The beta of Back 4 Blood is over. But there is still urgent work to be done before the release – 5 aspects still need improvement.
The open beta of Back 4 Blood is coming to an end, and anyone who wanted to take a look at the cooperative zombie shooter had the opportunity to do so. However, the beta has also revealed that not everything is perfect for the launch in October. A number of improvements and fine-tuning are still necessary to ensure Back 4 Blood can be a success. We present to you the 5 things that Back 4 Blood should improve or clarify before launch.
1. Better AI for the bots
Of course, Back 4 Blood is most fun when played with 3 friends in a fixed group. But that is not always possible. Occasionally, a player may disappear from the ongoing match; after all, a single campaign can take several hours.
In that case, a bot “helps” out and takes the place of the survivor.
This works more poorly than well. The bots in Back 4 Blood fluctuate in their abilities between “absolute skill gods who one-shot every zombie” and “braindead meat sacks” that barely resemble zombies.
So the bots often stand in the toxic spit of zombies, do not heal themselves in the safe room even though they could regenerate 50 health points for 100 copper, or take strange detours to rescue fallen teammates.
In other cases, they ruin the game’s tension as they can already see special zombies through walls and often empty an entire magazine into a harmless wall behind which a Tallboy or Hocker is hiding.
The quality of the AI cleaners is definitely lacking and requires a lot of fine-tuning. Otherwise, they will continue to cause frustration and many rounds will be ended prematurely instead of continuing with a bot.
2. Better balancing of difficulty levels
Back 4 Blood offers 3 difficulty levels at launch, which vary massively in their demands. While “Veteran” provides a really solid challenge that already requires good coordination, “Nightmare” is only for true masochists who want to proceed in a planned and tactical manner and take their time with every little action.
The easiest difficulty level, “Survivor”, on the other hand, is a bad joke. At this level, the game is so simple that you basically just have to hold down the left mouse button. There is no joy to be found, and while the popping of zombie heads does bring a certain baseline satisfaction, it is not enough to make the game truly fun.
Better balancing between the difficulty levels or a few additional gradations could improve the gaming experience for everyone in the long run.
3. Fine-tuning of the AI Director
Even though the AI Director with its Corruption Cards, which are basically “affixes” for the run, already has many cool possibilities to make the run harder or easier, there is still some fine-tuning needed.
In the beta, it often did not feel like the AI Director was truly reacting dynamically.
It was common for the entire team to be wiped out during a mission, and with a “Continue” they had to replay the map. Why the AI Director thought it wise to implement even less loot and fewer “bonus rooms” but increase the number of Snitcher zombies is simply questionable – as this also doomed the second and third runs to failure.
Fine-tuning of the AI Director could definitely help here to keep the runs challenging without players feeling disadvantaged or facing “unfair” situations.
4. Clear words on the DLCs
A major unknown regarding Back 4 Blood is the upcoming DLCs. There is a season pass that is supposed to bring new content repeatedly in the first year. This includes new missions, but also new special zombies with new traits and abilities.
Particularly questionable: even now it is not known what content will be included at launch in Back 4 Blood.
In an earlier trailer, the zombie variants “Breaker” (a fast, strong melee fighter) and “Hag” (a giant zombie that devours survivors whole) were showcased. This is content that was shown in a trailer back in May but has not yet been discovered in the game. The corresponding trailer can be seen on YouTube; the special zombies can be seen starting at minute 2:18.
This raises the question of whether this content will be available in the launch version or whether it is content that will come only with the DLCs. If that is the case, it might be an indication that “finished” content has been cut from the launch version – something that Evolve (also from Turtle Rock Studios) was often accused of.
There are still too many unknowns regarding the content and the DLCs. More clarity is urgently needed.
5. Fixing the PvP mode
The last point is also one of the most important but also the most unrealistic: the PvP. The swarm PvP mode was already extremely unpopular in the beta and disappointed many fans of Left 4 Dead who were hoping for a similar campaign-versus mode. We have also harshly criticized the mode.
In Left 4 Dead, this was a cornerstone of the game and was loved by many. The fact that this mode does not exist in Back 4 Blood and everything basically boils down to “defend the point until you are overrun” is not pleasing to many.
Additionally, the swarm mode suffers from many issues. The long preparation time is extremely boring, the matches are too short, and real action rarely occurs. Most matches are decided after just 2 or 3 minutes.
If Back 4 Blood can address these points, nothing will stand in the way of a good release.
What do you think, what aspects of Back 4 Blood need further improvement?
