This describes Back 4 Blood's Cleaners, eight tough characters with unique stat bonuses for themselves and the entire team. It's kinda like skipping straight to later seasons of The Walking Dead in which everyone still alive is a superhuman murder machine. Each bundle of levels begins with your party leaving the safety of the Fort Hope hub world to go look for trouble. You're zombie-killing mercenaries who hunt down infestations, rescue trapped civilians, and gather supplies for surviving settlements. You're no longer average-joe survivors scrambling to escape crumbling cities. Right from the jump, Back 4 Blood flips the premise of Left 4 Dead on its head.
It's a game that Turtle Rock couldn't have made 10 years ago, and it's the addition of these smart, modern ideas that make it great. Just making an unambitious Left 4 Dead 3 would've been enough for me, but Back 4 Blood is also a deck builder, a looter, a hero shooter, and even a bit of a roguelite. Turtle Rock has faithfully resurrected the fun, heart-pumping zombie slaying that others have only attempted. Back 4 Blood recaptures the tempo of 2009, where I'm lining up headshots by the dozen while I shoot the shit with friends.
