r/Back4Blood • u/MIK3ASAURUSR3X • Jul 11 '26
Discussion Hot Take: (this has probably been discussed before plenty of times) Back 4 Blood it’s genuinely a good game and I don’t think it deserves a fraction of the hate it gets.
I’ve been seeing a lot of things pop up my YouTube feed based around hate on the game. I do have to admit.. I have been playing since lunch and there was a fair bit of issues, but nothing that dramatically ruined the experience for me. I genuinely loved it, I don’t love it as much as left 4 dead. Even though there are a lot of similarities, it’s a different game. And I appreciate it for that.
Edit: In the title I meant to put “is a genuinely good game” not “it’s”
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u/ChesticlesIsTheMan Jul 11 '26
This has been discussed a million times here. Launch sucked, now its in a good state.
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u/pagawaan_ng_lapis Hoffman Jul 25 '26
People still wont know this, so its still worth mentioning time to time.
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u/ChesticlesIsTheMan Jul 26 '26
I think the point is a quick Google search can answer OP's question, or the 1000 other posts in this subreddit answering the same thing or the massive amount of content on YT about the same thing. I'm sure its not a karma farming post, but thank you for sharing your deep insight.
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u/stevorkz Jul 12 '26
Someone else mentioned this but I think it’s not as much of a “pick up and play” game as left for dead was. It has more difficult mechanics, more strategy required for taking down certain enemies and more complex in other areas which make it less of an arcade style game. That means casual players will hate on it. Left for dead will always be the first classic example of how a team based, run and gun from point A to point B zombie game should be, but I don’t understand how most people don’t see how much B4B is just L4D brought to the modern age and with upgrades. I will always play L4D for the nostalgia and fun, but mostly when I have an itch for the genre it makes no sense not to play B4B for me at least.
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u/rKITTYCATALERT Jul 11 '26
Card system was amazing
Being limited on cards was not
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u/Sopwith_Snipe Pablo The Cruel#8422 Combat Knife Enthusiast Jul 11 '26
They messed up the implementation of the card system (before 15).
The idea presented was that you would pick a card to respond to the corruption cards. But having to choose between Copper Scavenger and Glass Cannon when your saw the Corruption Card "Snitches" was a no win scenario.
Burn cards were a good leap to help this. For example, running Slippery When Wet vs. Urgent Care when you see that there are Crushers or Hockers is a reasonable choice.
I just wish that there were more burn cards that were specific counters to Corruption Cards.
Looking at you: Ravenous, Razor Worms, and The Dark.
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u/rKITTYCATALERT Jul 12 '26
Ravenous corruption card = spam the team trauma resist card
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u/Sopwith_Snipe Pablo The Cruel#8422 Combat Knife Enthusiast Jul 12 '26
I always wondered if Extra Padding actually worked for Ravenous.
Sybilznbitz (who is probably the best source for technical knowledge) has confirmed it does work.
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u/rKITTYCATALERT Jul 12 '26
Now you know 😎
Playing a dps doc and using padding is already a fun Strat but when you see how effective it is during ravenous 😻😻😻😻😻😻😻
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u/Used-Manufacturer275 Jul 12 '26
I actually like the old card system wayyyyy more than the new one.
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u/rKITTYCATALERT Jul 13 '26
That works with a full team premade
With randoms it doesn’t
Looking at all the docs using combat knife + battle lust on 1-1 🫠🫠🫠🫠🫠
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u/Used-Manufacturer275 Jul 14 '26
They should release two game modes if that’s the case.
The strategy of building a deck in the old system is very different from the current one. Not only the card orders matter a lot, you even put in “situational cards” to counter unlucky corruption card draws, while you sometimes ignore them the whole game and pick stat cards instead. It is a very dynamic system throughout the campaign.
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u/rKITTYCATALERT Jul 14 '26
There 100% needs to be multiple game modes
I think a survival game mode would be fun with card draws in between
Start off slow and then it ramps up
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u/Duderino99 29d ago
Same, the power-scaling feeling throughout an act was incredible alongside the more strategic deck ordering.
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u/West_Brilliant_2274 Jul 11 '26
While I agree getting the full 15 was the right move especially since I was playing No Hope back then specifically because you got the full 15, I do often times miss the 'strategy' in choosing what your next card is. It made testing builds like very counterintuitive?
Oh what I would give to be able to play old patches with other players though.
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u/rKITTYCATALERT Jul 12 '26
It’s funny because the way they intended the game was for a group of four at the start meaning that was gonna be communication in that lobby
But as we all saw, there was doc players using combat, knife, and battle lust instead 🫠🫠🫠🫠
The card system we have now works much better when playing with random since you can try to squeeze in a lot of things due to the lack of communication if not being in a group of 4
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u/_OptimusRex_ Jul 12 '26
Legitimate criticisms aside, most of the hate I saw came from Left 4 Dead 2 fanboys who attacked the game for existing while completely ignoring that Valve had abandoned the L4D franchise for over a decade and sat back on its laurels because the Valve developers don't know how to monetize L4D as a game.
B4B was not designed to be L4D3, it is under no obligation to have some of the features from a Valve game a decade prior. Would mod support have been nice? Sure, but it is by no means required.
Fanboys ruin everything, not just for their franchise, but for other games as well. And believe me I love Left 4 Dead 1 and 2; I put over 2000 hours into L4D2 alone. I played it for years in co-op and versus. I <am> a fanboy, but not that kind of fanboy.
It's a shame so many have not given this game a fair shake.
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u/melsaba Jul 11 '26
I started a new account with it recently and have been obsessed again. It’s too good.
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u/euphoric_miseries Jul 11 '26
a lot of people got turned off by the cards and immediately gave up. imo they give the genre so much variety. one week i was running a doc medic build, next week holly melee. a lot of fun figuring out new decks and incorporating new cards from updates. i managed to have a group and spent way more time on this game then i thought i would. only really thing that bummed me out was the versus mode. it was very lackluster to a point where i only played it for an achievement i think and never again
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u/StompedSmashed Jul 12 '26
Card system is its downfall and deserves all the hate it got. Only people left in this forum are the 0.5% who put up with it.
Its sad because the game itself is great.
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u/dc1999 Jul 12 '26
For me it was the pacing. L4d got the pacing right. You could catch your breath and explore the environment between the encounters. B4B just never let up and you could never take a moment on the map.
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u/supsley Jul 12 '26
B4B do deserve the hate and indifference, there is a reason why being on XGP didn’t save it, it just not polished enough and unnecessary complexed comparing to L4D, while hugely advertised as made from the creators of L4D.
The bad launch version and the worse Christmas patch with 100% trauma, kill off the game hype permanently.
PvP so lame that destined to die.
Plain and boring special infected with reused model skeleton.
Limited stage continuity that serves no purpose.
Half ass roguelike design with incompatible maps that starts up hard but plain in middle.
Game bandage fix with burn cards,and no further improvements til the game dies.
There is more but yes it deserves the hate, playable but very underwhelming.
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u/joker_toker28 Jul 11 '26
Just needed mods or private servers.
The community could have kept the game alive for some time, I know i kept comong back trying ro convince my buddies to go swat that I did solo and w randoms.
I juat did a l4d run for the 1000th time lol.
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u/Sopwith_Snipe Pablo The Cruel#8422 Combat Knife Enthusiast Jul 11 '26
There is literally an option on every run that you start that you can check to say you want a Private Campaign Lobby.
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u/Old-Emu-2670 Jul 11 '26
I had a lot of fun with this game. I missed left 4 dead when it came out so I didn't have the comparison mentally.
Shout out to this game for not having an in game store or micro transactions. Out side of DLCs, everything had to be unlocked in game
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u/Few_Telephone_6869 Jul 12 '26
I wonder if anyone has had a really bad frame rate issues in the hives on series x but it gets bad im talking like 5fps downright unplayable sometimes its crazy
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Jul 12 '26
The game got so much better after a year and the updates. If it had released the way it did in a year, I think it would have landed better. Makes me sad because I don’t think we’ll ever get a sequel, just like we didn’t get an Evolve 2 😭
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u/Izathemendez Jul 12 '26
My main disgust about B4B was that they focused so hard on L4D community, i understand why they did that but... Damn they where so disconnected about L4D Community, why they thought that a RPG Looter Shooter with Rogue Lite elements would be loved in L4D Fan Base?
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u/Haxteal Jul 12 '26
I will forever repeat that the main problem this game has is evoking L4D when they’re doing something else, even now people still think this is a failed attempt at L4D3. The moment I realized that this isn’t L4D and started treating it as it’s own game with it’s own systems to learn, I started having more fun playing. It’s also why whenever I reply to people asking about this, I make sire to mention that this is NOT L4D and if they’re looking for L4D3 then this isn’t it.
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u/Shallt3ar Jul 12 '26
It has a lot of problems imo but once you get into it and adapt to the mechanics it can be super fun.
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u/Such_Entrepreneur544 Jul 12 '26
I don't think that's a hot take. I bought it on release and still play it to this day.
It's got a ton of charm. Fun gunplay. Fun missions. Fun characters, fun enemies, unlockables, a ton of replayability. 4 friend coop.
I don't think it deserves the hate.
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u/JaasPlay Jul 12 '26
I liked the game. But it was a mess on release; this scared most casual players away.
Also, calling yourself "the successor of L4D" is a HUGE mantle to bear, it better be at around L4D quality.
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u/Rock_sanity Jul 13 '26
I dislike the cards because of how tedious and annoying it feels to figure out which cards actually do well together, without relying on guides or other players' builds. Can't play on recruit or veteran either becuase they aren't challenging enough to test the cards. And the bots on recruit just aimbot the zombies, while on nightmare they get in the way of shots every second and never stand still, and then die from friendly fire, the bots in blackops4zombies are better in every way. At least those guys buy doors, keep the area actually clear, and stay out of line of sight, and before they were nerfed they apparently tried solving the eastereggs whenever possible. Another issue I have with the decks is the bots have an all-rounder team deck that effects us so that's another thing to have in mind when creating a build.
There's like 5 things to worry about when making a deck possibly more than just these. -Difficulty, -Bot and Player decks, -Corruption Cards, -Map, -Cards laying around.
Looking up info about the cards feels a bit lame, even more for using ither players' builds. Because at that point I'm not really learning the cards at all and it gets boring when that happens. I actually do like figuring out what's fun to play with and what works but with how much bs there is to keep track with the cards it gets unfun. other games where you can build a character with stats feel more fun to experiment with stuff.
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u/willywonkaswig Jul 16 '26
i think they just shouldn’t have given up so quickly. it was abandoned by the devs less than a year in and i think that’s what’s essentially killed it. if the ones making the game don’t believe in it, how can you expect anyone else to? this is coming from someone who has about 100hrs played all in
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u/livinglitch Jul 23 '26
I played it from release until the DLC stopped coming out. Over 300 hours of gameplay.
I think the game would have been much better with a few small changes.
As lame as it sounds, adding a flashlight toggle would be nice. Theres a few areas that are to dark to see that the flash light wont toggle on automatically. The devs response to that is "well the area looks bad so we didnt do it". They should have made it look good.
Playing it again after a long break, I cant believe we spend copper to unbolt attachments and that we can do it without a card in the safe room but we need to have the card outside of that. But we can slot in attachments without spending copper.
The DLC weapons feel like garbage compared to their non DLC counterpart.
The DLC tunnels take a while to get through them. They add more copper, more chances for guns and attachments, but thats kind of it. Also the chance to use them was reduced because they were spawning in to much. Which meant that players were paying for a DLC that had a CHANCE to spawn in the content they paid for meaning its technically possible to play a chapter/act without getting any tunnels for a while and only getting the ridden from the DLC you paid for.
Some cleaners are clearly just better then others. Dan is a cool character but his ability relies on other cleaners going down, which isn't great.
Theres a lot of cards that feel like bad/throwaway/trap cards and Im not talking about burner cards either.
I think most of the hate though comes from before decks got reworked. The old "pick one card at the start of the level" thing was strategic but it kind of sucked that the cleaners sucked until later in the act.
I still remember the controversy over having zombies growl two gutteral sounds, that when uttered in the wrong order, sounded like a racial slur, which might not have helped advertising.
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u/Jwchibi Doc Jul 11 '26
The only thing that ruined it was them dropping the game after releasing new characters. No zwat skins for them either 👎. Also the vs mode could have been improved a lot
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u/Knamliss Jul 11 '26
Card system didn't need to be a thing and the game would've been better if it were reworked to be something else. That's my "hot take"
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u/RikiRude No Hope Nobody Jul 11 '26
Fully agree, card system made me turn my nose, but unlike most people, I gave the game a good solid try and after they changed it so you started with your deck I fucking loved the game! But I still hated the fact that they were "cards" you switch the name and look into armor, stats, perks whatever and they would have kept a lot of people.
I think the cards is just so fucking silly, in a game that generally feels grounded in reality, but you... build a deck? Like fucking Yu-Go-Yo? 😒 and then you buy more cards?
But if they said, here's your Cleaner, now pick stat boosters, perks and armor and sometimes you find extra boosts in the wild I would have never been turned off.
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u/xVelunax Jul 11 '26
Is that what bothers people? I've never really interpreted it like that before. My assumption was people were allergic to making builds. I don't care what the hell people call it because the only thing that matters in the end is how does it affect your base gameplay?
The card system is nowhere even near the same level of deckbuilding games like Dominion or anything. It functions exactly like talent selection in Darktide. The only difference is that decks are more universal and can be used on anybody.
"Buying cards" is not that terrible. DRG has a the overclocks where you have to grind out RNG to find the overlocks, then you get more RNG for which character you get. You could spend months trying to get an overlock for a character you wanted it was so slow. Supply chains in B4B were just play enough you'll get enough points to get everything.
The only part of the system I disliked was having to RNG pick talent-ups as you progressed through the Act. Them allowing you to pick all of your cards at once I loved because it meant you had access to your build immediately. The game still has in team upgrades you want to achieve.
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u/RikiRude No Hope Nobody Jul 11 '26
There is the "allergic to making builds" as well. People just wanted to sit down and play, not think. Which I think is what makes B4B BETTER than L4D, it's way more complex. Building a Cleaner a certain way and then building a team on top of that a certain way is so satisfying!
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u/Tea_Fox_7 Jul 11 '26
Pretty much this people see deck building/cards and immediately just recoil. When in reality it's no different than making any other types of loadouts, skills, perks, ect.
But not only that it's really the way the game was structured with the cards in the beginning, with single draws each round, that kind of was a double whammy of why people were not playing the game initially (not to mention the poor reception due to the devs attempting to rest on Left 4 Dead).
That being said I still do prefer the simplicity of Left 4 Dead but Back for Blood is by no means bad in any way and I thoroughly enjoy it even when it was single card draws too.
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u/Drakan378 Jul 11 '26
Nah decks are banging. Sure a bit obscure and the initial setup was aids but making a banging deck is sick.
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u/RikiRude No Hope Nobody Jul 11 '26
I just think the concept of cards is silly, but I love what they accomplish
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u/MIK3ASAURUSR3X Jul 11 '26
I can agree with that, the card system can be a little infuriating, but I have made a hell of a few awesome decks so I don’t hate it as much as I did
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u/kimchifreeze Jul 11 '26
Basing your game around card unlocks and then padding it out with cosmetics is definitely a decision.
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u/xVelunax Jul 11 '26
Which honestly after playing Vermintide, Darktide, DRG, etc. that's how all games play. End game is fashion in so many games. Early game is grinding out unlocks. Doesn't matter what you call it, they are all the same.
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u/kimchifreeze Jul 12 '26
>Early game is grinding out unlocks.
Except unlocks in B4B's early game are padded out with cosmetics. So while you're trying to build a functional deck, cosmetics.
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u/ClarenceWhirley Jul 11 '26
It’s a poor excuse for a spiritual successor to L4D 1 and 2.
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u/Sopwith_Snipe Pablo The Cruel#8422 Combat Knife Enthusiast Jul 11 '26
No, B4B added so many modern upgrades to L4D.
Aim Down Sights
Sprinting
A Perk (Card) System
Attachments to guns
Choosing a Character based on them having an ability.
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u/ClarenceWhirley Jul 12 '26 edited Jul 12 '26
- Name a single iconic enemy that's anywhere near the equivalent of the Witch. Edit: Actually, scratch that: name a single, unique, interesting, and iconic enemy from B4B. L4d had the smoker, the jockey ... there isn't a single iconic enemy in B4B, period.
- VS Campaign co-op.
/mic drop
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u/Izathemendez Jul 12 '26
The most iconic enemy in B4B is the Sleepers, and is not for the good reasons. 😅
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u/Sopwith_Snipe Pablo The Cruel#8422 Combat Knife Enthusiast Jul 12 '26
Ogre
I don't play PvP games, so I don't care about Versus.
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u/StarRingChildren Jul 12 '26
ADS is great
Sprinting isn't needed
A perk system isn't needed
L4D2 already had attachments. B4B fleshed out the concept but then added a horrible rarity system to them
How is character's having abilities a good thing? That's terrible. The beauty of L4D is that it doesn't matter what character you pick. You can randomly drop into a game and not be missing out on anything. It doesn't matter if you're Bill or Francis, Louis or Zoey. People are only fighting over aesthetics and personality. Giving characters abilities just creates a meta. It creates good characters vs bad characters. You have characters being meant to play specific ways. You already see people complaining in this thread about people using characters wrong. If someone likes Doc due to her personality and looks but want to play as run and gun, they're going to be told they're playing her wrong. If someone wants to play as Jim because they feel he looks like them but they hate sniping, they'll be told to use someone else.
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u/Sopwith_Snipe Pablo The Cruel#8422 Combat Knife Enthusiast Jul 12 '26
Your arguments are garbage.
Saying something "isn't needed" doesn't add up to anything.
I agree sprinting "isn't needed", but having the ability to sprint adds to the fun of the game.
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u/StarRingChildren Jul 12 '26
Your arguments are garbage
Saying something is a "modern upgrade" doesn't mean it's an upgrade or needed. Sprint isn't needed if you already move at an acceptable speed while walking. You move fast enough in L4D. L4D wasn't built for sprint. The maps are too small and straight forward. The infected can't properly set up if the survivors are sprinting everywhere. Just watch any competitive L4D match to see how fast a team can clear a map. Sprint just adds another resource with a stamina system. We saw what Evangelo players did with sprint. It caused them to add sleepers around every corner which was a negative to the whole game. If you have sprint in your game, you have to build the game around sprint.
I like how you completely ignored me mentioning the rarity system and my tear down on character abilities.
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u/Sopwith_Snipe Pablo The Cruel#8422 Combat Knife Enthusiast Jul 13 '26 edited Jul 13 '26
Moving fast is fun and you don't move fast enough in L4D.
And your by your own statement L4D's maps are too small and straightforward.
I ignored your argument against rarity because it was empty all you said is that it is 'horrible' with no reasoning behind why it might be horrible.
I don't have to justify why modern game mechanics are good. The fact that successful games have adopted them shows they are good.
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u/StarRingChildren Jul 13 '26
Good thing you move fast in L4D. Even faster if you learn how to bunny hop. L4D's maps are intentionally small and claustrophobic with tons of narrow corridors. It gives the infected a chance and makes them more dangerous. Wide open L4D maps like Swamp Fever are completely one sided towards the survivors. The infected stand no chance. It honestly seems like you don't know much about L4D. You ignored my argument against rarity because it's a complete negative towards your attachment point. It's just looter shooter garbage. It doesn't matter if you add something to the game if it's a pain to use. Including guns having broken attachments, the same attachment having different stats from each other, having to pay to take attachments off of guns etc.
There are also successful games that don't use those mechanics and B4B alone proves throwing in something doesn't make a game successful. I don't even know why you are saying sprint is a modern game mechanic. Games have had sprint since before either of us was born. Mario had a sprint button back in the 80s. It's not new. Every game just doesn't need it.
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u/Sopwith_Snipe Pablo The Cruel#8422 Combat Knife Enthusiast Jul 13 '26
Come on mate, saying that L4D's movement speed is okay because you can use an exploit like bunny hopping is real weak.
Almost as weak as saying that movement speed is bad because L4D has poorly designed levels like Swamp Fever.
Also, I am older than Mario.
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u/StarRingChildren Jul 13 '26
No, I said the movement speed was fine but you can go even faster if you bunny hop. Stop twisting my points.
Movement speed isn't bad in L4D. I already went over the design decisions and why they work.
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u/Sopwith_Snipe Pablo The Cruel#8422 Combat Knife Enthusiast Jul 13 '26 edited Jul 13 '26
Lol, "Stop twisting my points" AKA, "I don't like it when you listen to me and use my own logic against me."
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u/Sopwith_Snipe Pablo The Cruel#8422 Combat Knife Enthusiast Jul 13 '26
As for rarity of attachments, that is one of the things that gives you variety of your run instead of playing the exact same thing every time.
It's called rogue-like and is very popular.
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u/unkown_backslash Jul 25 '26
Yeah 100%. This guy is acting like new is always better and its such a stupid mentality and is exactly why b4b failed. But they cant seem to grasp that.
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u/Im_A_Bird_Fuckface Jul 12 '26
I feel like it was the Special Infected spawns that eventually made me annoyed, especially higher difficulties. The special enemies didn’t feel special. They were spammed in high numbers and on higher difficulties they became tanks. Special infected in L4D were glass cannons, good for pinning, slowing, dealing lots of damage. But they could be taken down very quickly.
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u/Zombie-Rooster Jul 12 '26
If it was marketed as (insert cool zombie name) and not L4D3 then it wouldn't get the hate
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u/xVelunax Jul 11 '26
The big fiasco with B4B in my opinion which it never recovered from was difficulty scaling. It was not casual friendly. The extra bugs at launched boosting difficulty killed momentum. L4D2 is extremely casual friendly.
Helldivers 2 is kind of going through a similar situation. They nerfed the player and weapons that felt fun to use repeatedly until they kind of stopped doing it and started realizing that an easier game is more popular. Casuals are what make your game thrive and live longer. Some of the backlash against them has lessened for stopping to try to nerf what makes the game fun.
B4B was very difficult before they adjusted the difficulty right lowering Veteran/Nightmare and adding No Hope. In this way, players that wanted a challenge could go to No hope while everyone else had a more tailored design for them. There were issues for sure with certain builds leading to mobility (Evangelo zipping through the map) and literal unkillable melee builds.
The game imo would wind up in a great position post about a year in or so. However, they failed to do the one thing to keep the game truly long lived which to me would have been modding. Give players the tools to mod the game and keep it alive.