While Back 4 Blood has proven to be a rather popular multiplayer shooter since its launch, there are a few signs that it may struggle in the long term. Notably, Back 4 Blood has faced stiff competition from Left 4 Dead 2, which recently even leapfrogged Back 4 Blood in active players. If Back 4 Blood is to maintain a player base in the long term, it may have to implement new ways to improve its longevity.
Back 4 Blood could take notes from Left 4 Dead 2 here, as it is a great example of a video game with longevity. Despite launching nearly 12 years ago, Left 4 Dead 2 still has a solid player base, and it looks as though it has been bolstered in recent months. Left 4 Dead 2 hasn’t remained popular by accident, and it provides a great framework to Back 4 Blood to replicate going forward.
Back 4 Blood’s Difficulty Settings
One of the major bonuses of Left 4 Dead 2 holds over Back 4 Blood is its difficulty settings that kept gamers coming back to replay the game at higher settings. Traditionally, games may handle difficulty in a pretty straightforward way, which doesn’t necessarily yield the best results. Difficulty settings may work by incrementally making enemies more resistant to the player’s attacks and bullets. The practise is so widespread that there even exists a term for such enemies, “bullet sponges”. Alternatively, players may just notice an uptick in the number of enemies they’re facing, which can prove frustratingly difficult to deal with. Both of these methods of handling game difficulty are common in the game industry, but neither is particularly well-liked by fans.
Unlike other games in the industry, Left 4 Dead 2 handles difficulty a bit differently. On higher difficulty settings, rather than having Left 4 Dead 2’s zombies become bullet sponges, they will instead pack a greater punch on the player. Enemies will still take a bit more damage than on lower settings, but infected are far from claiming the title of bullet sponges. This makes the enemies in Left 4 Dead 2 a lot more of a threat and can change the way the player approaches the game. This adds to the replayability of each level, as the experience provided by harder-hitting enemies can often be vastly different to that on lower difficulty settings. This difficulty scaling is something Back 4 Blood should consider to keep players coming back.
Left 4 Dead 2’s Replayability
Left 4 Dead 2’s take on difficulty does help to keep it feeling fresh as players go up to higher difficulties, but this isn’t the main reason gamers are still replaying it to this day. It takes quite a lot for a game like Left 4 Dead 2 to remain relevant years on, but with a little help from the modding community, it is entirely possible. Left 4 Dead 2’s mods and custom campaigns breathe life into the game nearly 12 years on from its release. Left 4 Dead 2 players have essentially free reign to customize the game in whatever way they see fit, and it has massively helped the experience. Mods have taken players from Minecraft to The Lord of the Rings to another Valve property in Half Life 2.
There’s really no cap on the freedom modders are offered in Left 4 Dead 2, which means player imaginations are the only thing limiting what can be made. This may be a large part of why Back 4 Blood players are flooding back to Left 4 Dead 2 just weeks after the game’s release. This is perhaps the single biggest factor that could leave Back 4 Blood struggling to maintain a player base for years to come. As is becoming increasingly more common in modern gaming, Back 4 Blood has no mod support at launch, which comes as a blow to fans of Left 4 Dead 2 who were hoping for another similar experience. As such, Back 4 Blood should consider adding mod support to improve the game’s longevity going forward.
Back 4 Blood is available on PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.