Back 4 Blood’s new trailer is here but, even better, you can get your hands on the game’s beta a week early.
Back 4 Blood, the spiritual sequel to Left 4 Dead, was originally going to be out this month but was pushed back to October. That’s the bad news. The good news is that there’s a new trailer out and developers Turtle Rock (who also created Left 4 Dead) have given us a date for the zombie shooter’s beta.
The new, if short, trailer was revealed at Summer Game Fest and, blended with pre-rendered footage, shows the various protagonists taking on a horde of the living dead. It also sports a fight with the massive Ogre, a beast that makes Left 4 Dead’s Tank look lightweight.
If you want to find out more, you can check our preview of Back 4 Blood. But here are the important questions – when does Back 4 Blood’s beta start and how can you get your hands on it? The answers aren’t quite as straight forward as you might have thought, however.
There are in fact two beta periods. The first, the Early Access Beta, runs from the 5th to the 9th of August. There’s one guaranteed way to get access to the Early Access Beta – pre-order the game. You’ll also be able to apply for the Early Access beta through the Back 4 Blood website, though there are apparently limited codes so you’re not guaranteed access.
The second “Open Beta” period runs from August 12th to August 16th and will be available to all would-be players, whether you’ve pre-ordered the game or not. The Open Beta will also be available across all platforms, the Xbox, PlayStation and PC with cross-generation and cross-platform play.
You shouldn’t need to register for the Open Beta, just downloading the Beta version of the game from your platform’s respective store should be enough, though you will almost certainly need an Xbox Live or Playstation Plus subscription to actually play it online.
As for the final game? You’ll have to wait till October 8th to get your hands on the full, fleshed-out version of Back 4 Blood but from what we’ve seen so far it should be worth waiting for.
Pre-order Back 4 Blood at Amazon
See all our E3 2021 and Summer Game Fest coverage by clicking here.
