Back 4 Blood has finally been released to high praise across the board, especially from fans of the original Left 4 Dead games. The new game brings back the classic cooperative team-based gameplay of the two Left 4 Dead titles, along with enough of its own character and charm to give it its own unique feel and experience.
Back 4 Blood has topped the highest player count of the first Left 4 Dead already, but that doesn't mean everything about it is perfect. While players are praising a lot of the game's aspects, they aren't without their gripes and displeasures.
8 Love: The Return of Original Left 4 Dead Developers
The original team behind the Left 4 Dead games returns for Back 4 Blood – if that wasn't obvious by the use of a numeral instead of words in the games' title. While the first game was developed by Turtle Rock Studios all the way back in 2008, Valve actually developed Left 4 Dead 2 without Turtle Rock Studios.
The team at Turtle Rock Studios also developed Counter-Strike: Source, one of the biggest online shooters of the early 2000s. Fans have been eagerly anticipating a major return from the studio after they focused mostly on mobile and VR games in recent years, and now that day has come.
7 Don't Love: Overpowered Companion Bots
One of the few downsides to Back 4 Blood is that it's actually easier when playing without friends. AI-powered bots have near-infinite health, endless ammo, and seem to understand objectives and strategies better than most players.
It makes for a bit of jarring experience going from single-player to playing with friends, as it suddenly feels much more difficult. It can be handy when a teammate drops out, though, as the AI bot will immediately start controlling the character until they return.
6 Love: Levels Encourage Strategy
One of the problems with Left 4 Dead and Left 4 Dead 2 is that players could blindly run through many levels and finish without hardly firing a shot. Back 4 Blood changes this with map layouts and objectives that players have to coordinate with each other to complete.
Rather than running away from a fight or sprinting through a horde, Back 4 Blood encourages players to think ahead and plan out a strategy to accomplish their goals. It's not true for every level, but it's very apparent when a team needs to act as a team.
5 Don't Love: Special Ridden Spawning Back To Back
While it might just be an unintentional bug, many players have found that the game's special infected enemies have the tendency to spawn right after one another. This makes it pretty hard for players to get through a level efficiently, as they are constantly dealing with special Ridden one second after the next.
A change to the spawn rate of special infected would help dramatically, though it would likely also make the game much easier. As it stands, some players have found the constant spawning to be too much to handle.
4 Love: Design Of New Characters And The Ridden
Each of Back 4 Blood's eight available characters feels totally unique from one another, and totally different from the survivors of both Left 4 Dead games. Aside from their gameplay, characters just look very well-designed and believably human, and the Ridden can be genuinely disturbing at times.
Each character has a few skills and passive abilities available to them. Mom, for example, can instantly revive one player per level, while Hoffman increases ammo for the whole team. The variety of special Ridden, like Stingers, Reekers, and Sleepers, feel unique as well.
3 Don't Love: Control And Optimization Issues For Some Users
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While it's not an issue for everybody, some players have found that the game's control scheme and default settings don't work like they should. Aiming on an Xbox controller, for example, feels imprecise and uncoordinated, while other players have found that the game is not optimized for certain PCs.
It's expected that a game released in 2021 will have issues running on older systems, but even players with high-end PCs have reported FPS issues. It could use a little more baking in the oven, as it were, to sort out some of these kinks many users have experienced.
2 Love: Tight, Satisfying Gunplay And Combat Systems
Turtle Rock Studios has proven itself to be very capable of putting out games with satisfying controls. Counter-Strike: Source had such good gunplay that it became one of the world's top esports games, and of course each of Left 4 Dead's weapons feel fantastic in their own right.
Back 4 Blood is no different. While some users have issues with the controls, players who have changed their settings or not encountered any bugs find that the game's huge array of weaponry feels impactful.
1 Don't Love: No "Vote To Kick" Option
Currently, a problem Back 4 Blood has in online cooperative sessions is a lack of a Vote To Kick option. Players who find teammates online are sometimes matched with people who have gone AFK or who act toxic towards their teammates.
Currently, the only way to avoid these players is to leave the game, but that doesn't punish other players' childish or inappropriate behavior. Back 4 Blood needs better options for multiplayer in general, to make it more like the Source-based games of the studio's past.
Back 4 Blood is available on PC, PlayStation 4 and 5, and Xbox One and Series X|S.