Turtle Rock Studios, the team who made the original Left 4 Dead, is resurrecting a classic PvP game mode in its new title, Back 4 Blood.
It’s no secret that Back 4 Blood is a spiritual successor to Left 4 Dead. I mean, just look at the naming scheme for starters! While the horde mode concept is updated for modern standards, the developers aren’t just stopping there when it comes to similarities.
At a presentation last night, the developer showcased the 4v4 PvP mode coming to Back 4 Blood. Fans of Left 4 Dead will recognise it as something extremely similar to the Versus mode that featured in Turtle Rock’s original zombie shooter.
In Left 4 Dead Versus, teams would take it in turns to play as either the Survivors or the Infected. It would be the job of the Infected to wipe out the Survivors as quickly as possible. Survivors earned points by staying alive for a longer period of time. The teams would then swap roles and the new Survivors would have to outlast the previous team’s score.
The nostalgia is real!
The premise in Back 4 Blood’s Swarm mode largely remains the same. Teams alternate between playing as the Cleaners and the Ridden, fighting it out to see who can last the longest in a battle against the horde.
There’s a bunch of terrifying Ridden types, all of which have various playstyles to accommodate for different players. To give just a couple of examples, the Retch variant vomits acid onto Cleaners, encouraging them to disperse. Another of the Ridden, the Exploder, do exactly as you’d expect – it explodes in a fleshy explosion upon death.
This new game from Turtle Rock is the closest we’ll likely ever get to a Left 4 Dead 3. An unfinished campaign from Left 4 Dead was released by its developers a few years ago, but besides that, we’ve heard nothing of a new project in development at Valve.
Back 4 Blood will feature a full-length co-op campaign alongside the 4v4 PvP mode. An open beta is set to run in August with the full game launching on 12th October. It’s coming to Xbox Game Pass on day one, too.
Are you excited to see the classic Left 4 Dead mode reappear in Back 4 Blood? Let us know across our social channels.
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[Featured Image Credit: Turtle Rock Studios]