So far, Back 4 Blood is a lot of the things I love about Left 4 Dead

Nice parquet flooring. Is it weird that that’s the first thing I notice? There is some very nice parquet flooring early on during the campaign in Back 4 Blood. But maybe it’s not weird at all. Back 4 Blood is the spiritual successor to Left 4 Dead – it’s another zombie game. And zombie games are, perversely, often the most domestic of games. To work properly they have to take place in a recognisable world, so game designers must drag themselves in from the heavy metal album covers and space stations and focus on the things a lot of us live around. Like parquet flooring. (I wish.) Nice, perhaps a little scuffed. Maybe a bit too much blood and brain smeared about.

I have put in a few hours so far, and they have been happy hours. This I was not expecting, to be honest. Over the last few days I have getting a sense that people are a little annoyed with Back 4 Blood. Progression systems and unlocks that don’t work if you play solo. Frustrations that I can easily understand.

The more I play, I suspect the more this stuff will make itself known. The basics are clear at least from my first few hours: reanimated for 2021, the Left 4 Dead template now has the trappings of most modern live games. Unlocks, things to earn towards, cards that flair each run in different ways. I will leave this stuff for Chris Tapsell and his review to pick through. I’m not ducking it because I can’t be bothered to dig into it. I’m ducking it because so far I can only play Back 4 Blood the way I used to play Left 4 Dead: as a game in which progression is a fairly alien term. A game that takes place in an endless pinwheeling present, with no thought for what comes next, what comes after.

Let’s Play Back 4 Blood Open Beta PC Gameplay – BACK 4 BLOOD MULTIPLAYER GAMEPLAY REACTION Watch on YouTube

It feels a lot like Left 4 Dead in this regard, which is to say that Back 4 Blood understands both parts of the deal. The zombies must be energetic and panic-inducing and studded with Specials, the way that muesli is studded with raisins. (Too few raisins and you feel robbed, too many and you feel strangely disappointed, as if the rationing that makes the whole thing special is missing – for more on this read Fergus Henderson.) That’s one part of the deal. The other part is that your team, the four of you pitched against this antic wilderness, you four must feel a bit like the cast of a Community-type show. A sitcom with a thing for violence and menace and chaos, but with a warm heart too. You must like the people you are, the people you travel with, and their frantic barks during firefights must go beyond information – ammo! Bandages! – and feel like bickering: in-jokes, personal frustrations, a funny thought occurring at the worst moment.