Back 4 Blood is out in early access for folks who pre-ordered the fancy, more expensive versions of the zombie shooter. And these players have discovered that trying to play the game solo means you have to give up a lot. Specifically, you won’t be able to unlock achievements, earn valuable supply points or even track your in-game stats. As you might expect, people aren’t happy about this and the devs are promising to “address the issue.”
Back 4 Blood is the latest game from the studio that originally developed Left 4 Dead. The company’s last big shooter was the interesting but flawed flop, Evolve. Like Left 4 Dead, Back 4 Blood is a co-op-focused zombie shooter built around teams of players or bots pushing through undead-infested levels.
Back 4 Blood isn’t officially out until October 12, but players who pre-ordered either the deluxe or ultimate edition of the game were granted early access to the full game starting October 8. And when one of these early access players tried to jump into Back 4 Blood’s solo mode they were greeted with a message warning them of all the things that are blocked in that mode.
“Uses solo decks created in the Fort Hope deck menu.
Maps and objectives will be adjusted.
Matchmaking and player invites are disabled.
Earning Supply Points is disabled.
Stat tracking is disabled.
Earning progress towards Accomplishments is disabled.”
According to this message, players who choose to play alone won’t be able to earn achievements or trophies depending on their platform, they won’t be able to earn supply points and they can’t even see their solo game stats. This immediately led to some backlash from players who felt this was too restrictive and punished solo players too harshly.
In response, the devs behind Back 4 Blood issued a statement via Twitter explaining that the studio was “discussing ways to address the issue.” But the devs didn’t have any timeframe for when to expect more news on the situation.
Blocking solo players out of progression might not be so controversial if the game also didn’t require an online connection.
Back in June, Turtle Rock confirmed that the entire game (even its solo mode) would require an always-online internet connection.?This understandably upset players and for good reason. Making a game that can be played solo require an always-online internet connection is just stupid. Turtle Rock did suggest they would add an offline mode after launch, but we haven’t really heard anything about that since June.
Combine that older news of an always-online connection with the recent revelation that solo mode players will be blocked from a lot of the game’s progression and stat tracking and you have a bad situation. If the servers for this game get shut down in a few years, and no offline mode has been added or changes made to solo progression, it would be a bad time and make it nearly impossible to play in the future.