![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() The first card in your deck is always the first one drawn, but everything after that is a crapshoot. What’s annoying is that even after buying into the conceit and painstakingly crafting one or more decks for your favourite Cleaners, there’s no guarantee that the cards you’d like to be active in your next mission will be drawn. “I wish I could say that deck building was Back 4 Blood’s only concerning issue, but there are more urgent problems.” On average, it took me about 10 to 15 minutes to create a 15-card deck once I had enough cards in my collection to fashion multiple decks, and players will need to create different sets for each of the game’s three modes of play that they choose to dive into: Campaign, Solo (Campaign with bot-only squad mates) and Swarm (4-on-4 PvP multiplayer). The inclusion of this system in Back 4 Blood turns what should have been a brief and painless reprieve from the game’s action into a slow, methodical slog of browsing multiple menus and repeatedly weighing the cost/benefit of equipping a card in one’s deck over another. That’s largely because they tend to be a time suck and are often at complete odds with the natural pace of these games, and Back 4 Blood’s Card System is no exception. Personally, I HATE playing card mechanics in my first-person action games. The problem is that the Card System is unintuitive, highly granular and just isn’t much fun to work with overall. Wait, this sounds like a dream co-op game, right? What’s the problem? Most cards grant players universal perks, buffs, or abilities, but some benefit specific and other cards can affect the entire team at once. Players are encouraged to spend the Supply Points that they earn from progressing through the campaign on “Supply Lines” at their earliest opportunity, which in turn unlock cards that can be combined to create one or more powerful “decks” of up to 15 cards maximum. As the game becomes more challenging and/or players choose to ratchet up the difficulty, availing oneself of the Card System in such a way becomes increasingly crucial. Since Corruption Cards are played first, players can attempt to counter the AI’s strategy by rearranging or adjusting their deck to hopefully mitigate some negative effects, and when working together as a team, they can strategize and select cards that not only benefit their chosen Cleaner, but also the group, potentially gaining a distinct advantage. Stirring the pot even further is the new AI Director, which before each match plays several cards from its own deck of “Corruption Cards.” Similar to Halo’s “skull” modifiers, these cards can affect the nature of gameplay in a mission positively, negatively, or both at once. This is supposed to make every encounter in the game not only feel more unique but also play out in different ways. ![]() Seeking success and audience engagement beyond L4D 1 & 2’s “fan favourite” cult status, Back 4 Blood’s “Card System” (with cards effectively serving as a physical representation of “perks”) incentivizes players to build decks in order to customize each of the game’s eight Cleaners more towards their specific style of play. Regrettably, however, in a seemingly desperate attempt to add even more newfound depth and replayability to the formula, the developer has chosen to fall back on a gameplay trend that has been insidiously gaining traction within the first-person shooter genre in recent years: Playing Card mechanics. Turtle Rock has wisely recognized that some original L4D systems were outdated and remedied this in several ways, such as overhauling L4D’s simplified weapon system to more closely resemble the modular, rarity-based, attachment-heavy systems found in games like Destiny, Apex Legends and Call of Duty: Warzone. Operating out of their base camp Fort Hope under the command of General Phillips, the Cleaners are frequently sent out on missions to assist nearby communities, gather resources, wipe out Ridden infestations and if possible, bring survivors back with them that can join the Cleaner ranks. ![]()
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