With the release date looming ever closer, Turtle Rock Studios' zombie co-op shooter Back 4 Blood is shaping up to be one of the most exciting releases of the year. With an announcement recently that the game will be coming to Xbox Game Pass on day one, there's a lot of buzz around what is affectionately being dubbed as the spiritual successor to Valve's Left 4 Dead series. However, there is a small bit of bad news on the horizon.

According to a source, Back 4 Blood won't actually be playable without an internet connection. For many, this may make sense seeing as the game encourages online play with the implementation of team-based combat. But for some, this may put a small dampener on the experience, especially for those who have weaker internet in their area. This development means that even solo campaigns will need an online connection which, for some, has caused a bit of frustration.

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Having said that, Turtle Rock have responded to offline concerns on its Twitter page by insisting that this will only be a temporary situation. Posting a few days ago, the studio said it will be looking for ways it can support offline play which will hopefully mean that, eventually, players will be able to take on the huge hordes of infected in Back 4 Blood without having to go online. It's hard to say when this support will be implemented, but for now it seems as though an online connection will be a requirement from day one.

Despite being effectively considered Left 4 Dead 3, especially given that the development team consists of programmers who originally worked on the 2008 and 2009 games,  Back 4 Blood does things that its L4D ancestor doesn't. For example, while both franchises have a PvP mode, Back 4 Blood mixes it up with its Swarm mode in which two teams of four battle against each other, with variations in each round. It will also give players the chance to stock up on supplies, which Left 4 Dead only did at the beginning of each level during the survival campaigns.

The game was unfortunately delayed due to the pandemic, but since then, the team have seemingly seized the opportunity to work on the game to bring what is already looking like a high-octane and fast-paced horror shooter in which players fight against masses of the undead as well as being pitted against the game's monstrous and disgusting-looking special enemies. It's just a bit of a shame that some people may feel let down by the online-only feature, even if that's not going to be permanent.

Back 4 Blood releases on October 12 for PC, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.

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Source: Comic Book