impression thread

After waiting for a whole gen we now have a new L4D game!

This game is pretty much Left 4 Dead 3, yet it has some mandatory changes to separate it from L4D... because if you're like me you'll surely miss stuff like the witch from L4D.

it also doesn't have the campaign versus mode which made play L4D for hundreds of hours but it now has Swarm mode which has a multiplayer pvp map, it sounds cool for serious competitive players but not much for me.

I really hope that they add a campaign versus mode because playing a campaign against real people instead of dumb ai was a ton of fun for me.

Looks great. I'll have to wait for a sale since I'm not interested in making internet friends with people these days.

Having issues with the controller settings on console, something about the gunplay feels really off.

The lack of campaign versus in favour of the style of PvP they decided to go for means the game is pretty much dead in the water for me. I'm sure I would have a great time playing through the campaign with friends for a bit but the longevity of L4D for us came from Versus and the Swarm mode is very lacking as an alternative.

I tried it for a bit last night (about 1.5 hours). I had heard multiple people say it's not great solo, and they were right. I'll maybe give it another shot with some friends, but I was a bit underwhelmed. I'm sure there's some depth to the card system and it's nice that they've added a lot of new weapons and I like the shop idea. I'm just not sure if it's enough to keep me interested.

Of course that could just be the Game Pass talking. I don't think I would have bought this game without a group of friends that were also all in, but if I had I'd definitely be trying to get my money's worth out of it.

I am having ablast with friends in the campaign but yeah the multiplayer sucks. The fact that they don't back-fill the team when folks rage quit means I'm not going to waste my time.

I played for a couple of hours but I couldnt get through the tutorial? I started it and kept getting stuck at the mission to cross the bridge...also is the tutorial like 15 missions? Thats what it looks like but its not clear if those are all the tutorial or other missions that I could be doing with others.

@dstreelm: I can't get a hundred percent certain, but if you got to the mission where you cross the bridge to the ship, I think you are a few missions past the tutorial.

If you're playing solo, I'd just return to camp and start a fresh campaign online.

It feels like a natural update to the L4D format from those many years ago. I like all the new systems. Makes exploration more rewarding/challenging, but it never takes away from the base game which is shooting the undead.

Still need to play more and eventually finish the campaign but it's such a refreshing new take on those older games.

It feels... off?

It's 100% Left 4 Dead, all of the bits are there, but it's missing all of the charm. The characters feel like complete nothing, despite how much writing there is here, and I can't help but find it sort of ironic that there's probably like double the character writing in B4B than there is in either L4D, but the 8 L4D survivors are all, like, iconic, memorable characters, whereas I played some B4B like an hour ago and the only character name I can remember is "Mom". All of them are just so nothing.

I'm admittedly not too too far into the campaign so far, but that lack of charm extends to all of the game. L4D's levels are memorable, charming, they all sort of have a schtick going on: No Mercy is a hospital, Dead Air is an airport, Dark Carnival is an amusement park, Hard Rain is New Orleans during a monsoon. The first levels of B4B are... astonishingly boring. It's some woods! I guess! And a bridge! Like the one from The Parish, but worse!

(also, to get it out of the way, I know Turtle Rock didn't do L4D2, but that game came out a decade ago, and I don't feel bad about using it as a point of comparison here because there has been ample time and feedback to use to pull that game's best ideas into B4B)

The infected, too. They're all very boring to look at, some of them are really hard to distinguish from each other ($20 to anyone who can identify the difference between a Retch, a Reeker, and an Exploder at 100 feet, visually). The L4D infected are great: you can recognize them all from a distance, they are visually distinct from the horde, and they all have clear functionality: Chargers charge, Hunters leap, Tanks are Big, Boomers puke, Spitters spit, Jockeys jockey. The B4B special infected feel like weird, badly done knock-offs of the L4D infected. The big arm thing is kinda like a Charger, but it doesn't charge and takes too much damage to kill. The weird... wall.. things? are Hunters, but way less scary because you see them coming a mile away. There are like 3 or 4 enemies that are in my brain as "Just A Tank But With More Pointy Bits".

The additions here, namely the card system and the weapon attachments, also so far feel like total nothing. I just cannot be bothered to ever give a shit about incremental percentile bonuses in video games, which seems like both of these systems are almost entirely composed of, and I just cannot be bothered to care enough to meticulously craft a deck or care about getting new cards.

It's kind of just nothing. It's too close to L4D for me to appreciate it as its own thing, but its way less charming than L4D or, I dunno, elegant in its design? for me to appreciate it as a L4D3. Of all of the not-Left 4 Deads, I think Vermintide is still the best of the lot, and of all of the L4Ds-and-not-L4Ds, L4D2 is still undefeated.

This is because the writing is bad. Back 4 Blood kicks off with melodrama and then just keeps going from there. It's all either high-strung melodrama or sassy, snarky assholes being sassy and snarky. Not that original Left 4 Dead lacked either, but the vast majority of its dialog wove together characterization and information relevant to whatever was happening in the level. Even when it's one or the other, the line is short and punchy. It gets across what it's trying to get across in the least amount of time possible without also feeling rushed or undercooked. Back 4 Blood just keeps going on and on and on and I don't care to hear anymore words out the mouths of these people.

It's not quite enough to stop me from playing the game, though. The actual gameplay is fine. It doesn't feel great to play - shooting the guns feels good and aiming with a mouse is really responsive, but the movement feels clunky for some reason. It feels far too digital, and I know I'm pushing WASD but it feels jerky, like there's no weight to it. Still, it's fun enough.

I think the thing that really kills it for me is the difficulty. I'm never looking for a tough time with one of these games, but I do want some kind of challenge. I think the basic Recruit difficulty is far, far too much of a cakewalk, but the next difficulty up feels like it's way too much. It's almost like there should be a difficulty in the "Normal" slot, like Left 4 Dead had, but that's missing.

If asked, I'll play more Back 4 Blood. It's not awful and I've had some fun playing it. But in a world where Vermintide 2 and Deep Rock Galactic exists, I don't really see a good reason to go back to this. I'd personally rather play Left 4 Dead 2 any day of the week.

I've never been the biggest fan of card-based perk systems, but I guess they're no different from just regular perks. Being able to outfit your character how you like it cool, I think the guns feel great, and even the mission structure has some cool/different objectives, like fortifying your own safe room. Being able to start at any safe room you've previously saved in is great.

@asylumrunner: You hit it on the head. I like to call these Edgar games, dating back to the movie Men In Black and the quote, "I know Edgar and that wasn't Edgar. It's like something was wearing Edgar. Like a suit... an Edgar suit."

This game has the trappings of L4D. It's made by the company that made L4D, but it's missing that je ne sais quoi that made the L4D games so great. I'm glad it's on Game Pass, because it's not something I would recommend people pay for. Additionally, nothing counts unless you play online. Why? I understand if you don't want to give me supply points at the end of a level if I play offline, but let me get achievements. I have friends that keep getting kicked towards the end of Act 1 because of the game's internet issues.

They did this really, really dumb. The tutorial is not an actual tutorial. You're actually playing the first act of the game. However, it's making you play offline, so it doesn't count towards achievements or progress. They don't actually tell you this though.

I got to say after beating the game on recruit, I don't feel like there's a reason enough for me to get back.

I feel bad for saying that because the gameplay is so fun but there's no interesting content for me to play.

I feel like I'm the only person who really likes this game. I haven't played a lot of co-op shooters - the L4D games and the Payday games are basically it - so maybe that's why? I like the deck building stuff that adds the idea of character builds to what would otherwise be a normal FPS. I like the "buy round" in safe rooms (though the weapon rarity/quality stuff I could take or leave).

I wasn't super into L4D2's maps or characters and to be honest the characters in this game are very meh as well, but I actually like how parts of maps are reused. It gives it continuity, whereas I feel like other games of this type have maps which are more or less self contained. 'course, more maps would be welcome but I like how the maps they do have fit together.

Also I love veteran difficulty. We pretty much sprinted through recruit but veteran really messes you up.