Back 4 Blood Analysis (Xbox Series X | S) – 4 Against the World (Zombie)

Get ready to clean the streets full of zombie hordes in Back 4 Blood.

Year 2008: A title entitled Left 4 Dead was released in Xbox 360, quickly becoming the most popular game in the world. 2 years before the same thing had happened on PC, since the title was released for the first time in compatible by the studio Turtle Rock Studios. The principle of this title was simple: face hordes of zombies of all kinds and drawn with 4 characters, which could be controlled by the CPU or by other friends.

If you want to know more about the original Left 4 Dead episode, don’t miss our retro-analysis by clicking here.

13 years, a sequel and a failure later, Turtle Rock Studios repeats his formula for success with this new Back 4 Blood. Taking the formula you made of Left for dead a great success and raise it to maximum power thanks to new generation consoles, the Californian study produced a game that left no one indifferent. So prepare your Cleaner face hordes of Smelly, stinging, revealing and more blood, guts, blood and weapons than you can imagine.

The infected are there and your job is to get rid of them.

The plot of the game It’s a simple excuse to take down hordes of zombies, but it’s there. Basically we find that oh surprise there was a (another) zombie apocalypse. I hope I haven’t spoiled you with this start. These zombies are known as the infected and there are already many more than there are living human beings. We play as one of the eight cleaners, a group of people whose job it is to step out into the real world, away from the safety of the fortified camps where the most sane people spend their time, while performing certain tasks, such as rescue survivors, search for supplies, clear areas etc.

Basically this translates to a cooperative experience for four players, where looking behind your back becomes the norm, and to be honest I find that much more refreshing than the endless drudgery of something like player versus player modes What floods today’s video game landscape. That said, if PvP is your thing, there is a way Swarm where the Infected face the Cleaners, where one can play as characters on either side.

The card system brings a very interesting role-playing touch.

When you start the game, you only have the option to choose between four cleaners, but by completing the first four missions of Act 1, you can unlock four more. In every act there are about ten missions confront, except in act 4, in which there is only one mission. The choice of which Cleaner you choose influences the team’s chances of survival, as each has a unique ability that can empower the team. As you progress through the game, you can earn new cards which can also boost you or the team. Without a doubt, build a terrace Using them to have more options for success is a lot of fun and brings a very interesting role-playing touch.

Cards can be purchased on Supply routes, in the social center of the game, and are purchased with refreshment points which accumulate at the end of a mission. These cards are not the only ones in the game. The Infected also have a set of cards that can be taken out at random at the start of each mission. These letters, Corruption calls, bring a new twist to gameplay, like have thick fog on stage, which makes it very difficult to see where you are going or where enemies are coming from. Or you can be even luckier and have a horde of zombies on your heels throughout the level.

The difficulty, one more problem that the community commented on.

So, once you’ve picked your cleaner and you’re ready to dive into the game, how do the games go? Good, in four words: fast and very difficult. If we play with friends to communicate, there will be no problems, but when we enter a random game via the quick games menu usually results in joining a group of people who do not they talk, they don’t help and they seem to believe that they are playing to be the greatest zombie hunter in history, where the idea is to kill as much as possible. I highly recommend playing with friends if you can, because although these are mutilated, being able to talk and coordinate it can be the difference between success and failure. Another positive aspect to highlight is the possibility of playing with users who play the title on consoles. PlayStation and PC, thanks to Cross play.

The action is relentless, fast, furious and brilliant. Walk across a bridge with a horde of zombies at your heels, or defend a jukebox in a bar to distract the zombies long enough for people to escape leads to memorable battles. And all this without talking about the infected specials, which bring a touch of difficulty and challenge that make all the difference. It is true that the difficulty of the title Even at the most basic levels this has been a hot topic in the community, but it looks like Turtle Rock Studios decided to listen to their users and lower that difficulty level a bit, which sometimes made us want to stop playing after failing. 5 times per mission.

Technical and artistic level section.

Graphically, Back 4 Blood looks very good, no more slowdowns Solid 60 FPS on Xbox Series (optimized for Xbox Series X | S), always having a few million zombies on screen at a time. The way the game maintains the speed is fantastic and helps keep the pace of the action always frantic. The artistic section It’s also close to the top, with plenty of zombie models, special enemies, and scenarios. Soundtrack it’s also great, with each different type of zombie recognizable by the noises it makes. As if that weren’t enough, the title it is completely dubbed in english, also presenting spectacular dubbing quality.

A game made and thought to be played by several people.

Back 4 Blood It is a video game that shows that it is designed for co-op play and not alone. We have a single player mode, but the main problem with this mode is that complete missions with bots, although technically possible, does not give you any progress, or additional cards, And worst of all, don’t give you achievements. Yes, you read that right, if you are playing alone, all achievements are locked. In my opinion, this is quite a controversial measure, as not everyone wants to play with other players and the developers basically made you have to. Other minor drawbacks are a rather messy menu system at the start, minor in-game bugs, and a weird matchmaking issue. This is however something that can be fixed by Turtle Rock Studios via patches.

Conclusion.

In short, with Back 4 Blood coming to Xbox Game Pass on launch day, I think there’s no excuse not to play it. It’s fast, brutal, fun, and a bad take. Don’t hesitate to call your coworkers and take to the streets to end the zombie menace.