When we first heard of John Carpenter’s Toxic Commando, Saber Interactive’s upcoming take on a shooter involving cool vehicles, cooler guns, and terrifying zombie hordes, we must admit we were a bit sceptical. Another shooter in a crowded genre wasn’t really calling to us, after all.
But we’re happy to say that things have changed since then, and Toxic Commando is a title that takes the tried and tested co-op shooter formula and makes it so interesting that it could very well be quite hard to put down. Zombie hordes are coming at you, brought to life by the very same engine that made the Tyranids such a terrifying threat in Space Marine 2. The vehicles, and how you use them in the field, are crucial to the success of your missions. Your squadmates are a bickering bunch, their banter often relieving the tension while keeping you invested in their safety.
However, Toxic Commando’s vibe goes beyond its gameplay elements and how well they work together. It lands because it’s presented so well, the chaos that’s baked into its very DNA being framed by its premise and the agency it gives to its players. And it all comes together into an experience that can have you putting down your controller after a particularly intense run, wondering what the hell just happened.
How does the game achieve that balance between its many elements, though? That’s what we’re here for. Let’s dive in!
A Premise That Facilitates Chaotic Gameplay
Let’s begin with what we know of the story. You’re one among a bunch of misfits whose skills with their weapons far outweigh their social ones, forced to work together in the face of a challenge. The zombie hordes were once your fellow citizens of Earth, and you and your team must now mow them down as the planet’s last line of defence.
But there are a ton of zombies to take out, and the rules of conventional warfare have been tossed out the window. What’s left is a battlefield in which you’re allowed to get as inventive as you please when dealing with the threats around you. Your opponents have the numbers, but with the entire battlefield as a stage upon which you practice the art of killing, using it to your advantage is all but necessary.
It’s a premise with a lot of promise to bring some spectacular action set-pieces to the table, Saber’s Swarm Engine being more than capable of rising to the occasion. But more than that, it’s the perfect narrative frame for a gameplay loop that thrives when its players begin to push the boundaries of what they can do when they’re out on missions. That’s also reflected in how the player classes and their respective abilities are built to work together, but can manage quite well on their own in the hands of skilled players. Your team could choose a balance between the two, tackling a few objectives solo and meeting back up to take on a bigger challenge.
The context of what you’re doing becomes as important as what you do on your missions in Toxic Commando, making it quite immersive as a result. Of course, there are the missions themselves.
Maps Made For Mayhem
Everything we’ve seen of the game so far points to mission structures and level designs that work well together to support unpredictability. It’s a facet of the experience that underlines every moment of its gameplay loop, being deliberately baked into the game’s design as a pillar that props it up.
Many shooters give you ways to take on multiple enemies, but what happens when those enemies just swarm you with eye-watering numbers, overwhelming you with ferocity and relentless aggression? Well, Toxic Commando has you finding new ways to answer that question, with even simple objectives often transforming into full-blown encounters against zombie hordes that don’t stop coming.
Believe us when we tell you that the sheer panic you’re going to feel when you stand your ground and aim down the sights of your barrel at an oncoming wave of zombies is real, and is going to mess with your aim. The game forces you to make errors and then regain that lost momentum by switching up your approach. Even early missions in this one are built on that principle, incorporating an almost constant need to think on the move and execute any plans with precision.
For instance, an act as simple as waiting for an elevator in one of the early missions quickly becomes a firefight against a zombie horde in which your only objective is to survive until you’re able to make your escape. Knowing what we knew about the world’s state from a narrative standpoint, along with how the game’s soundtrack dynamically paints the unfolding tension, made that fight feel far longer than the thirty or forty seconds it took for the elevator to get to us. And it took far longer for our nerves to settle back down.
However, moments of calm are few and far between in Toxic Commando, and we think most of you are going to be quite glad to be playing it with your friends. The way its missions are structured, along with how its level design supports fighting off zombie hordes without making things unfairly tilted towards either side, feels so engaging that it’s quite hard to stop playing it.
You keep expecting something to go wrong, and the world takes Murphy’s Law quite seriously. It’s often when you feel like there’s a moment of respite to be had that disaster strikes you and your squad, forcing you to fight back and snatch every possible advantage to guarantee your survival.
Controlling Chaos In The Field
At its core, Toxic Commando isn’t just making you fight to control space on the battlefield. It makes you try and control the ebb and flow of battle, turning even dire situations to your benefit in the midst of some frenetic gunplay.
You might load into a mission with a clear game plan, your team feeling ready to take on whatever challenges are lying in wait. Your plans are going to be thrown to the wolves sooner than you’d care to admit, and so often that you’re going to ponder about saving some time and just winging it once you spawn in.
And that’s precisely where Toxic Commando truly shines. You’re required to be ready to discard your strategy at the first sign of trouble, and then use anything and everything you find along the way to ensure you’re getting to where you’re going. Your squad is a bunch of misfits, each of them meant to be a loose cannon who is prone to acting on impulse rather than as part of a coordinated unit.
Chaos isn’t just an element of the battlefield, but is also an inherent part of the agency that the game offers its players. It’s a potent weapon that you’re going to learn to wield with confidence to ensure that you survive every ordeal you’re put through over the course of the game. It’s a sort of push-pull momentum, a perpetual tug-of-war that you’re playing with the game’s systems that lends a very unique and restless energy to the gameplay on offer.
You’re painted as the underdogs right from the get-go, a fact made painfully clear when you see a zombie horde coming at you with unerring focus. But the game also gives you everything you need to fight back and try to win each battle you’re in on your own terms. You’re just going to have to coordinate with your squad, working together and being ready to lean on each other when your plans go awry.
You’re given fancy rides and lots of guns. But victory in Toxic Commando isn’t just about shooting as many bullets as you can into an oncoming horde of zombies, or running over groups of them with your giant wheels. It’s about how you use those bullets and wheels to maximize their destructive potential that makes the game so enjoyable.
Is This The Next Awesome Shooter?
We certainly hope so. It’s got so much potential to be a lot of fun, and could stay that way for a while if Saber manages to keep you coming back for more. But with a lot to do already on the table when the game releases, the developers could sit back and listen for feedback on the release build.
That feedback’s looking reasonably good for the playable demo, and there’s no reason to see why things may change when the full game makes its way into its players’ hands. But at this moment, Toxic Commando is looking like a solid FPS title that can stand out in a crowded space thanks to how it has been built around mayhem.
That makes for some tense situations and tight gameplay, a potent combination that’s made even better by some excellent narrative framing and characters whose disagreements often result in some much-needed comic relief. It could very well turn out too good to be true, but we’re thinking that this one is going to grab its fair share of fans who’d swear by its unique brand of action.
Note: The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of, and should not be attributed to, GamingBolt as an organization.
