At the center of the game are Walker, Holly, Hoffman, Evangelo, Karlee, Doc, Jim, and Mom, a group of veteran zombie killers known as “the Cleaners” who will do anything to survive a parasite outbreak that has turned most of humanity into the flesh-hungry “Ridden.” Fans of the Left 4 Dead franchise will find a familiar horde of enemies as well as both four-player co-op PvE campaigns and 4v4 multiplayer modes. While a preview of the co-op gameplay was on top during the game’s closed alpha earlier this year, an Open Beta launching this week will be the first time players will be able to try out Back 4 Blood‘s multiplayer mode Swarm, “where two squads of four face off in a best-of-three series of rounds swapping between playing as the Cleaners and the Ridden, as well as additional campaign content,” according to WB Games. Players who pre-ordered the game will get Early Access to the Open Beta on Aug. 5-9 on Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, and PC. If you’ve not pre-ordered, you can also register for a chance to get an early access beta key here. Everyone else will be able to jump in on Aug. 12-16.
Two maps for the “Swarm” PvP modeTwo co-op maps to fight off Ridden with your friends Play as Mom for the first time, as well as other Cleaners: Evangelo, Holly, Walker and HoffmanPlay as six different Ridden variants in “Swarm,” including the Bruiser, Retch, Hocker, Exploder, Crusher and StingerVarious weapons to check out, cards to build decks and Ridden to slayExplore the Fort Hope communal hubCross-play and cross-gen support
If you’re wondering what time the beta will launch in your time zone on Aug. 5, here’s a quick rundown for the US and the UK:
NYC: 3 PM ETLos Angeles: 12 PM ETLondon: 8 PM BSTStockholm: 9 PM CEST
If you’re in another region, simply refer to this handy graphic: Regarding download file size, you’ll need 25GB of storage on your PC or console for the beta. A few other recommended PC specs:
CPU Intel Core i5-8400 or AMD Ryzen 7 1800XGPU GeForce GTX 970 or Radeon RX 590RAM 12GBOS WINDOWS 10 64-bitDX DIRECTX 11
Stay tuned for our thoughts on the beta later this month as well as our special Back 4 Blood Open Beta live stream on Twitch on Thursday, Aug. 5 at 2:30 pm ET!
