For a good chunk of my initial time with Back 4 Blood I had precisely zero opinions about it. It's a strange game, half of it built on a kind of ultra-nostalgia, especially potent for anyone who spent a single day of the late noughties in the same room as an Xbox 360. The other half - all cards, progression, loot - is quite abruptly modern. The two, at least at first, seem to cancel each other out, turning it into a thing that's just too familiar, too recognisable. I'm shooting zombies in co-op, while looting weapons and grinding the progression system for cards that might help on my next run. Imagine, in the most emotionless voice: OK.
But, actually, thankfully, it's more than that. Scrabbling around in the game's oddly enticing dark for long enough has allowed me to admit I was very much wrong. Back 4 Blood is interesting. It is unfamiliar, in places. It is good! Really good.
Much of this comes down to its system of runs. As you may well know by now, Back 4 Blood is a close spiritual successor to Left 4 Dead, being developed by original Left 4 Dead studio Turtle Rock - once known as Valve South, during the Left 4 Dead years, before it was re-founded in 2011 again by some key names like Michael Booth, Phil Robb and Chris Ashton - and the history here is important. Left 4 Dead was not really a game you played through just once, but aside from the general morishness of the co-op it wasn't necessarily built that way. Back 4 Blood is also a game you play through more than once, but this time it is built that way.