Fans of Back 4 Blood have been waiting to get their hands on it ever since it was announced at the 2020 Game Awards. Now that people are able to get into its open beta, the reception to the game has been seemingly positive, but that doesn't mean that Turtle Rock Studios can just sit back until it releases in October. As the game's launch isn't too far away, there isn't time to make any big, sweeping changes to the overall loop or major mechanics of the game, however, beta testing like this is huge for a game like Back 4 Blood as it allows the game's studio to examine how well-balanced it is overall.
Balance is especially important to Back 4 Blood as its PvE mode is absolutely full of zombies of all shapes, sizes, and types. The zombies, or as the game's Cleaners call them: Ridden, arrive to attack the players in waves and if the proper time isn't spent on balancing their abilities, then the game might have some major issues. Make the Ridden too weak and the Cleaners won't break a sweat when having to hold them off but make them too powerful and Back 4 Blood turns into the end of Dawn of the Dead. All of this comes down to the strength of the game's A.I. director.
Back 4 Blood's A.I. Director Explained
Just like its spiritual predecessor Left 4 Dead, Back 4 Blood features an unseen A.I. director that changes the game depending on how the players are performing. The ebb and flow of Ridden attacking the Cleaners doesn't happen in a predetermined manner stage-to-stage, instead, the A.I. director summons zombie hordes and places special zombies at different intervals depending on the action taken and the supplies found by the players. For example, if each character has a grenade and ammo to spare, the A.I. director will likely send an unrelenting horde in the direction of the players, but once that's taken care of, there will be some downtime to allow for looting and supply management.
The A.I. director is one of the major reasons that each round of Back 4 Blood feels different upon replaying them. By giving so much control to A.I., Turtle Rock Studios is able to allow for an unpredictable experience in terms of what's lurking around each and every corner.
Testing the A.I. Director with Back 4 Blood's Beta
While open betas are generally helpful to address a laundry list of issues, Back 4 Blood's open beta is likely doing a lot of testing on the game's A.I. director. As mentioned above, balancing endless zombie hordes isn't an easy task and because of how integral the hordes are to the overall experience, the mechanic is likely being closely examined. It makes sense that the team might use an open beta to gauge audiences about how well things like the A.I. director are working so that adjustments can be made in the finalized game. After all, Left 4 Dead 2 came out in 2009, so basing a large gameplay mechanic on a system created over a decade ago means that plenty of time might need to be spent making sure that it holds up for modern audiences.
So far, it seems like the reception to the open beta for Back 4 Blood has been generally positive with plenty of praise pointing out how much the gameplay is reminiscent of the Left 4 Dead series, so it's unlikely that a whole lot of change is coming to the central gameplay loop. That said, there may be small changes made to the game's director to make sure that the balance is even better than it currently is.
Back 4 Blood releases on October 12, 2021, for PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.