Back 4 Blood December Update Brings Offline Campaign with Progression, Difficulty Adjustments, and Much More

Developer Turtle Rock Studios is pushing out a major new free update for Back 4 Blood tomorrow, and it’ll be bringing about a whole host of new changes and additions to the experience, many of which are things that players have been asking for since the game’s launch in October.

One of the bigger problems with Back 4 Blood was that playing the game solo wasn’t really a viable option, since progression was blocked for those who played the game offline. Turtle Rock had previously said it was looking into ways to address the problem, and those fixes will finally be arriving with this update, with the addition of an offline campaign with progression being enabled.

Meanwhile, a new time-limited supply line has also been added, as well as a new card type and new cards. Another new addition is a holiday seasonal event, which adds holiday decorations to Fore Hope and the Firing Range, and unlockable cosmetics such as character and weapon skins, emblems, and sprays.

Crucially, this update is also making a vast number of adjustments to the game’s difficulty. Turtle Rock had previously admitted that Back 4 Blood had turned out far more difficult than intended, and with this new update, the developer is looking to decrease the disparity across difficulties so that it isn’t as drastic of a jump going from Recruit to Veteran to Nightmare. This includes various buffs, debuffs, spawning adjustments, AI tweaks, and much, much more.

You can check out a selection of the patch notes below, or the full list through here.

Back 4 Blood is available on PS5, Xbox Series X/S, PS4, Xbox One, and PC.

UPDATE NOTES:

NEW FEATURES:

• Offline Campaign with Progression
• New Supply Lines – Roving Merchants
  • Time-limited track added that provides new unlocks to spend Supply Points on
• New Card Type – Burn Cards
  • New card type added that is available through the Roving Merchants Supply Lines
  • This card type can be played in each Saferoom to gain temporary effects like instant healing, currency boosts, increasing resistances, and more
• Holiday Seasonal Event
  • Holiday decorations added to Fort Hope and the Firing Range
  • Unlockable seasonal character skins, weapon skins, emblems, and sprays added
• New (non-Burn) Cards
  • Belt Clip – Increase Quickslot Inventory by 1
  • Utility Belt -Increase Quickslot Inventory by 2. -10% Damage Dealt
  • Tool Belts – Increase Team Quickslot Inventory by 1
• Ridden Practice Area added to Fort Hope
  • Option added to play as a Ridden while in Fort Hope to practice fighting and exploring Mutation abilities
• Bots that accompany the player in Solo Campaign are randomized
• Ultrawide improvements
• Stat tracking now enabled in Training
• Notable bug fix: Fixed an exploit that allowed players to duplicate offensive utility items
• Notable bug fix: Fixed an exploit that allowed players to select duplicates instead of one card

CAMPAIGN:

Balance Updates – Difficulty Specific:

• • Developer Note: One of our goals this patch is to decrease the disparity between the various difficulties so there isn’t as much of a jump from Recruit to Veteran to Nightmare.
  • Recruit:
    • Player base damage resist increased to 25% (was 20%)
    • Continue currency bonus increased to 300 (was 250)
    • Continue Heal bonus increased to 75 (was 25)
    • Continue Trauma heal bonus increased to 25 (was 20)
  • Veteran:
    • Rescaled friendly fire values
    • Sleepers no longer call hordes
    • Player base damage increased to 120% (was 100%)
    • Player base Health increased to 115 (was 100)
    • Player Base ammo capacity increased 120% (was 100%)
    • Trauma heals per safe room +5 (was 0)
    • Continue currency bonus increased to 200 (was 150)
    • Continue Heal bonus increased to 25 (was 15)
    • First aid cabinet free use increased to 2 (was 1)
  • Nightmare:
    • Rescaled friendly fire values
    • First aid cabinet free use increased to 1 (was 0)
    • Special Ridden damage reduced by 35% (was 75%)
    • Common damage reduced by 50% (was 100%)
    • Nightmare extra trauma from incap reduced to 5 (was 10)
    • Reduce nightmare stumble resist on nightmare 25% (was 40%)
    • Reduced nightmare Special Ridden health buff to 7.5% (was 15%)
    • Continue currency bonus increased to 100 (was 0)
    • Continue Heal bonus increased to 10 (was 0)
    • Continue Trauma heal bonus increased to 5 (was 0)
    • Continue Card draw bonus increased to 1 (was 0)
    • Continue Ammo bonus increased to 15% (was 0)
    • Extra incap trauma reduced to 7 (was 10)

Spawning Updates:

• During endless Hordes and back-to-back hordes, all Horde Special Ridden are limited to 2 of a given type and a maximum of 4
• Added a Horde Special Ridden cooldown
  • Developer Note: This helps avoid the doubling of Special Ridden when multiple hordes are triggered.
• Timed Hordes made to have a longer minimum resume time of 60 seconds (was 30) with the exception of custom events.
  • Developer Note: If you triggered a horde while having a timed horde, it was possible to have the timed horde trigger too soon after the initial horde.
• Roaming Special Ridden max count now 4 (was 6)
  • Developer Note: Limits the potential Special Ridden counts in certain situations.
• Reduced chance for all Tallboy variants on Veteran and Nightmare difficulties
• Increased Roaming Special Ridden minimum spawn distance to 30m (was 20m)
• Increased Wander Special Ridden minimum spawn distance to 10m (was 5m)

Ridden AI Updates:

• Blighted Ridden no longer deal instant explosion damage when they die
• Special Ridden’s defense against bullet penetration to weak spots has been reduced
• Sleepers will more accurately connect with their targets
• Tallboy & Bruiser hit boxes are more accurate and their weak spots are easier to hit
  • Developer Note: we cleaned up the Tallboy’s hit boxes to make them easier to hit.  It should now be possible to hit their weak spot from the front if you have a precise weapon.
• Developer Note: The following changes make their attacks a bit more forgiving to dodge.
  • Tallboy & Bruiser Overhead attack damage radius reduced to 200 units (was 250)
  • Tallboys have less ability to turn during a Burst traversal
  • Decreased Crusher squeeze attach distance for squeeze attack to 200 units (was 300)
  • Retch’s effective range in meters decreased to 22 (was 25), tracking and ramp up time adjusted to work better
  • Retch will rotate slightly slower and will track the target for slightly longer during vomit attack (2.25 seconds from 1.6)
  • Retch projectile spray starts at a lower velocity now (75% of max instead of 90% of max) and ramps up to max velocity over a longer period of time (0.75 seconds instead of 0.4 seconds)
• Exploder’s explosion radius is now visible to the Ridden player
• Developer Note: With the following changes, the Hocker’s ability should not be used as much, should be easier to dodge, and you should not take as much damage if an attack landed.
  • Hocker pin projectile speed reduced to 2500 (was 3500) 
  • Hocker pin miss cooldown increased to 8 seconds (was 0) 
  • Hocker pin hit cooldown increased to 8 seconds (was 2) 
  • Hocker initial damage reduced to 5 (was 10)
  • Hocker damage over time increased to 3 (was 2)
• Hag health reduced to 7500 (8200)
• Hag weak spot multiplier increased to 2.25 (was 2)
• Stinger projectile cooldown while perched increased
  • Developer Note: When the Stinger was perched, there was no cooldown on her projectile so she was able to rapidly attack Cleaners.