The problem with Back 4 Blood’s difficulty

Players might have wanted a challenge when trying out the Veteran and Nightmare difficulty. Not impossible.

The whole issue surrounding the Back 4 Blood difficulty stems from the game’s beta, where players complained that the game was too easy. Whereas now, the devs might have taken that a little too seriously. Now the game’s veteran and nightmare mode are practically impossible.

Back 4 Blood difficulty

Each difficulty has different modifiers and increased AI intelligence.

• Recruit
  • Corruption Card Pool: Limited
  • Friendly Fire: Disabled
  • -50% Supply Points awarded to players
• Veteran
  • Corruption Card Pool: Average
  • Friendly Fire: causes 35% damage to allies
  • Average level of Supply Points earned
• Nightmare
  • Corruption Card Pool: Maximum
  • Friendly Fire: causes 60% damage to allies
  • +50% Supply Points awarded to players

Of course the two hardest difficulties in-game should be tricky and hard to beat, but they shouldn’t be completely impossible. Many expert players have taken to Twitter and Reddit. The main complaint seems to surround the game’s increased special Ridden spawn rate. With enemies spawning behind cleared areas, and the sound cues drowned out by each other. A common point among players is to do with the lack of sound cues at all.

In a game where the screen will almost always be covered in all kinds of zombies, having a sound cue indicate the presence and approach of a special Ridden can make all the difference. Otherwise you’ll find yourself quickly ambushed and overwhelmed.

Despite all this, it seems the Back 4 Blood community are split about this. With some players saying that unlocking more of the game’s cards will help with the difficulty and make the overall experience a lot easier. But then there are others who do not feel that this ‘fixes’ the issue. For now though, it seems like the general solution is to get more cards whilst playing on a lower difficulty setting.