Back 4 Blood Reviews
In Back 4 Blood, we have been given a finely tooled zombie shooter, but it lacks the power of the original.
Back 4 Blood is Left 4 Dead in everything but name. Delivering tense co-op zombie-shooting action, it's the true spiritual successor to Turtle Rock's classic franchise.
Back 4 Blood still comes out as the best Left 4 Dead-inspired game in recent memory, taking the core design and innovating on it just enough to keep everything fresh and fun. Where Back 4 Blood gets things right, it does them really well, but where it doesn’t is often quite obvious.
You'll find a lot of fun in Back 4 Blood. Turtle Rock Studios managed to take something that was old and give it enough of a touch-up to make sure we recognized it but played with it differently. It's fun to hop on with your friends and blast away the zombies and compete to potentially take out the Cleaners, but you have to get past the first half of the game to get to the best parts. It doesn't help that the story gives you nothing to cling to, but once you get past those parts, the tension and excitement kick in. But sadly, playing solo hardly gives you anything like what you get playing online and with friends.
Despite a messy start, this spiritual successor to Left 4 Dead becomes more challenging and characterful the longer you spend with it
Despite a few shortcomings, Back 4 Blood is nevertheless an excellent and fresh take on the beloved Left 4 Dead formula.
If you played Left 4 Dead, you’ll feel right at home. Back 4 Blood is a more mature and more bad-ass version of L4D, elevating every mechanic from the former series and making it better while adding in new features that makes playing far more rewarding. I can’t wait for my friends from the former Friday night L4D group to get their hands on Back 4 Blood when it launches next week on Game Pass. We’ve already made plans to play together, meaning a large Little Caesars pizza is in my future.
If you can give Back 4 Blood a chance, then eventually the game will open up as a fun and original 4-player co-op based shooter.
Review in Russian | Read full review
Turtle Rock Studios have made a triumphant return to the genre that kickstarted a whole zombie craze so many years ago. That return isn’t perfect though, issues with the controls, missing game modes and bugs have marred what is otherwise an enjoyable zombie killfest. At the time of this writing a few patches have gone out that have corrected most of the larger bugs, but there are still issues with spawning too many special infected at a time and other little issues. While these things can be frustrating, they don’t destroy the fun of Back 4 Blood when playing the game as it’s meant to be. That is playing multiplayer with a group of friends smartly navigating a nightmare filled world.
More than a decade after Left 4 Dead 2, Turtle Rock is back to reclaim the throne. Back 4 Blood is not a revolution in itself, but rather an evolution of the developer's already excellent setup. Of course, we would have liked less of the small errors we find here and there, but that doesn't stop the game from being a really entertaining and addictive action party. With human co-players, that is.
Review in Swedish | Read full review
Back 4 Blood is indeed the Left 4 Dead 3 that we were all waiting for, even if it would be clearly reductive to limit ourselves to this simple comparison as the Turtle Rock studio has made great efforts to expand and modernize a recipe of which he is still the father. The result is a tasty soft in cooperation, jubilant and surprisingly demanding as soon as you increase the difficulty. Its build card system, the complete arsenal and the many small tools next to it, offer a lot of depth to the gameplay.
Review in French | Read full review
Back 4 Blood is a worthy successor to the Left 4 Dead franchise. It maintains the fundamentals of what made the original so addictive and satisfying while adding its own little flair with the rogue-like deck building system. What holds Back 4 Blood from getting a better score is its high price tag and lack of solo play progression.
Having spent a lot of time with Back 4 Blood, we think it's well worth your time and, crucially, your money. It's just a lot of fun blowing Ridden heads off or smashing them with a baseball bat like a watermelon in an anime beach episode. It doesn't really deliver a compelling experience solo – the bots are just a touch too stupid for that – but Back 4 Blood ought to become a multiplayer fixture for the rest of the generation to come. Unless they bring out Back 4 Blood 2 in, like, a year.
Back 4 Blood isn't perfect and doesn't revolutionize zombie-themed co-op FPS, but it effectively demonstrates that, thirteen years later, the right ideas can revitalize superb but dusty gameplay.
Review in Italian | Read full review
Back 4 Blood is one that I’ll be playing for a long time to come. Turtle Rock Studios has committed to improving the game, both through new content and patches. And I trust that they’ll right most of the wrongs with their latest zombie-slaying simulator. It may feel light on content, and you’ll need a team of people if you want to make any actual progress, but hop on board now, and you still be pleasantly surprised at just how fun Back 4 Blood can be.
Back 4 Blood stands as a new standard in co-op shooters. With vibrant, intricate level design, solid gunplay, and intense moments brought on by a variety of dizzying enemy types balanced through a deep card system, it stands as a great achievement. The difficulty wall is annoying and other in game choices feel odd, to say the least, but that doesn't stop you from having an absolute blast, especially playing with friends.
Back 4 Blood is the co-op survival shooter that we’ve been waiting for since Left 4 Dead took the world by storm. The introduction of Corruption Cards really helps the game stand out, while offering players varied gameplay that doesn’t feel stale at any point. The current issues surrounding solo play are certainly a turn-off, but not enough for me to not recommend playing it, especially if you have a group of friends ready to go. With a little TLC, Back 4 Blood has every ingredient necessary to flourish, and perhaps even dethrone its predecessors… maybe.
Back 4 Blood isn't Left 4 Dead, and it doesn't even try to be it, doing away with the classics' straightforward campaign in favor of a more modern experience that rewards progression and offers plenty of replayability. The excellent map and mission design, the huge variety of builds made possible by the card system, and satisfying gameplay make the game by Turtle Rock Studios the one to get for those who have a team of friends ready to take on hordes of undead, but those who are looking to play the game solo would do better to look elsewhere, as Back 4 Blood doesn't offer much for those not too keen on teamwork.
Back 4 Blood is another great multiplayer zombie game, but some serious balance issues force it to stumble out of the gate.