Welcome to our review of Back 4 Blood, the newest shooter where you and three friends take on the Ridden.
Back 4 Blood is a thrilling cooperative first-person shooter from the creators of the critically acclaimed Left 4 Dead franchise. Experience the intense 4 player co-op narrative campaign, competitive multiplayer as human or Ridden, and frenetic gameplay that keeps you in the action. Fight your way through a dynamic, perilous world in a 4-player co-op story campaign where you must work together to survive increasingly challenging missions. Play with up to 3 of your friends online or go solo and lead your team in battle.
Choose from 8 customizable Cleaners, one of the immune survivors, and a range of lethal weapons and items. Strategize against an ever-evolving enemy bent on your total destruction. Play with or against friends in PVP. Switch between playing as a Cleaner with special perks and the horrific Ridden. Both sides come with unique weapons, abilities, and specialties. A new “rogue-lite” Card System creates different experiences each and every time, putting you in control to craft custom decks, roll different builds and undertake more demanding fights.
The Game Director is constantly adjusting to player actions, ensuring exciting fights, extreme gameplay diversity, and tougher legions of Ridden – including mutated boss types up to 20 feet tall.
Back 4 Blood consists of 2 main parts, the solo campaign, and the 4-player mode. Let us talk solo campaign first because there is a lot to say. Basically, you have a team of 4, meaning 3 bots will assist you in suppressing the hordes of Ridden, bots that can be very helpful by sharing their ammo with you in case you are running out. But also help revive you if needed, healing you is another one of their perks.
Obviously, they are quite decent in the entire game of mowing down the Ridden as well, but well, I had a really unusual issue with one of the bots. Always the same one, standing in my way, taking friendly fire, blocking my view, and if I even dared to go towards a ledge, he was in front of me. I know this sounds silly, but an otherwise great game is really being influenced by it. At least it was for me. I am sure this will be evened out in future updates, so I do want you to not worry too much about it.
The game itself is really fun, reminding me mostly of Zombie Army, but with just a loadout of 2 weapons, usually a decent gun, my favorite is the Scar, otherwise accompanied by a more basic weapon for melee combat or a more simple handgun. Though it must be said, even without them, you can still perform a manual takedown of any Ridden coming at you. I like how this does not influence reloading because some weapons sure take a while to reload.
Talking about the weapons, be sure to really look into the editing of your loadout. From increased reload speed to silencers that make the Ridden less reactive, allowing you to take out distant Ridden one by one, something I really appreciated. Even bigger Ridden, I was able to at least damage them from afar and the more I progressed, the more accurate I was becoming and I had runs (how the game calls its levels) of 250+ kills.
The solo campaign is divided into 4 main acts and several runs per act make up the story. It should be known that the 3 settings of difficulty are pure gold, Rookie is really easy and I do recommend it for the first level just to get a decent feeling for the game, once you do, go straight to the hardest setting and you will cry at the difference in how to play suddenly. I just love the difference between both, so far apart that they almost become a different game.
When you go to the multiplayer part, this is where it becomes clear that you need decent players in your group, those that you can rely on. Relying to get revived when down, given ammo when out, and all the usual things. I had really foul luck during my very first gameplay during the beta that my teammates were garbage users. I had no idea how to play and they just let me die the very first time I went down. Having played multiplayer for a few hours now, this is not hard to do, revive someone. Those guys were just douchebags and that is the only problem this game really has.
Unless you get lucky and get teamed with a reliable crew, you are in for a painful experience due to the way the game is set up. I was lucky to also play it with actual real-life friends, got to love having this game on Game Pass from day 1, and my experience was just so much better. Being able to actually communicate with them, reviving when needed, and well, I just love how I sniped that big nasty Ridden to save my teammate. The difference between experiences is massive.
Sadly this is the case for a ton of games that rely on random teaming when your friends are not online. Back 4 Blood suffers from this very issue and despite how fun it really is, this can be a game-changer in many ways. Back 4 Blood does shine very brightly in the solo campaign though. While the story itself is “faint”, it just works.
In conclusion, Back 4 Blood is a game that gave me a really bad impression during the beta, but I just fell totally in love with it. Aside from the confusing menus at first, they really make little sense, I think its longevity will be in forming a good team and really become great at the game. With the game being on Game Pass, it might be more accessible for a lot of gamers and give this game a fighting chance to survive in the long run! I know I love it and will be playing it for a while to come.
