Back 4 Blood: Children of the Worm DLC Review

The latest expansion Children of the Worm brings a lot of additions to co-op first-person shooter Back 4 Blood, although not without its own quirks. But let’s take a step back and start from the beginning: Back 4 Blood is the ideological successor to Left 4 Dead which led to both games being compared to one another extensively.

Back 4 Blood is a new, interesting game, addictive in its own right… but also ripe with peculiarities which you can’t quite mark as bugs or shortcomings.

Back 4 Blood is extremely poor when it comes to lore and the history of its in-game world. Even during the main campaign of the standard game, you are given very little information about what is happening around the world and how this situation is addressed. Your knowledge can be summed up as: the Zombie Apocalypse is here, mutated beings have overrun the world and the existence of humanity is under threat.

The Children of the Worm DLC reveals a little piece of the in-game story. As you progress through the new chapter, you learn that the Worm – an analogue of the Boss in Chapter 4 of the original campaign – has started a cult on the prison grounds, and his followers are in a hurry to destroy humanity alongside the mutated monsters. An interesting point is that despite mutating from the Worm’s virus, the Children retain their wits unlike your usual zombie.

The expansion also added a new playable Cleaner, “Prophet” Dan whose powers include random buffs after reanimating other Cleaners. Smiling Dan will brighten up your difficult adventures.

In addition to the new allies, the expansion also brought new, interesting enemies. On the territory of the prison, in the gloomy mines below, in the stuffy corridors and cells filled with victims and infected, you will run into dangerous opponents and new mutants. Slashers who rush at you at full speed with their iron claws, Snipers that have become even more deadly under the influence of the Worm, crazed Pusflingers and, finally, Crones that attract hordes of zombies – these arches will quickly climb the ranks of your most hated creatures.

The DLC also provided players with new dungeons. As you explore the game levels, you can run into entrances to the zombie lair – you can’t really miss it, it looks like a hole entangled with intestines with corpses laid around it. Having descended with your team into those dungeons, you can find skull totems as well as new weapons and other types of loot.

Having started on the topic of skulls, let’s talk a bit more about them. As you go through the labyrinths, you will run into Altars – that will feature the aforementioned skull totems. They can act as weapons – empowered by other skulls, 3 total per dungeon – as well as new currency provided you have what it takes to bring them to the surface. As currency, they can be used to buy new skins for characters and weapons and more. Just take a look at the Plague Doctor skin – it’s worth delving into dungeons and farming for some skulls!

The new dungeons also feature new boxes, the cursed kind. If a careless adventurer were to open one without using a lockpick, it would spell a curse for the entire team. But these boxes are filled to the brim with goodies and skipping one is just not an option. Weapons of higher level, kits for weapons, legendary magazines, muzzles, weapons themselves – you can even run into legendary guns with special properties, such as increasing damage done against the target on hits on sniper rifles.

All you have to do is finish the dungeon and find the skulls. It is not necessary to find them all, but it’s still really desirable to carry out all 3. Additionally, the new dungeons have a chance to feature the descent even lower, to the very heart of the mutants’ lair, a special arena that will have you explode additional passages with dynamite.

Every opened passage means another chance to find the skull totem and each explosion brings along a new horde of enemies. There are always 2-3 cursed chests in the Lair, which spell the loot holiday and a good opportunity to strengthen your group’s weapons or replace them outright. By collecting the totems, you can find both the regular and the early exits. You can leave immediately after finding the first skull – and it might be best if you feel that you are not ready.

The expansion brought both the new mechanics as well as the changes to the existing ones to the game. Let’s start by mentioning the changes to the card deck system, the main mechanic of your character. The deck of cards are the mini buffs and abilities that you can give to your Cleaner. The ability to clear a level successfully can literally depend on the properly assembled deck. Decks allow for great flexibility when it comes to gameplay.

Previously, you collected the cards as you played through the levels. By the end of the chapter, you had the entire deck in your hand and the game provided some additional cards as well.

Now you get to have the entire deck at once, you don’t have to choose between the cards you need between the levels, all of your buffs are immediately active which greatly changes the overall pace of the game. A Melee-oriented build gives you an opportunity to crash into dozens of zombies head-on, cutting them down at a brisk pace without losing health. Having such a build handy increases the chances of passing a particular level – you’ve read that right, it’s less about speeding up your playthrough but rather getting a chance to finish it at all.

Altogether, decks of cards now add variety to gameplay from the very beginning.

The main game mechanics have received a slight rework while the new chapter provided by the DLC offers a variety of new additions, including mechanics, traps, enemies… but only limited to Chapter 5.

One of the drawbacks is the lack of variety when it comes to playthroughs: you will always know when you are about to run into a Crone or where to better face a horde of zombies or how to prepare for a bunch of Slashers that will jump you from around the next corner.

Chapter 5 features new interesting enemies but why weren’t they added to other parts of the game? A similar question can be aimed at the new mechanics and the lack of them during the main chapters – just seeing horde-attracting bombs would have been an amazing experience for the early hours.

This lack of radical changes when it comes to levels is one of B4B’s weaker sides. The game lacks a certain feeling of unpredictability, after a couple of playthroughs you will be able to easily min/max your party for any situation. While there is a certain replay value added due to the different sets of cards, both heroes ones and corruption ones, but I’d still like to see more.

Another weak side is the game’s approach to the plot and the refusal of offering more story. I’d have liked to see a normal, in-depth bestiary, Cleaners’ backgrounds even if you have to hunt that info down, but still represented in-game. The potential of the game’s story is great, but it does nothing to address it or reveal any plot hooks that keep you fighting against zombies and cultists again and again.

Some of the controversial aspects of the game include the inability to exclude party members from the group that has persisted from the very beginning. Even if such a person spends half a level being AFK, all you can do is keep being patient. Additionally, you can’t change the selected card deck as you progress through the level and sometimes you’ll end up having 3 melee and 1 sniper in your party while dearly wishing for more kit variety.

To sum it up, the Children of the Worm expansion brought a lot of interesting activities and new chapters, addressed a lot of many smaller problems but didn’t touch on previously existing controversial aspects of the game. I will continue playing B4B with my friends with great pleasure but I hold out hope for further development of the game as a whole. The developers seem to be on the right track.

Note: the Steam key was provided for free for the purposes of this review.

Summary
Back 4 Blood: Children of the Worm expansion brought a lot of interesting activities and new chapters, addressed many of the smaller problems but didn’t touch on previously existing controversial aspects of the game. I will continue playing B4B with my friends with great pleasure but I hold out hope for further development of the game as a whole. The developers seem to be on the right track.
Good
  • Overhaul of old mechanics & the addition of new ones
  • New enemies
  • "Prophet" Dan
Bad
  • Lack of story content
  • Doesn't address existing controversial aspects of the game
7.5
Good

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