Back 4 Blood is everything I'd want from a new Left 4 Dead

There are few finer pleasures than getting to see someone who’s really bloody good at something doing what they’re really bloody good at, which probably explains the massive smile on my face after ploughing through the first act of Turtle Rock’s co-op shooter Back 4 Blood. This, quite simply, is the team behind Left 4 Dead back doing what it does best, and doing it that little bit better too. It’s a return to the same concept – you and three friends against seemingly endless hordes of undead – with that same exquisite balance, and that same chunky gunplay. From the blunt borrowings of the title and beyond, it’s clear that Back 4 Blood isn’t shy of inviting comparisons.

“Yeah, well, I think it’s fair to say for sure,” says Back 4 Blood’s creative director and Turtle Rock co-founder Phil Robb. “I mean, anyone who is a fan of the Left 4 Dead series will feel comfortable playing this game – but we’ve got a lot more stuff we’ve packed into it as well. There are similarities, but it’s its own thing.”

Let’s Play Back 4 Blood Gameplay: Evansburgh Act 1 – IT’S NOT LEFT 4 DEAD 3, HONEST! Watch on YouTube

That’s the thing that’s most striking about Back 4 Blood – at first, at least, before you begin to grasp some of its own quirks and twists. There’s the familiarity of it all, the heft of its assault rifle in the hands as it chugs through swarms of undead as reassuring in its own way as putting on a pair of favourite slippers, but in Back 4 Blood everything’s been dialled up a notch or two.

Those mobs are that little bit thicker, special enemies such as bruising tall boys and hissing snitches are much more frequent, and there’s even a 20-foot bastard of a beast in the shape of the Ogre that occasionally rips through the ground to join in with all the messy fun. And it really is messy – brilliantly, bloodily so. Within minutes the floor is thick with the fallen and their torn asunder limbs, while each and every character is covered head to toe in gore. It is excessive.

“The studio’s got a lot more experience now as well,” says Turtle Rock co-founder and design director Chris Ashton. “So it’s new tech, new features – obviously we’re on next gen platforms and Unreal Engine 4. So the visuals of the game, the types of missions we can make and stuff like that – the upper limit is much higher nowadays.”