Back 4 Blood devs know the game is "far more difficult than intended" right now

Back 4 Blood split screen — (Image credit: Warner Bros.)

Back 4 Blood developer Turtle Rock Studios says it is committed to getting Back 4 Blood's difficulty levels "just right".

In a post shared to the zombie game's Reddit community, Turtle Rock Studios' says it "hears your concerns about the game's difficulty across all platforms" and while "a bit of difficulty can add a lot of replayability", it admits that "as of right now there are issues and bugs we’ve encountered in development that are making it far more difficult than intended".

"Difficulty needs to be our 'baby bear' in Back 4 Blood’s Goldilocks story," Turtle Rock explained. "It needs to be 'just right'.

"We want it tense. We want it challenging. We want you barely squeaking into the saferoom with a horde hot on your heels and you feeling that rush. We do not want it unmanageable. We do not want it to be unfair. That is our mission. Players must have agency. They must win and lose, prevail or perish, by their own actions. Skill, planning, and teamwork should carry the day. That’s the goal. Part of reaching that goal is finding the right balance - just right - through constant adjustment to the various card systems, spawning systems, AI director, and other facets that affect gameplay."

The post also listed the team's "main focuses and priorities" looking ahead, which included addressing the spawn rate of Ridden Mutations, tweaking the over-zealous trauma damage system, and the refocusing of playstyles away from speedrunning. The update also addressed the recent changes made to melee cards, too.

Did you see that Back 4 Blood has released a roadmap that includes an oft-requested offline mode, along with DLC and new difficulty levels? Developer Turtle Rock shared the details a few days ago, with the features identified in the roadmap expected to roll out between now and 2022. Right now, the fixes are focused on quality-of-life changes, whilst December will hopefully deliver an offline mode.

While we knew back in June that Back 4 Blood wouldn't have an offline mode at launch, to the studio's credit, Turtle Rock has listened carefully to feedback and is set to add the mode sometime next month.