Postponed - like so many other games since the start of the Covid 19 pandemic - to October, the cooperative shooter Back 4 Blood is taking advantage of the summer to offer itself an open beta session, in cross-play and cross-gen on all media (PS4, PS5, PC, Xbox One, Xbox Series S|X). Both game modes are in the spotlight, and it was in good company that we had the opportunity to sand the first act of the PvE campaign and the few maps and infected available in the PvP mode.
Left 4 Dead 2021
The British studio Turtle Rock takes its 2007 concept, tested with the legendary Left 4 Dead: four players cooperate to survive in the midst of a horde of zombies, crossing various environments from a safe room to another one. Obviously, many obstacles stand in their way, between infected and special events requiring a minimum of teamplay, more or less well hidden traps and a varied arsenal to shred as much putrefied flesh as possible, both in close combat and from a distance.
Players of the first two Left 4 Dead will instantly find their marks, even if some changes should be noted: fairly slow in the movement of its characters, B4B adds a stamina gauge to limit antics (jumping, running, melee ). It is now possible to aim with a crosshair, and the numerous firearms available also have elements to customize and improve (stock, tip, sight and magazine), by buying the parts at the start of the level or by finding them in crates nestled in the decor.
This last point is part of a more global approach aimed at enriching the general diversity of the game: we start by choosing a character, who has three specific characteristics (accuracy, damage, healing, endurance, life, etc.), before selecting a card from a deck that has been personalized beforehand. One will choose new cards after each step taken, each providing a general bonus to oneself or the whole team. The deck building system, quite nebulous at the start, turns out to be rather promising in the end: we can see all its interest after the first levels of a PvE act, the buffs proving to be particularly valuable during the hot moments of the campaign. .
The fresh air of the countryside
We can only judge one act for the moment, and Turtle Rock has not yet announced how many the game will have in the end, but the impression left by this campaign is rather mixed. The essential is assured with good shooting sensations: the very arcade feeling of the weapons does not bother with bullet drop, but the popguns suffer this time from a certain recoil which forces us to control our sprays and other full auto to add a hint of finesse to gunfights. For its part, the melee may not have the impact of that of Dead Island, but it proves to be as effective as one would hope for when ammo runs out.
The general rhythm is rather pleasant, with a convincing alternation between strong and weak beats. Discovering together the settings and situations concocted by Turtle Rock brings us back to 2007, with its share of moments of bravery and immense failures that are the salt of good cooperative games. The chase against a gigantic monster, the cannon to reload shell by shell to destroy a mine or the blasting of a yacht are among the memorable moments, the kind that invite you to agree on a common strategy to triumph. It is more than ever necessary to maintain a certain distance between the various survivors, without ever completely separating as death occurs quickly outside the normal difficulty mode.
It should be noted that for the moment, the Normal mode is particularly permissive (max health in the safe room, little damage in friendly fire…) while from the Veteran mode, the challenge seems almost insurmountable even with 4 overtrained people (note : good ok it's wrong, but we are not completely penguins either). We imagine that Turtle Rock will be able to adjust all that at the end of this beta.
On the other hand, the situations encountered as the environments traversed did not completely convince us. Everything seems for the moment to lack a little inventiveness, variety and energy to completely seduce: the streets, swamps, forests and other broken bridges all more or less recall environments already surveyed in the two Left 4 Dead, and it's not uncommon to finish a level wondering what the main event was, apart from a few birds that you can scare away to attract the horde. We very much hope that Turtle Rock has saved us the best for the following acts, like the thundering rock concert of L4D2.
Versus: from disappointment to acceptance
Same observation on the other side of the game. Turtle Rock has made surprising choices regarding the 4 versus 4 PvP of Back 4 Blood, which does not offer to relive the main campaign. We are dealing here with small, tight arenas, surrounded by a toxic gas which gradually closes in on the group of humans, in a battle royale style. The objective is to last as long as possible as survivors, before embodying the camp of the critters to prevent the opposing team from beating this timer in the next round. After this little disappointment, we have to admit that the concept works quite well on the human side. The tension is palpable as time goes by, and communication and mutual aid are more than ever at the center of the issues: management of care, ammunition, offensives of special infected and hordes of zombies, we do not have a second of rest during these few minutes of intense action.
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Same issues on the zombie side, since you have to coordinate your attacks well to maximize their effectiveness, but in the third person this time. The three types of monsters available in this beta - stinger that attacks from a distance, plague that vomits and explodes in melee and very slow but rather resistant giant - each offer three variants, with characteristic attacks to be favored depending on the situation. It's a real pleasure to trap your opponents to bring them down one by one, but the whole thing still lacks a bit of punch. Compared to the hunters, chargers, boomers and other spitters of Left 4 Dead 2, Turtle Rock still has something to find on the feedback side so that we really feel the violence of the damage that we inflict on our opponents.
For the rest, the system is rather well put together with again a system of cards to be selected for humans, in order to give their group or their character welcome advantages. There is also a class to choose from at the start, the four available taking up known archetypes such as the healer, the squad leader or the soldier. The zombies can improve their skills or those of the horde of ordinary zombies who constantly harass our opponents, and thus also gain in efficiency over the course of the game, which is played in two winning rounds.
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The maps are quite varied and well constructed, between risky interiors and exteriors overloaded with zombies, but their narrowness somewhat forces us to constantly reproduce the same strategies on the infected side, which still makes us doubt the potential of this mode in the long term. . The games are short and dynamic (between one and five minutes, roughly) but it's hard to imagine chaining PvP evenings if the mode remains as it is. We bet that the cards that we have not tried yet further diversify the stakes, and that Back 4 Blood has kept a few special infected under the elbow.
Very clean technique, but no frills
Turtle Rock seems at ease, whatever the tool: after the Source Engine (Left 4 Dead) and the Cry Engine (Evolve), it's the turn of the Unreal Engine to pass into the expert hands of the British . The result is largely at the level of current multi-media productions, although probably a little limited by the old gen and Series S versions. Without being particularly flashy, Back 4 Blood is visually very clean and above all perfectly fluid on PC (5600X, 32 GB of RAM and 2080 Super), in full 2K - including DLSS.
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We regret a little that the damage is not a little better localized - it lacks shredded limbs for the moment - but the few pretty luminous panoramas and other dark interiors lit with a flashlight contribute greatly to the general atmosphere of the game. will obviously wait for the final version to form a definitive opinion on the technique, but nothing particular is to be reported on this side for the moment, which invites optimism.
Back 4 Blood, the first opinion of JVFR
As it is, Back 4 Blood provides the essentials by providing fans of cooperative slasher zombies with their regulatory dose of hemoglobin. The gameplay is fun, the pace quite well balanced and if Act 1 seemed a bit wise to us compared to its illustrious models, Turtle Rock has everything you need in your hands to pack the action a little. in the countryside. On the other hand, the versus mode seems to lack a bit of ambition to compete with that of Left 4 Dead 2, but no ideas or energy to put everyone under pressure once the game starts, which is already not so bad. Backed by an effective if not flashy technique, Back 4 Blood seems for the moment solid enough to convince the greatest number, but not necessarily the relentless L4D in the long term: Turtle Rock still has a few weeks to balance and densify its formula. See you on October 12 on PC, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One and Xbox Series S|X.
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