Back 4 Blood

Many Left 4 Dead fans have been clamoring for a sequel over the 12 years since Left 4 Dead 2 was released—not to mention PlayStation players, who were left out. While a sequel was reportedly in development, it was ultimately cancelled. The problem is Turtle Rock Studios became an independent company back in 2011, while the L4D IP stayed with Valve. Other games have attempted to fill the gap, but now Turtle Rock Studios itself is back with its own attempt. It isn’t called Left 4 Dead 3, but it’s the closest we’re going to get because our Back 4 Blood review finds a spiritual successor with a tw...

Turtle Rock makes a triumphant return to the genre it created.

It’s unfortunate that Back 4 Blood does lack some of the personality of Left 4 Dead but I can safely say that Back 4 Blood is nearly everything I wanted in a Left 4 Dead 3 and then some. Hopefully, over time, Turtle Rock will be able to fix the issues that are present and maybe add in more harrowing Infected, erm, Ridden.

“Back 4 Blood is a solid evolution on Left 4 Dead's co-op action that could be further improved with some slight quality-of-life tweaks.”

It’s safe to say that we’re probably not going to be getting a Left 4 Dead 3 in our lifetimes, but Back 4 Blood is going to be as close as we’ll get in the time being. The game preserves mostly everything that made the two Left 4 Dead games so great while integrating it into the modern gaming sphere.

Is Back 4 Blood the Left 4 Dead 3 we've been waiting for? Yes! It's a worthy spiritual successor to Valve's classic zombie-slaying series of multiplayer games, and offers a well-designed Campaign mode with some impressive new features such as its strategic Card system. The difficulty perhaps needs balancing a little more, and the lack of meaningful progression when playing Solo Campaign needs addressing sharpish, but otherwise we've had a blast with Back 4 Blood so far, and we look forward to many more Campaign runs in the weeks, months and years to come.

In spite of its shortcomings, though, Back 4 Blood is already starting to feel like it could very well become my go-to zombie shooter whenever I just want to have a fun, social experience with friends. Despite how saturated the zombie game market has become, Back 4 Blood cuts through all the noise and delivers a solid co-op shooter that oozes charm and prioritizes fun with friends over everything else.

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Back 4 Blood's first major expansion deepens the roguelite elements of the game, but still stumbles on issues that have been present since launch.

Back 4 Blood manages to recapture much of the magic Turtle Rock Studios crafted more than a decade ago. In short bursts, Back 4 Blood is a fantastic co-op shooter filled with tight gameplay, a robust card-building system that lends itself to replayability, and a buttery-smooth performance that manages to capture that frenetic, zombie-slaying action of its forebearer. The game does have its fair share of issues, though, some of them copied over from Left 4 Dead, including a paper-thin plot and characters. The AI Director can be brutal, bordering on unfair at times. Level and enemy variety also ...

I’ll reiterate: Back 4 Blood isn’t a bad game. But it could have been so much better. Its difficulty needs balancing, as does the amount of enemies thrown at you at any one time. Ultimately, most levels simply have too much going on to be enjoyable – and each Act would have benefitted from being substantially shorter. Get a competent group of friends together and you might have some fun, but chances are zombie fatigue is going to set in long before you reach the end of the campaign.

Back 4 Blood comes after a decade of L4D-likes and from the studio that made the timeless original, but it fails to capture the same magic even as well as some prior imitators.