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Everyone please keep making new versions of Left 4 Dead, thank youGames 4 Alice
Games 4 Alice
There was a moment over the E3 weekend where Alice0 pointed out that a lot of people are remakingLeft 4 Dead- apart from Valve. I have mentioned this before, but playing L4D2 accounted for about 60% of my time at university. I have a tattoo of the safe house symbol on my ribs (it is terrible).
The Left 4 Dead formula is simple on paper - small team of co-op players vs monster horde, getting from point A to point B with potential incidental side objectives on the way - but is tough to nail. You need to get the mix right. And this year’s E3 has revealed a lot of people are rolling up their sleeves to have a go. Let’s have a look.
Back 4 Blood
Back 4 Blood - Extended E3 TrailerWatch on YouTube
Back 4 Blood - Extended E3 Trailer
Back 4 Blood is due out on October 12th and looks to be cleaving pretty close to the original, albeit with legally distict versions of the different zombie types (who are called Ridden instead of Infected). Back 4 Blood’s Reeker looks like a Boomer, the Snitcher occupies the same role as a Witch, the Stinger sounds a lot like the Hunter, and so on.
What’s new is that Back 4 Blood, as with most of these, is differentiating the player characters with abilities, not just personality and appearance. Following the example of the glut of hero shooters and battle royales over the last while, this will hopefully make the whole formula more interesting. The different Cleaners in B4B are loosely spread over support, tank, and damage types. Evangelo will increase the whole team’s movement speed, Doc is very clearly a healer, Karlee can sense hazards, Hoffman spawns ammo, and having any of these on your team could really change how any given round plays out. I’m stoked. I give it 11 molotovs out of 7 screaming hordes.
The Anacrusis
The Anacrusis: Announce TrailerWatch on YouTube
The Anacrusis: Announce Trailer
The big sell on this for me right now, aside from the dev pedigree, is the look. It’s very retro sci-fi, with a kind of 60s egg chair feeling to the ship design and colour scheme that is very appealing.
Rainbow Six Extraction
Rainbow Six Extraction: Gameplay Deep Dive RevealWatch on YouTube
Rainbow Six Extraction: Gameplay Deep Dive Reveal
Formerly knownas Rainbow Six Quaratine,R6 Extractionis honestly the most interesting that I’ve found the whole Tom Clancy associated games in years. Possibly ever.
Redfall
Watch on YouTube
The trailer is cinematic, so we have no idea what it will actually look like. And yet this is probably the one I’m most excited for - partly because it’s put the biggest twist on the idea, but also partly because I put a lot of faith in Arkane to absolutely rip any game they have a go at. They even made the trailer more fun than all the others. Pls just let me play it.
E3 2021 may be over but our memories live on - see everything on ourE3 hub. Many more big game showcases and streams are still to come this summer, leading up to Gamescom, so see oursummer games stream scheduleto stay up to date.
