As a landmark gaming franchise, the twoLeft 4 Deadgames laid the groundwork for an entirely new subgenre of the co-op shooter. The defining traits of this subgenre involve hordes of weak enemies supported by a few unique special ones, all controlled by an AI director that manages pacing in real time. The AI director, a major selling point ofLeft 4 Dead, makes sure that players always feel challenged but never unfairly so.
Left 4 Deadhas spawned plenty of imitators since its 2008 release, many of which became huge successes in their own right. Although there were rumors of aLeft 4 Dead 3for many years, it’s recently been revealed that the project was cancelled in the early 2010s. Nevertheless, fans of the formula have got plenty to be excited about in 2021. There are several brand new titles on the way, including a spiritual successor developed by the originalLeft 4 Deadstudio.
RELATED:Back 4 Blood Brings Back ‘Director’ Feature from Left 4 Dead
Back 4 Blood
Left 4 Deadfirst began development atTurtle Rock Studiosin 2005, three years before the studio was acquired by Valve. It wasn’t until 2010 that Turtle Rock became an independent company once again, although Valve retained the rights to theLeft 4 Deadfranchise.
Now, 11 years later, Turtle Rock is working to releaseBack 4 Blood, a spiritual successor to their original title.Back 4 Blood’s gameplaywill be largely identical toLeft 4 Dead, with both 4 player co-op and 8 player versus modes. While there aren’t many other details so far, we do know thatBack 4 Bloodwill use a card-based buff system to allow players and the AI director to add modifiers to gameplay.
Warhammer 40,000: Darktide
Another new title in 2021 that follows in the footsteps ofLeft 4 Dead’s classic formula isWarhammer 40,000: Darktide. Fatshark, the studio behindDarktide, are known for theirVermintidegames, which feature 4 player co-op gameplay set in theWarhammer Fantasyuniverse. Conversely,Darktideis set in the sci-fiWarhammer 40kuniverse, with players taking on the role of a squad of Imperial Guardsmen investigating a Chaos Cult on the Atoma Prime planet.
With its futuristic setting,Darktidewill have less of a melee focus than its fantasy predecessor. As such, fans ofLeft 4 Deadcan expect a much more similar gameplay experience. This is particularly true as the Cult enemies appear to be worshippers ofNurgle, the Chaos Godof disease, decay, and death. As well as disease-spewing daemons and corrupted space marines, Nurgle is known for creating hordes of undead plague zombies.
RELATED:Back 4 Blood is Missing the Most Popular Left 4 Dead Zombie Archetype
Aliens: Fireteam
Therecently-announcedAliens: Fireteambucks the trend of the 4 player co-op shooter subgenre by cutting a player out. Despite this, the upcoming title from new developer Cold Iron Studios seems well-suited for the subgenre. Set in the universe of theAlienmovies,Aliens: Fireteamwill have players take on the role of a group of marines sent in to contain a Xenomorph threat.
Enemies will range in size and power, fromFacehuggers and Weyland-Yutani Synthetics, all the way up to the massive Praetorians. Players will pick a class of Marine, and be able to customize their weapons, gear, and perks, before taking on the alien menace.
Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Quarantine
Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Quarantineis an upcoming squad-based tactical shooter, and the fourteenth game in theTom Clancy’s Rainbow Sixfranchise. The game is inspired by the Outbreak event forRainbow Six Siege, which challenged players to take on hordes of enemies infected by the Chimera virus.
Rainbow Six Quarantinewill expand on the Outbreak game-mode, and players can expect to see more special infected as well as larger maps. One interesting detail that Ubisoft Montreal have revealed about the upcomingRainbow Sixtitle is that instead of a virus the driving force of the enemies in Quarantine will be a technological parasite. This gives the potential for interesting interaction with some ofRainbow Six’s electronic and EMP-based gadgets.
