaign. Please modify! - AI (bots) should definitely be revised, as they are still very flawed and often useless. - Flashlight can be controlled manually. There are dark areas where the flashlight won't turn on. - Please introduce a kick system like in Left 4 Dead! - The representation of the other players should also be revised, as they often appear unclean and jerky in their movement. - The cartridge cases that are thrown from fully automatic weapons disappear in the air and do not fall to the ground as is the case with shotguns, for example. Especially when you kneel down with a machine gun and then shoot, the shells disappear in front of your nose. It's just ugly. I hope the game will continue to be improved and many of my suggestions for improvement will find their way into the game. : slight_smile:

The musical reinforcement and sound design with the elite mobs is crucial to the experience. So surprised that's just...gone...

My biggest gripe with this game is jumping from recruit to veteran difficulty after completing the campaign on recruit is still absolutely punishing. If you don’t have 3 other friends, it’s almost hopeless. And forget nightmare. Unplayable.

Thanks for highlighting the penalty in game for playing solo

I hate how all the special infected pretty much look the same. Think of how different the smoker, hunter, jockey, and charger looked from eachother. In this game they’re all just Greg models.

I think the reason why left 4 dead spoke so much to everyone who played it was the cast. The survivors just seemed so… human. They go from terrified of every special infected, to enjoying killing zombies as if it were just… a game.

I had been hearing complains about the PvP but couldn't get it thru my thick skull what the issue was as i was so excited for the return of 4v4 survivor vs zombies mode. But now i understand the gripe as even i would have expect the L4D style of playing thru the campaign maps in PvP and not just some arenas off who can survive the longest as the survivors. It's practically a deathmatch with a twist........ not sure how to feel about it until i try it but here is hoping Turtle Rock brings back the classic PvP campaing

They just need to ease down a lil bit with the random zombies spawns… I mean they literally spawning from thin air… they just keep on throwing them at you non stop… no chance to build strategies before hands since you have no ideas where the zombies are coming from. It’s a real issue that they need to fix ASAP. Other than that, it is very fun !

My pros of the game -great gunplay and melee -graphics are decent -recaptures that team oriented feel of the old games -Enough levels to keep you busy for awhile My cons of the game -characters lack chemistry and personality like the old crew -special infected feel very generic in design and sometimes spawn too much -some of the levels feel very plain and lack personality -reading the card info from where I sit is hard. There should be a zoom feature -the card system feels a little unnecessary. I just want to play the game 🤷🏾‍♂️ -You can’t pause during the offline gameplay - the camp main menu feels a little “extra” just make a traditional main menu Overall: The game plays great and has some fun moments to be enjoyed online and even offline, but the lack of personality in the characters, special infected, and location leaves the game feeling a little empty

Glad to see Turtle Rock back in the mix. I agree with the negatives and I feel this can be remedied with updates and DLC. I really hope the support mods in future across all platforms as well. That would elevate this game massively.

One of the coolest things about l4d was that it was easy to build community map packages. Wondering if there are any plans for b4b.

My friend is a huge fan of Left 4 Dead. He played the first two games and I told him about Back 4 Blood and to get it for Game Pass. He's checking out the game. Glad to see the game is looking fun and great.

who was the first person to shoot fish in a barrel did he use a shotgun or a pistol

Tried this last night on the Series X. It feels horrible on the controller - hard to describe, it just feels terrible, might be something to do with the aim assist - not sure. I also don't like that I'm forced to play multiplayer to get any benefits, I'm a working adult, don't have time to coordinate with friends... not that I have friends anyway. Anyone else get the same feeling?

Thank you, come again. Abu does the best reviews.

Back 4 Blood has those musical cues of special ridden though, People just dont know what they sound like, same with Left 4 Dead when it first released. Tallboy has this ground pounding sound when they spawn. Retch has the belching sound. Sleepers have the snoring sound, the hag has that creepy orchestra music, etc. etc.

I still prefer Left 4 Deads simplicity. Jump in jump out game play, clear defined objectives.

I dont got gamer friends like that anymore . So I’d be playing this alone

I bought it because I got it quite cheap but I really, really hope they add so much more to this game over the next few years. Great new maps in the DLC but also vote to kick, PVP campaign etc.

I remember being overwhelmed by zombies in left for dead and loving it. Now they are just filler for the tall boys and boomers. Still good game but dont really like how they need the special ridden to make it hard

I enjoyed my time playing it. It was a easy choice since it was on game pass and it cost me nothing extra to just download it. I wish it had better gore though.

This game is awesome the graphics and the detail in the game are done so well

I waited for this game for so long to play with my brother like L4D, and then faced the reality of Split Screen completely gone from this game. That's such a fucking shame..... Can't even have fun with my bro playing this. Guess we'll continue playing Left 4 Dead 2.

Hopefully things like attachments and spawn rates will be fixed in a patch; I'm holding off on buying it until a couple rounds of updates

Teamwork and communication is key in this game

I cant believe this. Ppl complain about it on here but online people love it. We understand it need some fix but damn it just came out. Its fun and i made alot of friends already. Im pretty sure im not the only one

Do agree with the weird short levels but besides that the games a blast haven't had any issues

Thanks for the review. I won't be picking this up til its 19.99. I have kids and I need to pause. So I'm a solo player. Since its basically only an online game. Its not something I would play every day.

Been actively playing L4D since they released the demo of No Mercy back in the day. Most of my gripes with B4B can be solved through some balancing tweaks and minor enhancements. Game has great potential I hope the devs keep active and improve the game over time

the characters are just so lifeless. left 4 dead was just too good to ever be done better.

I really want to get this game but no solo progression and forcing always online for a 4 player coop game is not a good sign. I'm worried they'll start shoving in microtransactions after the reviews come in.

You had me at Ace of spades

On the fence whether I should pick this up or transfer the cash I put down toward another game. I preordered it but after the Beta I wasn’t really feeling it

So is this worth getting or should I just buy Call of Duty Vanguard for the Zombies mode there?

Me and my friends love the game but we all agree it could be better. I don’t think Turtle Rock can afford another game to go the way of Evolve, So I’m hoping for the best when it comes to updates.

Now I’m excited for back 4 blood 2

I have around 8-10k hours in L4D2 and about 200 hours in this game already given the beta and release. I enjoy it, playing with randoms is fun enough, but unfortunately, you always have a lot of groups that are sometimes worse than bots. Beat the game on Veteran just solo queuing into random groups, so, I don't think its necessary to have 3 friends, but it sure does help

Back 4 Blood is a fun game, but the pricing is somewhat unreasonable. It cost $89.95AUD, and the Ultimate edition cost $149.95AUD, what on Earth is going on here. The upcoming Total war warhammer 3 only cost $89.95AUD. Paying $89.95AUD for a updated left 4 dead game is kind of outrages. Where I see it, game like Back 4 Blood can not cost more than $45AUD, from production quality to production budget, this game is no where near those AAA titles and yet price like a AAA.

This is why I feel rpgs and Jrpgs. Are more better lately. Shooting games are so much the same thing we have seen so much.

If they gave this game a 7 that means ign will give them an 8

Offline solo progression is a thing now. So they fixed that atleast. Plus you no longer need a constant online connection. Which is even better in my opinion.

I love the game but I definitely would have preferred if they just had a cool cast of four or so characters with fully fleshed out backgrounds, while also providing random commentary and having conversations here and there. The coolest thing about L4D was every time I played through I was always hearing something new from the cast. They told jokes, reacted appropriately to events and were comedic at times. It made me love them.

for me the only bad thing is the difficulty it goes from too easy to too hard

Maybe it’s his accent or maybe it’s me, but I had to rewind about 5 times to understand what he said at certain points.

I say the game is a genuine blast with friends me and my friends have a lot of fun on veteran difficulty man is the game a challenge it’s a really good game to just kick back and enjoy not to mention the fact that the game is free on Xbox with game pass

I agree with most points here, but you have one thing wrong. The game does use sound cues to alert you of dangers, like the hag, which as soon as you hear the tense music, you know there's a high chance that someone in your team is about to get eaten and die. You can also identify mutations around corners because they all sound different, in addition to the snitchers that call hordes, but I don't think you encounter them on recruit. I'm usually playing on veteran since recruit is just way too easy and nightmare is just too unbalanced. Speaking of balancing, from playing the later parts of the game, it's abundantly clear that the mutations spawn way too often. As in you can barely get time to complete objectives because you're busy shooting all the time, even with cards that boost damage. I feel like setting the mutation spawn rate to about half of what it is now, should fix some of the balancing issues though.

If I buy the digital copy of this game for Xbox One when I get an Xbox series X will it upgrade for that game system

For those curious to try out the game but not wanting to fork 60 buckaroos, B4B is on the Xbox game pass which is pretty cheap. Got the pass just to try this game and see if it's worth it.

Back 4 money.

I’d give this a 9 if you’re a fan of horde shooters and don’t care about solo crap

L4D has better special infected than B4B

if they fix the solo play it would be better....hope the DLC blows us away

haven't done much but so far its a fun game, but I would advice people to be cautious about buying this game right now. its hard to find anybody online, you could literally spend minutes waiting for anybody to join. I guess it makes sense since this game just came out, but yeah if you're expecting some instant online gameplay then you're gonna have to wait a while. this is just what I experienced on the ps5, I don't know how it is for other systems, but I'm not getting anybody on cross-play either, I pretty much have played with 1 other person so far.

No offline mode + no split screen = no buy (until they add it in)

they should have a DLC or something and bring back Left 4 Dead special zombies, maybe even characters

Anyone else’s controls lag? It is so hard to aim because of it

I love the idea but I just don't have anyone to play coop with...and to be honest, I like playing solo..I get this is a "team game" etc. but let's face it, there seems to be more solo players who matchmake than teams of adults waiting to play. Life gets in the way and I don't even have kids but it just seems crazy they don't put in a decent solo mode into these kind of titles. Is it worth trying Solo or should I just not bother?

I hate how boxes only hold two attachments. This allows teamates to run off ahead trying to get the best weapon parts just to lose all health and ruin a run. I think everyone should have their own spawn on these wepon attachments. Idk maybe the dev's wanted it this way.

This game would be so much better if the special infected were more interesting. They don't come close to L4d2. Also, if the corrupted cards were more varied and it would be possible to swap attachments, this game could have been fantastic. Such a missed opportunity.

I definitely saw the issues, I had a zombie spawn seemingly out of thin air behind me while my back was against a wall at times. That said it was fun, and challenging enough to hook me and because it's on GP am I really gonna complain?

What's bullshit is nobody from left for dead made this. It's a whole new god damn team capitalizing on the Turtle rock name

7/10? Yeah, Game Pass quality.

Yes yes but can you play splitscreen coop with a friend? How could your review not mention this?!

Review is good - game is scrap. Too high price compared to WWZ (in my region), maps feeled much smaller and escpecially punishment for solo play??!!!!. Thanks to reviewer to save my time and money.

Veteran mode = Spawn 5 crushes on top of an ogre

It can take a long time to find matches even with cross play

The aim feels off

Would never pay $60 for a game!! That doesn’t have a 50 hr plus campaign!!

Based on discord responses and in game testing, I'd recommend everyone wait on this game. Their discord is more trolling biased than the truth on the issue of gameplay replayability and mechanics. Wait for the updates after e3. If it goes skeleton crew by then you know exactly why. Currently endgame items can only be achieved by glitching the game mechanics.

Best zombies games yet. Dead island still my favorite

Actually what happen between turtle rock studio & valve ?

Marble mouth guy is back

Why would anyone punch a zombie? And why does a right-handed character punch with their right hand while holding a firearm right-handed? Or is that a stab animation? Hard to tell. Why not use the "off" hand when Borderlands 1 got that right years ago? Can't we have a left-handed or ambidextrous character by now?! Besides John McClane in Die Hard: Nakatomi Plaza. And why doesn't your character chamber-load fixed-tube shotguns when Killing Floor 2 got that right? And why does your character do emergency reloads in place of tactical reloads, ditching the mag in the process? I do like that you can aim down sights, though. But why all the backwards hats? 7:24 Playing as infestoids in L4D2 was the best! *}:-D*

Left 4 Dead 3: Back for Blood.

I'm sure they will fix the game and add patches

I have a decent amount of hours in the game and I will say that I have a love-hate relationship with it. I love the atmosphere, the graphics & environment on the some of the acts, however the level design feels a bit weird to me. ( I think I need more hours in the game to really come to a conclusion about it ) I’ve had some fun playing this solo, & with friends however I can’t help but get a sense of being overwhelmed as I’m playin’ & traversing through the game. The card system & the call of duty like feel they brought to the game with the venues, attachments & the new characters while innovative can be overwhelming. There’s so many cards to read, so many new guns ( I love this part) so many special items to bring like Toolkits , & fire crackers & so many infected. The game throws so many special infected at you out of nowhere ( seriously they literally spawn out of nowhere with no audio cues that I can hear ) & I get it that I’m playing on Veteran mode but there’s so many. I recall one of the objectives being that you have to kill a super boss zombies & that’s fine, but when I played the mission I had to deal with what it seemed like a never ending spawn of Tallboys, Stingers and Exploders alongside the boss zombie. A lot of the new things they added with the game like the story, the guns & all the attachments are great however that’s where the game loses me as a Left 4 Dead fan. Back 4 Blood feels more like a Call of Duty Campaign mode with zombies ( instead of shooting at humans ) rather than an actual Left 4 Dead campaign. Which is fine but leaves the game in it’s entirety feeling a bit generic in that regard. Final note, I am in complete agreement with the criticisms regarding the “Verses Mode”. I’m not saying that the Verses mode has to be exactly like how it was in Left 4 Dead, all I want from it is to recapture the fun & excitement that L4D’s verses mode had to offer because as of October 15, 2021 B4B’s verses mode is not doing it for me. ( as I play the game more & more my most likely will change, and I will either find a greater appreciation for the game, or lose interest in it. When I get home from work I’ll get to playing it and if I change my opinion I’ll edit this)

I like it yes they are problems with it but a good game I don’t understand why people don’t like it give it a chance

I love this game but I swear every random I played with is brain dead.

SHOUTOUT SEAN RANKLIN

the game is actually a lot better after release. congrats turtles

So just played the tutorial and it isn’t so bad as many claim it to be. 🤷🏼‍♀️

This game is like Borderlands 2 was to Borderlands but fails in a few ways. It’s still super fun but a few things in the game are annoying.

Well this is bullshit I been sitting in a lobby for 2 hours looking for somebody with cross play enabled so this dude says it won't take long sure it doesn't

Why isn't there a left 4 dead 3 ? Sorry never played them but tempted to pick this up,but going to try it on gamepass first.

Is it just me or is this game ridiculously hard. I also hope they fix the versus mode and add a mode were we don't have to use the card system because I am not trying to sit and read a bunch of card descriptions I just want to kill zombies with friends. So far I am not liking this game and that makes me sad because I pre-ordered the deluxe edition and I regret it so far.

Its the Ali G show!!! don't forget to pronounce your "t's"

Back 4 blood or World War Z aftermath? Let's find out

Guys voice sounds like Jesse lee Paterson

The main zoms need some work too…

To me there isn’t enough time to experience the levels themselves and it’s not creepy. The zombies constantly spawn, the animations are bad, the characters have like zero things interesting about them and they hardly talk, the special infected are more bland than anything, then I find the gun controls bad at best, not great like everyone keeps saying, it’s cartoony and this is all compared to L4D2. I can’t be the only one who feels these things

The fact they lock solo play out of progression is reason enough to avoid it... Even on Game Pass. I know these co-op games are meant for groups, but sometimes the randoms you que with waste your time more than playing with brain dead bots. Also, not everybody is a kid who has 50 friends from school to play video games with. Many of us are working adults who are the only ones in our friend groups who play video games, so once again, that locks us out, too. It will be interesting to see how long B4B lasts given TurtleRock's brain dead decisions like this.