Back 4 Blood beta test reviews

Aug 19, 2021
3 min read

Have you guys been playing the Back 4 Blood beta test last week?

Here’s what we’ve concluded after trying it out!

Overall, the game felt like its “spiritual predecessor”, with upgrades and improvements all over:

【Game flow】

-The beta includes 1 chapter, with a total of 8 stages

-Stages revolves around the flow of getting across the map, slaying the infected and clearing small goals before reaching the safe house

-Gearing phase starts every stage in the safe house, by buying, upgrading gear and drawing “cards” that will affect your abilities that you’ve pre-made into a deck before entering the game.

【Game graphics】

-With graphic quality equivalent to a standard Triple-A titles

-Stages come with different alterations such as foggy weather or darker locales, hindering sight and adding a factor of atmosphere to the game.

【Enemies】

-Standard mob infected acts mostly the same, with different models and clothing

-Special infected are quite well made, each comes with different weak points and perks, with some even being able to break through walls.

-A gigantic “Tank” equivalent variant was added, being an optional boss but does spice up the gameplay and difficulty with it being very large in size, hits hard and has a high health pool.

【Weapon, gear, and “Deck” system】

-A large arsenal of guns with different perks and mechanics, all of them feel quite well made, and are available to be tested in the lobby.

-Weapons are upgradeable with components, strengthening the weapon while adding a sense of customization in playstyle, as each of the components comes with merit and demerit statuses such as increased firepower in exchange for lower accuracy and so forth.

-A brand new “Deck” system, pre-made before entering each match. At the beginning of each stage, 3 new cards will be drawn from the deck and the player picks 1 each round, that strengthens the player’s character accordingly with special perks such as modifying action behavior or item properties, or simply stats increment such as health up, stamina up or ammo capacity up. The current available cards are quite limited, we can anticipate more when they actually release the game.

【PVP】

-4 v 4, human vs infected PVP.

-Takes turn to switch sides, competing against their survival time, wins by surviving longer than the opponent team.

-Overall concept is fun, with the infected getting upgrades over time, amping the tempo of the fight.

【Gameplay experience】

-The blood vfx is an overkill, with players splattered in too much blood if they fight the infected up close, making it hard to differentiate between friend and foe in a chaotic situation, but is washed off if the character walks in the rain.

-Each of the stages felt compact with its stage size and length properly planned, in a well planned tempo and shift of terrain.

-Different guns come with different ammo capacity, and ammo refills felt rather insufficient, but is compensated with a new system that allows players to share ammo by dropping them from their inventory.

-The aim assist in consoles are slightly too smart, aiming is less of a challenge but guarantees a good gameplay flow and adrenaline.

-The Dual Sense feedback for different gun triggers are quite satisfying, the adaptive trigger works with melee too.

-Rather high paced movement compared to other zombie shooter games, being able to jump adds verticality to the game, while at the same time increasing the speed of the zombies, amping up the gameplay even further than other games of the same genre.

-Odd interaction of being able to jump, sprint, jump off high platforms, but when dropping near edges of platforms(instead of jumping across), characters will bleed out by hanging at the ledge. Intriguing.

-Best experience with friends, would be rather dull if played alone or without voice comms online.