{"id":10572,"date":"2025-08-25T16:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-08-25T16:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nextlevelnews.co.uk\/blog\/2025\/08\/25\/john-carpenters-toxic-commando-puts-an-80s-horror-spin-on-left-4-dead\/"},"modified":"2025-08-25T16:00:00","modified_gmt":"2025-08-25T16:00:00","slug":"john-carpenters-toxic-commando-puts-an-80s-horror-spin-on-left-4-dead","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nextlevelnews.co.uk\/blog\/2025\/08\/25\/john-carpenters-toxic-commando-puts-an-80s-horror-spin-on-left-4-dead\/","title":{"rendered":"John Carpenter’s Toxic Commando Puts an ’80s Horror Spin on Left 4 Dead"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
<\/section>\n

Considering it was revealed to the world with a trailer that featured four zombie-blasting soldiers singing along to Bon Jovi\u2019s \u201cYou Give Love a Bad Name\u201d, I expected John Carpenter\u2019s Toxic Commando<\/a> to be much funnier than it is. Inspired in equal measure by the supernatural horror and buddy action movies of the 1980s, it is big and dumb and goofy\u2026 yet never as batshit bananas as you\u2019d expect for a game that\u2019s quite literally about fighting an entity called the Sludge God. But while it may not be that funny<\/em>, it is fun<\/em>. You may have already forgotten about that 2023 reveal trailer, but after playing three hours of its co-op missions, I don\u2019t think Toxic Commando is going to fade into the background thanks to its surprisingly solid Left 4 Dead<\/a>-alike antics. <\/p>\n

While it is presented akin to a story campaign shooter with cutscenes, plot points, and a lore-dropping man-in-the-chair vaguely modelled after John Carpenter himself, Toxic Commando is clearly designed to be a regular destination for a team of four friends who can run through its missions on repeat. Each expedition takes place on a reasonably-sized open map, dotted with a handful of optional objectives and loot caches alongside the quest\u2019s main goals. With no ticking timer or shrinking circle, you can take your time to collect everything, scour every point-of-interest, and generally mess around with your pals before pushing onwards to the mission\u2019s finale. It\u2019s surprisingly leisurely\u2026 at least until the horde applies the pressure. <\/p>\n

<\/section>\n

Developed by Saber Interactive, Toxic Commando is built on the studio\u2019s now-signature horde technology that renders hundreds of sprinting zombies simultaneously, allowing for enemies to clamber up walls like a reverse waterfall of rotting flesh. In many ways, Toxic Commando feels like a successor to the game where this tech originated, World War Z<\/a>, and even features near-identical mechanics \u2013 during frequent hold-the-line defence objectives, you mow down incoming enemies with the same array of emplaced machineguns, mortars, and electrified grids. It\u2019s just that this time it\u2019s all rendered with a gloriously gross horror aesthetic. Who wants zombies to look like humans when they can look like lamp-eyed freaks from the death dimension?<\/p>\n

Those freaks burst and break when they\u2019re introduced to the hot lead dispensed by a very healthy arsenal. They\u2019re all based on real-world guns (aside from the wildly powerful rail gun, which scatters foes like bowling pins) and divided up into your regular groups of shotguns, SMGs, sniper rifles, and other formats not beginning with \u201cS\u201d. Saving them from feeling utterly ordinary is how they fire with the exaggerated bravado of an ultra-violent b-movie \u2013 all sputtering muzzles, wide bullet spread, and explosive impacts. Legs are severed, ribcages torn open, and brains pinwheel out of busted skulls. It\u2019s all as squelchy and sinewey as you\u2019d hope from a game associated with the director of The Thing. <\/p>\n

Your choice of loadout defines the combat experience much more than the four character classes, which feel like minor augmentations to standard FPS action rather than crucial battlefield roles. Each is defined by a single special ability \u2013 the Operator uses a drone that automatically bombards enemies for a few seconds, the Strike can unleash a barrage of energy blasts, the Medic has an area-of-effect heal, and the Defender can put up a damage-absorbing barrier. At least during my hours of play, these abilities came in handy during a pinch but did little to direct how I played. Perhaps filling out the skill tree will give each class stronger definition, but right now it seems like the regular shooting is the main event.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s admittedly very little new or experimental in Toxic Commando, but what\u2019s here is genuinely good fun. <\/section>\n

Mowing down a lot (a lot<\/em>) of zombies is the crux of Toxic Commando\u2019s objectives. Sometimes that\u2019ll involve the genre-trademark special infected that largely work exactly as Left 4 Dead dictated (sticky ones that grab you, tanky ones that charge at you, gross ones that spit at you.) Elsewhere you\u2019ll need to unload a belts-worth of ammunition into a tangled mess of tentacles, or use demolition charges to blow some kind of growth to smithereens. It\u2019s mostly by-the-numbers co-op shooter fare, but across the few missions I\u2019ve played there\u2019s the odd one that shines brighter. One quest sees the map covered by a Fortnite-ish, life-sapping storm, and the only way to navigate between the shielded pockets of safety is to drive an ambulance that can trickle heal those sitting inside it. It\u2019s a really coherent meshing of environment, situation, and equipment design. <\/p>\n

Regardless of if the mission requires one or not, vehicles are as significant to Toxic Commando as its zombies and guns. The spaced-out objectives and open nature of the maps mean you\u2019ll need some wheels to effectively cover ground, especially as that ground is so often practically carpeted by the undead. Cars like the armoured Maverick are good for both protection and doubling as a battering ram \u2013 you\u2019ll just need to occasionally deal with the zombies who clamber aboard like particularly diseased monkeys at the safari. <\/p>\n

All vehicles have a special ability, such as the ambulance\u2019s healing aura or the Thunder pick-up\u2019s flamethrower, but it’s the winch attached to all but the family sedans that really makes a difference. Essentially a grapple hook that can be fired into a variety of anchor points, it can be used to rip gates off their hinges, bust open treasure containers, and pull your vehicle up slippy inclines. See, the Sludge God, in his infinite sticky wisdom, has covered each map in great big stretches of gloop, and so without a MudRunner-lite approach you\u2019ll be spinning tires and going nowhere. <\/p>\n

<\/section>\n

There\u2019s admittedly very little new or experimental in Toxic Commando, but what\u2019s here is genuinely good fun. It\u2019s a more open take on Left 4 Dead\u2019s horde-filled adventures, fuelled by the same \u201carcane evil\u201d feel that\u2019s made Call of Duty\u2019s zombie mode feel so aesthetically solid. There are some issues that threaten that fun, though. Every mission I played felt like it had had the wind kicked out of it by the final stretch thanks to dwindling resources. Health kits are in short supply, ammunition can get a little tricky, and spare parts – a currency that unlocks special weapons and defensive structures \u2013 can only be found in a limited number of loot caches. By the end of a mission it can feel like the odds are really against you, and while I appreciate the need to ratchet tension and create a challenge spike in the final objective, in a game where zombies arrive by the truckful, restocking ammo only to find you\u2019ve been given a single magazine does feel a bit unbalanced. I was having a lot more fun during the earlier minutes, when bullets were plentiful and the blood spilled like wine, so I\u2019m not sure if the flow and tone really mesh with the current resource levels. <\/p>\n

The more concerning thing, though, is progression. All weapons have individual XP bars, and must be levelled up to particular milestones to unlock different modifications. When you unlock a mod, you then need to spend a currency to actually fit it to the weapon, and each one costs several thousand. I can\u2019t help but look at the entire armoury and envision the hundreds and hundreds of hours I\u2019d need to sink into Toxic Commando to achieve a decently functioning, varied loadout. It\u2019s the sort of system that funnels you into picking a single favourite, rather than encouraging you to constantly switch between missions. This, combined with a trio of different currencies and palette-swap character skins, has me a little suspicious that the sludge of live-service has tainted something I\u2019ve otherwise had a pretty good blast with. But these grindy woes can also be found in Saber\u2019s Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2<\/a>, and they didn\u2019t stop it from being one of my favourite games of 2024.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s not to say I\u2019m expecting John Carpenter\u2019s Toxic Commando to have anywhere near the same impact Space Marine had. But, provided the full game has a solid range of missions that genuinely prove replayable, I do think the strong shooting and entertaining enemies have a decent enough chance to secure it a home among friendship groups who\u2019d happily re-watch gloopy \u201880s horror over and over until the VHS wears out. Whether they\u2019ll ever unlock the attachments they want for their favourite weapons\u2026 well, we\u2019ll have to wait to find out.<\/p>\n

<\/section>\n
<\/section>\n

Matt Purslow is IGN’s Executive Editor of Features. <\/em><\/p>\n<\/section>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Considering it was revealed to the world with a trailer that featured four zombie-blasting soldiers singing along to Bon Jovi\u2019s \u201cYou Give Love a Bad Name\u201d, I expected John Carpenter\u2019s Toxic Commando to be much funnier than it is. Inspired in equal measure by the supernatural horror and buddy action movies of the 1980s, it […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":10573,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pagelayer_contact_templates":[],"_pagelayer_content":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10572","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nJohn Carpenter's Toxic Commando Puts an '80s Horror Spin on Left 4 Dead - Next Level News<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Stay on top of the gaming world with Next Level News. 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