E3 2021: Back 4 Blood Coming To Xbox Game Pass Day One

Xbox Game Pass is getting another big name game in the form of Back 4 Blood from Turtle Rock Studios. What’s even better is that it’ll be coming to the service upon release on October 12 for console, PC, and Xbox’s cloud gaming service.

Back 4 Blood made an appearance during Microsoft’s E3 game showcase today, where the news was announced and a brand new look at the game was revealed. The new footage showed the different enemies that players will encounter as they try their best to survive against increasingly more powerful foes that don’t look like they’ll go down easily. Also revealed today was a PvP mode which allows players to step into the shoes of the Ridden as they hunt down their player-controller human prey. The roles alternate each round, giving everyone a chance to be the hunter and the hunted.

An open beta will begin for anyone on Xbox who preordered the game from August 5-9. A second beta period will take place the following week from August 12-16 for all players. The beta will be available across Xbox consoles and PC, and will have cross-play and cross-gen support.

Turtle Rock Studios are the developers by the well liked Left 4 Dead series. After they parted ways with Valve on that series, they made the 4v1 alien hunting game Evolve, though it wasn’t as well received and didn’t have a very long life. Back 4 Blood was first announced in 2019 and described as an “original, premium title and marries the best of what made the co-op zombie shooter so successful with new features and state-of-the-art technology.” It’s the team returning to the style of game that made them famous, just taken to the next level, and it looks great. We’ll see if it turns out as good as it looks later this year.

Microsoft also revealed a number of other things during their showcase including A Plague Tale: Requiem, our first look at Starfield, Forza Horizon 5 gameplay, and multiplayer for Halo Infinite.