The lengthy development of Back 4 Blood is finally bearing fruit. Just over two years after it was first announced, the zombie-shooter inheritor to Left 4 Dead's legacy has already made waves thanks to a successful Beta test and its ties to Xbox's Game Pass service and Play Anywhere functionality. In honor of the Turtle Rock Studios game's early access drop, CBR sat with one of Back 4 Blood's producers, Lianne Papp, to discuss the game's mechanics.
Papp wasn't a member of the team that made Left 4 Dead, but that doesn't diminish her love and enthusiasm for that game or the genre it spawned. As an executive producer for Turtle Rock Studios, she's helped spearhead the development of Back 4 Blood through a particularly trying time for the gaming industry. Papp spoke about her team's love for the co-operative game and also offered some pointers for players who are getting ready to go on their first hunt.
CBR: Lianne, we've been excited for this game ever since the 2019 announcement. How was the development of Back 4 Blood?
Lianne Papp: In general, game development is hard. You have hundreds of people working on the same thing, and multiple changes are going on every day. As things change, games get more complex. Now add a global pandemic to that, and it's an interesting time for sure.
I think the team adapted quite well. We converted to work from home pretty well. We utilized Slack internally for our communications; we have a lot of like public channels where people information share. I would say that development was tough but seeing people playing the Beta and coming up on launch now to see how excited people are makes it worth it. It helps push you towards it. It's not easy, but people don't get into making games because it's easy. We get into it because we love it. We love seeing people play the game, what they do with it, how they react to it. That just means a lot to us.
The Turtle Rock team has ties to Left 4 Dead, but you weren't a member of the team until long after its release. Were you a fan of Left 4 Dead?
Yeah! I actually wrote that in my cover letter when I learned they had worked on Left 4 Dead. Left 4 Dead helped me get over my fear of zombies. I even remember sitting in meetings where Chris and Phil, our co-founders, would be talking about what they did in that game. I'd be like, "I know, I played the shit out of it!" I loved it, so it's definitely a factor, and it's always interesting talking to the folks that did work on it.
Do you feel that familiarity has helped the team, or do you think Back 4 Blood has moved on to its own unique feel?
The entire development team has a varied background. We've all worked on a variety of games, and we're gamers ourselves. We take those experiences, shared or not, through development with us and pull from all of them as we're working on the game.
The big focus was really how do we make Back 4 Blood the best it can be. How do we make sure that it's fun, that it feels good, that people will enjoy playing it through, and they're going to want to play more? Putting my focus more on making it the best it can be without worrying too much about everything else helps us achieve success in different ways. Our histories are important, but we also look at other games that we play. Sometimes, I might play a new game and say, you know what, I really like how they did this one thing. Let's look at that. Let's take it into consideration.
With launch right upon us and for those players who didn't get the chance to play the Beta, what's the first thing you think they should do when they get their hands on the game?
They should definitely play through that first mission and get to know the card system. Get to know the characters, play around with the weapons, then go from there. I think that's the best way to familiarize yourself with it -- get used to it because Back 4 Blood is a little bit different, but I do think it's intuitive. Once you see it in action, it'll feel good.
We did notice the weapons were very intuitive, and they have a lot of variety. Was there anything in particular that came to mind when you were working on the guns?
Something that we try to do with our games, in particular, is letting players play their way, and I think the weapon variety makes massive strides towards that. You've got folks that are more familiar and want to use SMG's, you've got melee people, you've got snipers. By having lots of different options, people can play around with it or go to what's most familiar. We wanted to empower players to play the way that they wanted to and then, hopefully, encourage them to try some different stuff, too. Maybe you find a new favorite by being presented with different guns as you go through our levels.
It's not just guns in Back 4 Blood, though. Every playable character has unique abilities and a unique personality. Which character would you steer someone who's trying to familiarize themselves with the game towards?
I think Walker can be pretty good. Evangelo's break free is nice, too; if you get pinned and maybe your friends are not so helpful, that can be good. Hoffman's nice for that extra pocket space, too. I think they're all pretty good. It depends on what you're looking for and the coordination with your group, but any of those starter characters will work out for you. We tried to make sure everything was approachable in that sense, and I think that's really nice.
Is there any particular squad of characters that you think mesh together really well?
We've had fun internally doing like an old ladies group with Doc, Carly, Mom, and Holly. I think everybody loves Hoffman's lines, he's pretty funny. I think it depends on what you're looking for, but I tend to pick female characters in games. It's just the way that I am.
Holly is the one with the bat in the promotional materials, right?
Yeah!
I have a friend who has already called dibs on her. She took one look at her and said, "That one's mine."
[Laughs] A lot of people are tempted to treat them as mains and think that there's like a meta they have to go with, but I think it's a lot more flexible than that. Of course, you want to play what you're familiar with, and I'm the same way. I always try to grab the same thing. But if what you typically grab is gone, I think that's okay. If you try something else, it won't be too different. I swear.
You were saying Left 4 Dead helped you get over your fear of zombies. The ones in Back 4 Blood are pretty gross. Are there any in particular that bring that fear of zombies back?
The Hag! I know that she wasn't really in the Beta, but I think there were a couple of little videos, and people have seen some snippets of it. When I hear that music, I'm just like, "Ah, I don't want to have to deal with this." When I do see the ogre, I enjoy it. It's interesting because it's something you haven't really seen in zombie shooters before, this idea of playing with scale a bit more. That was something that we wanted to try out, and we had some ideas on how we could do it based on our past experiences.
What can you tell me about the Card system? How does it impact the game as a whole?
I think the card system is cool, but at first, I was like, "You want to what?" But we were trying to solve a problem. When you look at your average zombie shooters, there isn't necessarily an idea of progression. If you have progression, that has traditionally meant that you exclude people from your experience.
Here's what I mean by excluding people. Let's say you've got 200 hours in a game, and I want to jump in and start playing with you. Sometimes it's like, "Oh, what item level do you have to be? Did you play through x number of quests that you need to get through so that we can play the same thing?" That's a shitty feeling, and it's not a great thing for a cooperative game. That makes sense in some game design, but not for us.
We wanted to come up with a system that allowed us to provide a sense of progression while still allowing that approachability in the sense that you can have somebody new play the game with you. We drew a little bit of inspiration from roguelikes and the idea that when you die, you unlock some new stuff and then try again. What we're going for with the Cards is you can progress and build up your deck, and the effects that you have in your deck benefit everybody in the team. Now it's okay to have me come and join you, even though my deck isn't quite there. I can still contribute meaningfully. I can benefit from what you have, which can lead to me unlocking more cards, making my deck stronger.
I think it was a combined sense of progression, but also, how do we add more replayability? How do we give a little bit of control back to the player? So the Director plays Corruption Cards. What do you do in reaction to that? What tools are you going to employ? We think it makes you want to play more. Replayability is important to us, and that approachability lets you be a benefit to your friends.
Also, the system is intuitive. If I say you have a deck, I'm going to deal you cards and you choose which ones are in play, you get it -- that makes sense. It's the same thing with the Director. Hey, the Director is going to play cards against you as well. You're like, okay, I get it.
So, bearing that in mind, what cards do you think are absolutely essential for every deck?
Unlimited secondary ammo. I tend to have that in my deck unless I'm going with a melee build, but a melee build is a different build altogether. Unlimited secondary ammo, though, I've always felt is essential to me because then I can just shoot without inhibitions.
The other one that I like, especially later on in the campaign or on higher difficulties, is one where when you fall or somebody in your group gets incapacitated, everybody gets a burst of healing. I might intentionally go down so that everybody gets some healing and then picks me up. There's some fun stuff that you can do there with strategies.
That's a good strategy for that situation! Do you have any other strategies players may not think of to recommend?
The order of your deck does matter, so if there are things that you want to be able to use, you'll want to make sure that you're paying attention to that. The deck order wasn't a factor in our closed Alpha, but it was implemented in the Beta. Also, if you are trying to play on higher difficulties and you do have some sharpshooters, anything that improves weak spot damage will help you out a lot with taking care of those special enemies as they're coming at you.
You mentioned you have a melee build. Would you consider that your favorite build in the game?
Oh, I'm support for life, which I think makes sense for people that work in production. I often play like a healer or support, but sometimes I do like doing a melee build, in which case you would want a lot of increased stamina. There are also some cards that make it so that you get a little burst of healing when you do kill ridden, which is useful; you're just hacking and slashing through a group, and it's healing you slowly.
What does the long-term future for Back 4 Blood look like? Are there any DLC plans?
We do want to support the title post-launch. We have our annual pass that does have three content drops, and we also want to be pushing out bug fixes and changes to the community afterward. I think there's a lot of untapped potential in the card system, for example, and there's a lot more that we can do there. We're also looking forward to how the community reacts in general to the game -- what kind of stuff people are asking for and what changes they want to see. And then we'll go from there. We want it to be a collaborative, interactive experience.
So far as DLC, we were very much focused on launch following the Beta. We are working towards DLC, but we're not providing any information yet.
Developed by Turtle Rock Studios and published by Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment, Back 4 Blood releases Oct 12 for PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S and PC.
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