Back 4 Blood becomes my co-op game 2021 - also with a macke

MYMMO-Director for Zombie Affairs Corthyn is heavily enthusiastic about the initial dislike of Back 4 Blood. It could be the co-op game of the year 2021. Lest in the play test, as CORTYN felt the time in the beta with friends.

When I played back 4 Blood a few months ago in the Alpha, my impression was bad. Really bad. I did not like the card system, the gameplay and balancing felt hakely. There was just no joy.

Actually, I did not want to play back 4 Blood anymore and only the discord message of a friend brought me to look again with a 4-group group in the beta last weekend. We did the PC version of Back 4 Blood.

Now, after more than 20 hours of playtime, my opinion is: Back 4 Blood will be my co-op game of the year 2021.

The deck system requires a bit of training time. But if you have a little pure and has unlocked more than the first 7 standard cards, you can customize its character solid and find your own style of play.

Since my Holly constantly regenerates 10 perseverance as a character property, if she did a zombie in close combat, I trimmed her all on melee. She got a combat knife, which makes her "moving away" to a devastating melee attack, plus a card that can be regenerated with every melee-kill 2 life points.

Combined with additional endurance and later a serious melee attack, I was able to maintain myself on the front, while my team colleagues cleared from behind with the rifles.

A teammate, on the other hand, opted for the conspiracy theorist Hoffman and was quasi our ammunition depot. He had a chance to find additional ammunition at each zombie kill and at the same time increased the maximum amount of ammunition of the whole group.

Oh, and besides, he was able to wear 2 Molotov cocktails and was almost immune to fire damage as he causes double fire damage. Yes, he lit us several times. Yes, he has always survived that without prejudice. The zombies do not. The rest of us either.

Our team selection opposes the "AI-Director". The villages already known from Left 4 Dead. This is a dynamic system that matches the game experience for each pass. The AI ​​Director reacts to a whole lot of factors:

• How well does the team beat up?
• How much ammunition and equipment does the team still have?
• How well did the players master the last attacks of the Horde?

Based on this, the AI ​​Director adds more and more "Corruption Cards", which change the game to the detriment of the players. We have always called the Corruption Cards of Simplicity in the game "Affixes" - based on similar systems in WoW or Diablo. Here are a few examples of what Corruption Cards can cause everything:

• Zombies are more aggressive and have spiny mutations, which protects their heads. They no longer die through a single head goal.
• Fog moves on and off at regular intervals. The visibility is limited to almost 10 to 30 meters.
• Numerous crow swarms can be found on the map. Are you closed, alarm a horde zombies.
• The whole map lies in deep darkness and only flashlights brighten reliably areas.
• The special zombies are more resistant causing more damage or come in more fatal variants with more skills.

Especially the corruption cards that have changed the appearance of the MAP significantly - ie fog and darkness - caused a very different feel. If a solid illuminated swamp suddenly lies in deep darkness, the right atmosphere comes up. The same applies to the cursed fog. For in the discord, everyone screams like "little girls" when suddenly close up a gigantic tallboy appears out of the fog and hit the group once.

There is a weapon and loose system that has looked at exactly the right mix of Loot Shooter and solid weapons designs. As in an MMO there are weapons with different quality levels (white, green, blue, purple, orange) and different values. Thanks to weapons mods, the ammunition can be enlarged, a riflescope placed or increased damage.

As a result, in the course of a campaign, it really feels like developing. Both as a character about the cards as well as the weapons with their upgrades.

A campaign in back 4 Blood includes 8 levels in a row and can be paused.

It was never so that the game has us "tissue with Loot". Anyone who now expects color explosions with dozens of weapons in the style of Borderlands, is clearly wrong. Booty is comparatively rare and often a "bonus" when you deviate a little from the main route or cracks a locked door with a tool kit.

I do not want to do that as if we had played perfectly - we do not have that. On the difficulty "veteran" (there are "survivors", "veteran" and "nightmare") was the game pretty crisp and despite communication about discord we died and had to start campaigns several times from scratch. Because after the 3rd failure is over. There is no endless "reassembly" as in Left 4 Dead.

Above all, the atmosphere of back 4 Blood I want to praise explicitly. The different cards, different zombies and the noise are awesome. While exploring a scary farm with meat overspring, you sound softly the croaking snoring of sleeper zombies, while the vesting crow swarms near a few corpses pitching and Hoffman tells the team that "this is here yes, what the LAME is that --Stream media want to conceal us, "whereupon all others in the team only give a fashion-amused" HMHM "of themselves.

Or to say it differently: I wanted to continue playing. I would have played more and like 2 to 3 campaigns more played if it would not suddenly not have been 18 o'clock in the evening, but 2 o'clock at night. Back 4 Blood has stolen my time and arted by me.

What about the PVP mode? The PVP mode gets a separate article because it has its own problems and peculiarities that have little to nothing to do with the Koop Experience of Back 4 Blood. We will devote ourselves separately.

Back 4 Blood is not perfect, but the defects are small

However, there are also a few small criticisms that I want to address here and must.

The "Corruption Cards", which the game countered us, sometimes are completely in contrast to the game design. This became clear especially in the card "Speed ​​Run". This card rewards at the end of the game with additional copper, if you master the respective level within a timing.

Basically, nothing speaks against a time limit, but it bites that just blatant with the small "Loot Shooter" aspects. If one finds a purple colors Uzi on the ground and this wants to compare only with their own assault rifle, then it costs time. All in this aspect of the Loot Selection is ruded, feels like making the wrong decision:

• If you compare the weapons too long, it is not progressing and the timer goes further down.
• You simply choose "to feel," maybe you caught the wrong weapon, which could take life later to the team later.

A second aspect is the "AI Director", which should always hold the match exciting. Although I expressly praised that before, there was also a handful of situations in which it was simply "unfair" and distinguishes the experience to blatantly.

So we had several scenes in which we had to defend a point against the Horde until a gate opened. The first time we were overrun by the Horde, so we took all the pipe bombs at the second attempt to distract the zombies.

Then the AI ​​Director then apparently thought "etchibäschi, so easily I do not make it, and kept us on the neck of 3 Tallboys at the same time. Since only a very small area had to be defended in this scene and there was no way forward or back, we were disassembled freezing cold - from 100% of HP to 0% over almost 8 seconds. With our equipment, there is plain no chance to survive this attack.

A third criticism are the different levels of difficulty. We played most of the time "Veteran" and that felt demanding and exciting. But this is very different, but on the "normal" survivor mode. There, the opponents are so weak and so stupid that the game feels completely different and does not have fun. I can only advise everyone from a "normal" passage. This is without exaggerating, just "keep left and run by the level".

My last negative note is in the design of the Level. I find it terrible that there is the opportunity almost in every level to "go back" the whole card to provide themselves in the previous safe room with equipment. This ruins the aspect of resource-saving playing and also ensures very boring passages, in which the smartest decision is easy, before the final fight again to the entrance to the entrance to resolve. Here I would want more "Points of No Return", where the starting area is taboo after a while.

A streamer has completely different problems in the game - who believes a zombie has insulted him racist.

Although back 4 Blood is still in the beta, but until the release is only a few months left. Whether these problems are tackled - or even seen from the broad mass as problems - of course remains to be seen. With us you have a little clouded the fun. But that was not enough to ruin the great weekend, because we had that even when the zombies have expressed ice cold.

Did you look in the beta of Back 4 Blood? How was your first impression of zombie slaughter.