The influence and legacy of Left 4 Dead were never in question, but there exists this idea that Turtle Rock and Valve’s classic co-op zombie shooter had a nebulous quality that cannot be articulated; a formula that no one has been able to replicate.
In the lead-up to the launch of Back 4 Blood, the new game from the people who co-created the subgenre, I went back to re-experience Left 4 Dead. I wasn’t impressed. Left 4 Dead is still fun, but in sort of the same way a PS2 game can be: pretty engaging for an hour or two before you realise how hard it is to give up years of design, visual and production value progress for a nostalgia kick.
Back 4 Blood is and isn’t the Left 4 Dead successor you were hoping for. It’s the most modern interpretation of those tenets, but it’s also a game coming out in 2021 – mindful of as many of our modern expectations as it can without ruining the flow.
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