Back 4 Blood is still working to get the difficulty "just right"
"We want it tense. We want it challenging. We do not want it unmanageable. We do not want it to be unfair."
Back 4 Blood developer Turtle Rock Studios says it's working to get the difficulty of its Left 4 Dead spiritual successor "just right".
Singling out the rate at which Ridden Mutations spawn, the over-zealous trauma damage system, and a refocusing of playstyles away from speedrunning, the dev team admitted in a new post on Reddit that the issues and bugs in the game "are making it far more difficult than intended".
"Difficulty needs to be our 'baby bear' in Back 4 Blood's Goldilocks story," Turtle Rock explained in a recent Reddit post. "It needs to be 'just right'.
"We want it tense. We want it challenging. We want you barely squeaking into the saferoom with a horde hot on your heels and you feeling that rush.
"We do not want it unmanageable. We do not want it to be unfair. That is our mission. Players must have agency. They must win and lose, prevail or perish, by their own actions. Skill, planning, and teamwork should carry the day. That's the goal. Part of reaching that goal is finding the right balance - just right - through constant adjustment to the various card systems, spawning systems, AI director, and other facets that affect gameplay."
"It's almost there, basically. Almost really quite special," Chris wrote in Eurogamer's Back 4 Blood review. "But in falling just short of that Back 4 Blood is still a wonderful, messy treat of a game. Considering it got there by effectively slapping a progression system on a widely-adored, cult-favourite series that might be best described as the video game equivalent to a bong, that's quite an achievement, too."
According to a tweet from the official Back 4 Blood Twitter account, Back 4 Blood has seen over six million players since it launched a month ago.