Back 4 Bloodhas finally been released to high praise across the board, especially from fans of the originalLeft 4 Deadgames. The new game brings back the classic cooperative team-based gameplay of the twoLeft 4 Deadtitles, along with enough of its own character and charm to give it its own unique feel and experience.
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Back 4 Bloodhas topped the highest player count of the firstLeft 4 Deadalready, but thatdoesn’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.
The original team behind theLeft 4 Deadgames returns forBack 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 developedLeft 4 Dead 2without Turtle Rock Studios.
The team at Turtle Rock Studios also developedCounter-Strike: Source, one of the biggest online shooters of the early 2000s. Fans have been eagerlyanticipating a major returnfrom the studio after they focused mostly on mobile and VR games in recent years, and now that day has come.
7Don’t Love: Overpowered Companion Bots
One ofthe few downsidestoBack 4 Bloodis 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.
6Love: Levels Encourage Strategy
One of the problems withLeft 4 DeadandLeft 4 Dead 2is that players could blindly run through many levels and finish without hardly firing a shot.Back 4 Bloodchanges this with map layouts and objectives that players have to coordinate with each other to complete.
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Rather than running away from a fight or sprinting through a horde,Back 4 Bloodencourages 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.
5Don’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. Thismakes it pretty hardfor 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.
4Love: Design Of New Characters And The Ridden
Each ofBack 4 Blood’s eight available characters feels totally unique from one another, and totally different from the survivors of bothLeft 4 Deadgames. Aside from their gameplay, characters just look very well-designed and believably human, and the Ridden can be genuinely disturbing at times.
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Each character has a few skills and passive abilities available to them. Mom, for example, caninstantly revive one playerper level, while Hoffman increases ammo for the whole team. The variety of special Ridden, like Stingers, Reekers, and Sleepers, feel unique as well.
3Don’t Love: Control And Optimization Issues For Some Users
While it’s not an issue for everybody,some players have foundthat 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.
2Love: 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: Sourcehad such good gunplay that it became one of the world’s top esports games, and of course each ofLeft 4 Dead’s weapons feel fantastic in their own right.
Back 4 Bloodis 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.
1Don’t Love: No “Vote To Kick” Option
Currently, a problemBack 4 Bloodhas 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 whoact 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 Bloodneeds better options for multiplayer in general, to make it more like the Source-based games of the studio’s past.
Back 4 Bloodis available on PC, PlayStation 4 and 5, and Xbox One and Series X|S.
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