Over 20 hours I've crafted one hell of a support deck that pairs nicely with Doc. The starter cards are a bit boring (+10 stamina, hooray), but before long I was unlocking transformative skills that encouraged me to specialize. If a run ends with zero continues left, everyone's deck is reshuffled. Each player can handpick a few cards at the start of a run, but after that they only draw one per level. Even more depth emerged once I started combining Cleaner abilities with the game's other standout mechanic-deckbuilding.īetween runs, players can build 15-card decks from 100-plus unlockable cards with effects that range from minor health bonuses to major gameplay changes. Back 4 Blood's Cleaners quickly won me over, not because they have a ton of personality, but because it's fun to play a specific role in this sort of game. Picking a survivor in Left 4 Dead is mostly about whose voice quips you'd like to hear. Not only can she use medkits faster and heal everyone for free, but she also starts with the M9 pistol and MP5, two of my favorite guns. As I mentioned in my initial impressions, I've enjoyed maining Doc for most of my runs. These aren't Overwatch heroes with splashy ultimate abilities, but the Cleaners do invite interesting, slightly different playstyles-Holly is a melee specialist who earns stamina back on each kill, Hoffman carries an extra grenade and gives the whole team more ammo, and Mom gets a free revive once per mission. This describes Back 4 Blood's Cleaners, eight tough characters with unique stat bonuses for themselves and the entire team.

It's kinda like skipping straight to later seasons of The Walking Dead in which everyone still alive is a superhuman murder machine. Each bundle of levels begins with your party leaving the safety of the Fort Hope hub world to go look for trouble.

You're zombie-killing mercenaries who hunt down infestations, rescue trapped civilians, and gather supplies for surviving settlements. You're no longer average-joe survivors scrambling to escape crumbling cities. Right from the jump, Back 4 Blood flips the premise of Left 4 Dead on its head. It's a game that Turtle Rock couldn't have made 10 years ago, and it's the addition of these smart, modern ideas that make it great. Just making an unambitious Left 4 Dead 3 would've been enough for me, but Back 4 Blood is also a deck builder, a looter, a hero shooter, and even a bit of a roguelite. Turtle Rock has faithfully resurrected the fun, heart-pumping zombie slaying that others have only attempted.

Back 4 Blood recaptures the tempo of 2009, where I'm lining up headshots by the dozen while I shoot the shit with friends.

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