It takes a special kind of entitled paunch to complain that you want a different game than a game that hasn’t even been announced yet and might just be an internet rumor. It’s like the “glass half empty” mentality, but the bartender didn’t even take your order, and it may not even be a bar. You’ve probably visited your local old-fashioned store. All right ANDfriends, I’m that belly guy. Here I am standing at the “bar” and gesticulating wildly over a non-existent glass.
In this scenario, the confused bartender/old-fashioned store owner is Turtle Rock, creator of the Back 4 Blood homage game Left 4 Dead. Rumor has it they’re making a Back 4 Blood 2 – but as I loudly explain to the bartender/old-fashioned store owner while sprinkling saliva onto cocktail scoops/vintage Toby Jugs, I’m not doing it to want and Back 4 Blood 2. I want a sequel to 2015’s Evolve, in which four hunters team up to track down a fifth person playing as a kaiju. “I’d like a jug of your best Gorgon,” I bellow, banging on the bar while Turtle Rock tries to sell me a 1920s gentleman’s traveling suitcase.
I guess we should first talk about the rumor about Back 4 Blood 2. It’s a tiny, electrifying story that only features one character, Jesse Hutch, a man with very immense arms who worked on motion capture for Back 4 Blood. On his iStunt websiteHutch mentions that he is a “main performer” in “Gobi 2”. The original version of Back 4 Blood it is listed as “Gobi” in SteamDB. I found out about all this through MP1 pcswho notice that someone registered domain back4blood2.com in May 2023. Tangential observation: stunt biographies make for colorful reading. Hutch’s exploits include the “Misery Style Kidnap Escape” in House Of Terror. He also did “Frat Guy/Massive Puking/Backflips” in Scary Movie 3. Did…did he have to vomit and do backflips at the same time? I might have to watch Scary Movie 3.
Color all this speculation for now, but it seems relatively solid. Now let me start whining again. The words “Left 4 Dead’s spiritual successor” will always make me hungry, but I found Back 4 Blood quite underwhelming. Interestingly, Graham did this too, so I can just copy and paste the relevant section from his February 2023 article about Turtle Rock starting work on a novel untitled game.
“It seemed to replace the impeccable pace and tension of its spiritual predecessors with empty spectacle and breathtaking boss fights,” Graham wrote. I’ll just add that I really hated the emphasis on collecting and customizing weapons in a completely different style than L4D. It felt like they ripped out Left 4 Dead’s face and transplanted it into a standard zombie-destroying bog.
Evolve has had its share of massaging weapons. It was also based on naked DLC and had a very grindy unlock system. But I’ll forgive all that because it was both a stealth multiplayer experience and a game where one player is a giant monster who must wander around the map devouring other wild animals until he can gather enough biomass to hide cocoon and evolve. Meanwhile, the human hunters go around with their stupid jetpacks and tracking tools, trying to trap the monster in an energy dome so they can properly attack its huge health bar.
I had a great time as Goliath, the starting beast in Evolve. I hid in the bushes and threw stones at people, which also worked during company training. I also did quite well as Kraken, an aerial lightning caster who can pepper the map with electric mines. Other multiplayer games have created the multiplayer bossrush format – the standout is probably Hunt: Showdown – but few have done it on such a scale, with maps in which even Godzilla can get lost. Unfortunately, Evolve is no longer officially available on PC. I would love for them to make a sequel that removes some of the unlockables and gives the basics more of a chance to breathe. Come on, Turtle Rock. You could hire Jesse Hutch to be the novel Goliath. He’s got biceps for that. Perhaps backward vomiting could be one of his special attacks.
In the absence of such a perspective I guess I’ll be keeping an eye on Back 4 Blood 2. If you’re looking for a “glass half full” mentality here, Alice B (relax RPS) quite liked the original Back 4 Blood. “This game is the peak of popularity of the early 21st century,” she wrote. “Not least because many of the enemies have the same texture as a fully loaded pizza.”
