Back 4 Blood and E3 2021: What We Know So Far
Last Updated on: 12th June 2021, 01:17 pm
Ahead of their appearance at E3 2021, Turtle Rock Studios’ has confirmed some more details about Back 4 Blood. It’s an exciting look at the spiritual successor to Left 4 Dead 2 and we now know when we can get stuck into playing it!
ARTICLE UPDATE – New Rumor
This article has been updated since release, the original article continues below the next header “LATEST – Open Beta & Crossplay Support?”
A tweet by @Nibellion mentions that Back 4 Blood could be coming as a day 1 title to Xbox Game Pass, with a PC version included, tweet featured below.
Original article continues below this point.
LATEST – Open Beta & Crossplay Support?
Following Geoff Keighley’s Summer Game Fest “Kickoff Live!” stream, we now know a bit more about Back 4 Blood ahead of E3 2021.
Firstly, Back 4 Blood is getting an Open Beta on August 12! Everyone will be able to play this for a limited time, but if you preorder Back 4 Blood you’ll be able to jump in over a week earlier on August 5th.
In addition to this, we also know that the Open Beta is getting cross-play support and this is intended to be available when the game fully releases on October 12th. Obviously, things could change between now and then but it’s definitely a step in the right direction.
What Is Back 4 Blood?
Back 4 Blood is essentially a modern Left 4 Dead game. It’s a co-operative first-person zombie-slaying adventure that features big guns and bigger zombies. They’re technically called “Ridden” in Back 4 Blood, though. So… Slightly different.
However, it’s largely the same as Left 4 Dead at its’ core and that is what’s got fans excited. You play as one of eight cleaners, which you can check out below, and there’s going to be a focus on replayability.
What makes this an evolution of the Left 4 Dead series, though, whether it needs that or not, is the Card System being introduced. This adds a deck-building element to gameplay and helps add a degree of strategy to everything. You can use this system to increase your health, damage output, stamina levels… There’s going to be quite a lot of choice which should help you tweak Back 4 Blood’s gameplay however you want.
READ MORE: New Borderlands game to be announced at E3 2021
You can check out a little teaser of how the Card System is going to work below:
There has been confirmation that these aren’t going to be a Microtransaction, though. Anything new is going to be earned through gameplay.
When Is Back 4 Blood At E3?
Unusually, Back 4 Blood is going to get its own slot at E3 2021. It’s only half an hour, but the fact that it’s dedicated purely to Back 4 Blood is very cool.
You’ll be able to see the latest from Turtle Rock Studios and WB Games’ Back 4 Blood at 14:00 PST / 17:00 EST / 22:00 BST on June 13th. This is slotted nicely after the Square Enix Presents at 12:15 PST / 15:15 EST / 20:15 BST and before PC Gamer’s PC Gaming Show at 14:30 PST / 17:30 EST / 22:30 BST.
READ MORE: E3 2021 Schedule: All the dates & times you need to know about
We’re not sure if there’s going to be a break between shows… But we can imagine we’ll see a few minutes of commentary from E3 2021’s hosts. So… We’re expecting the Back 4 Blood slot at E3 2021 to last around 25 minutes.
What Are We Going To See?
At this point, it really is anyone’s guess. We’ve already seen quite a lot from Back 4 Blood already and it is one of the few games with a release date. So, we’re not quite sure.
We can imagine that we’ll get a small narrative-based Cinematic Trailer to help develop the world of Back 4 Blood further, but the rest really could showcase anything. We want to see more about the Special Ridden variants that the Cleaners will be facing off against. We want to see more action-packed gameplay with some of the wilder Card System cards in play. We just want to see anything more from this game.
It doesn’t quite have the same levels of hype as other games due to appear at E3 2021, but it almost definitely should. Back 4 Blood is going to fill a gap in the market that World War Z just didn’t manage, despite its good intentions.
READ MORE: Resident Evil Village DLC expected to appear at E3 2021
