One of the sagas that still has no rival to match is Left 4 Dead . There were attempts sharing themes, such as World War Z , along with others that bet on fantasy, such as Warhammer Vermintide , but to date none with the same quality as the classics from Turtle Rock Studios and Valve.

Hence, its own original creators have a golden opportunity to excel through Back 4 Blood , clearly its spiritual successor. Now, with enough news to offer a different touch and that we have been able to taste in a private preview of its closed beta thanks to Warner Bros.

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The initial feeling when entering this new work by Turtle Rock Studios is to be facing a very familiar game, but not because it is for the whole family, but because we feel at home if we have played Left 4 Dead . Its scheme is repeated to the letter, with safe areas to replenish, waves of zombies (infected) in certain sections of the mapping and the need to collaborate with the rest of the companions to get out of each nightmare alive.

A decade of difference goes a long way as there are two generations in between. Because yes, we must not forget that the first Left 4 Dead debuted in 2008 for PC and Xbox 360 . And its sequel came out the following year on the same systems. So the jump at the graphic level in Back 4 Blood is considerable, apart from enjoying better maneuverability when shooting or moving around the stage.

Strong close-range weapons to save ammunition, others fire to maintain a margin of safety against the different types of infected … A priori it seems the same but immediately begins to show greater depth with the types of weapons , among shotguns, rifles , light machine guns or pistols, not forgetting grenades, Molotov cocktails and more. And not only that, but there are different degrees of rarity and therefore with very different parameters that must be read.

In addition, the number of protagonists doubles that of Valve games, with up to eight exterminators. And each one has unique characteristics , such as replenishing ammunition with deaths, doing the same with life or enjoying various resistances or other types of improvements compared to the rest of the group. This makes it important from the outset to see which one best suits our style and also in the face of rapport with the others, since there cannot be two identical characters in the same game. This is a truism but it must be emphasized.

The difficulty mode chosen also influences, as it happened in the classics of a decade ago, by not worrying about friendly fire in survivor or suffering from the beautiful in nightmare. And the latter is frankly hard and exhausting knowing that the campaign has much longer acts than any Left 4 Dead .

So far, in any case, nothing that represents a revolution compared to those classics … But it is a mirage, since its great differentiating point lies in the cards. We can build a deck enhancing various aspects of the game based on health, ammunition, power and a host of other variables. But also suffer with contaminated cards that are the ones that drastically change the rules of each game to increase their replayability to the extreme.

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Back 4 Blood cards change the rules: Impressions after playing the Back 4 Blood beta: the evolution of Left 4 Dead goes through the introduction of cards that revolutionize everything

From something seemingly as harmless as losing visibility due to the haze to much more serious events like being planted with a twenty-foot Ogre at the first turn, this dynamism makes each game in Back 4 Blood challenging as interesting as possible. . Or at least in the high levels of difficulty, of course, that in survivor we have too many facilities.

This “dynamic game director”, as its creators mention, is the one who will constantly adapt to our actions, as if it were The Presence of Song of Horror , so that we are not calm for a moment. And it is that the enemies will not always be in the same places when replaying an act …

You can blame him for the lack of originality when introducing new infected, which are still variants of those seen in Left 4 Dead and other imitators of the genre: Tell-tale, Big, Stinky, Stinking … But at the same time Everything is cooler and it is in Versus mode (up to eight people in two teams; some with humans and others with monsters) where more differences are perceived between the infected , as there are variants for each one.

For example, for the elusive Stinger there will be two extra versions (Spit and Stalker), the same is true for the slow but powerful Big Guy (Thug and Shredder). The side that controls the infected will have to eliminate the humans as quickly as possible, being able to improve several basic parameters of the monsters in the process using mutation points. While those who control the humans will have to last as long as possible alive, which is what will really define which team is victorious at the end of the rounds.

It goes without saying that in Versus mode the map is very small and the infected can only reappear when they are not visible to humans. They are frenetic games ideal to alternate with the demanding campaign at higher levels.

Except for the disconnections that I suffered (it is still a beta), it has left me with a good feeling, mainly because of the implementation of the cards and all that that entails, and that it plays better than Left 4 Dead . If you want to know all the details of the beta, we remind you that it has just started today for the people who reserved the game (or with an invitation), lasting until the 9th. Then there will be another second open beta without restrictions from the 12th to the 16th of August. Impressions after playing the Back 4 Blood beta: the evolution of Left 4 Dead goes through the introduction of cards that revolutionize everything