Arguably the defining feature of Left 4 Dead is its main campaign, a tense co-op zombies survival experience that pits four friends against an onslaught of zombies. Back 4 Blood's main campaign is in the same vein, even if it's not exactly the same experience that Left 4 Dead veterans are used to. That's exactly the type of balance that Turtle Rock Studios is attempting to achieve with the PvE offering in Back 4 Blood, but it's PvP offering is very different. Swarm mode in Back 4 Blood isn't just Versus from Left 4 Dead; it's an entirely new stand-off style experience where teams of Cleaners are tasked with surviving the longest against a progressively overwhelming horde of Ridden.
In an interview with Game Rant, Turtle Rock Studios Executive Producer Lianne Papp elaborated on achieving a balance between the long-form main gameplay of Back 4 Blood's campaign, and the short-form PvP of Swarm. Traditional survivors vs. zombies is the main offering of Turtle Rock Studios' latest, but the Swarm PvP mode is a surprising departure from what players might expect. Matches are fast-paced and designed to be overwhelming, and teams who are able to coordinate and synergize on attack and defense will succeed. Back 4 Blood's Swarm PvP mode does function as a solid break from the PvE action, in a way that's short-lived and and fast-paced.
Crafting a Unique PvP Mode for Back 4 Blood
Considering Left 4 Dead's version of versus isn't planned to be added to Back 4 Blood, Turtle Rock Studios is putting all its PvP efforts into Swarm: A 4v4 time-based survival mode that pits Cleaners vs. Ridden in an overwhelming assault. Swarm takes place on standalone maps, outside of the typical campaign levels in PvE, with an encircling playable area similar to a battle royale. Ridden spawns function based on the Cleaner's line of sight, so as the playable area narrows and sight lines are harder to cover, the idea is to have the intensity of Swarm ramp up progressively throughout the match.
Given the fast-paced nature of the mode, the Swarm gameplay experience is far different compared to the typical PvE experience in Back 4 Blood's campaign. Both involve high stakes and intense gameplay with their own flavors, but according to Back 4 Blood's executive producer, Swarm is meant to be comparatively less time-intensive:
"With PvP in particular, I think we were looking for an experience that was a little more digestible, and not quite such a big time commitment. We want to make sure that it's balanced as well, and you have that opportunity to play as both sides... Really where it comes from is we wanted to make something that's 'snackable.' We want you to be able to jump in, play for a little bit, and then step back and take a break. If you want to keep going, you can."
That being said, based on Papp's description of Swarm's replayability, the PvP in Black 4 Blood is still meant to be a competitively angled experience. That much was seen in previews for Back 4 Blood, where both Cleaner and Ridden teams experimented and found proper team compositions that synergized quite well. While the Ridden team is a bit more class-based compared to the flexibility in Cleaner teams, proper coordination on both sides can edge out the competition.
"In today's age, a one-to-two hours commitment for something like a PvP match is a lot. So, we wanted something that's fun and digestible, and that you can just jump in, and you kind of just get it. And if you didn't, then you learned by trying, and you can go back in and keep doing it as much as you want."
Balancing Back 4 Blood's Swarm Mode
Of course, with the brevity of game time being brought into consideration, the development of Back 4 Blood's PvP mode seemingly becomes more complex. Having to balance the power of each team's abilities, alongside a shorter game time, is a struggle that numerous other games as a service experience. Games like Destiny 2 have also had some growing pains with weighing balance changes between PvE and PvP. Back 4 Blood is largely keeping things separate; cards and decks are organized separately between PvE and PvP, and Papp points out how cards wouldn't make sense as a method of cross-progression for the whole game.
"[Game balance] was one of the reasons why we decided to separate PvE and PvP decks. So, there were certain cards that maybe didn't feel very fair on the Cleaner side, and then there were also some that were actually kind of useless in a PvP scenario. We thought it made more sense to have a separate set of cards that you're selecting from, and some of them are common between the two and work in both modes, but some of them are just PvE or PvP."
Papp also mentions that balancing Ridden classes and abilities in particular was especially important for PvP balance. The time-to-kill, cooldown and recovery between Ridden-specific abilities (like the Tallboy arm slam, or Stinger's fire rate of ranged attacks) were all important considerations in balancing Cleaners vs. Ridden abilities. Additionally, fun factor and player experience was an important consideration for Papp and the development team, of which there were several different factors the team was looking at to determine what made Swarm mode fun.
"When it comes to balancing things at Turtle Rock, we look at two major things: One of them is telemetry [match data], how long did matches last, how much damage were you doing? Then the other thing that we actually look at is what was your experience? How did that make you feel? Like I'll go to our lead designer, and I'll say 'This was not fair, they stomped us, and I did not have fun.' He'll look at the data and be like 'Actually, you were pretty evenly matched. Why did you feel that way?' And so, we try to tackle both of those things.
Back 4 Blood releases on October 12, 2021, for PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.