It’s been roughly two weeks since Back 4 Blood was released to the masses, met with fans eager to see what the spiritual successor to the Left 4 Dead franchise would offer. Unfortunately for many however, the launch of what was projected to be a critical success soon turned sour. Many players from day 1 saw that when booting up Back 4 Blood’s solo campaign they were unable to progress through the leveling system. What made this a problem was the fact that many players had issues with the game’s incredible difficulty spike, with some saying that Veteran (B4B’s equivalent to Normal difficulty) was far too hard even for a team of 4 players. What was meant to offset this intense difficulty was Back 4 Blood’s deck-building mechanic that allowed players to curate specific playstyles that could make a campaign run easier. Back 4 Blood’s solo mode specifically bars deck building, stat tracking, achievements, and, most importantly, earning supply points. What makes the lack of supply points so hindering is the fact that these points are essentially the main progression of the game. Meaning, players who chose to play the single-player mode would be basically earning no experience whatsoever.
The issue with this is that players are essentially playing the game as normal, only with bots as the three other party members rather than actual players, and gaining nothing from it. What this removes from the game is replayability. Players aren’t always going to have three other friends with Back 4 Blood, and even if they do, the chances of all three friends always being down to play the game are slim. Although the game offers the ability to play against random players, to a lot of gamers that just isn’t appealing. Sometimes, players just want to have some alone time with a game. And, unfortunately, this game punishes players for it. After excessive complaints during pre-release, Turtle Rock Studios, the developers behind the game, took to Twitter to reassure fans.
Since putting out the above statement, however, nothing new has come out to fix the solo campaign. Since the game’s larger release, player complaints have only skyrocketed. For example, many players have pointed out that without certain cards that increase damage, a single-man campaign run was nigh impossible, as a single player would struggle with special infected.
Though most seem to be against the punishing nature of the solo campaign, a few fans stand by it. These fans argue that cooperation is critical to titles of this genre, claiming that it is much more a multi-player game than a single-player one.
As of now, the controversy continues. Whether or not Turtle Rock Studios will fix the solo campaign mode, as per fan request, however, is yet to be seen.