Left 4 Dead creator's new co-op shooter just won me back after its limp Game Awards reveal

We're blessed with some truly great co-op shooters right now, so any game that wants to muscle in with the likes of Helldivers 2, Space Marine 2, and Warframe will have it tough. Having the creator of Left 4 Dead at the helm, though, certainly increases your chances. While the writer in me has nightmares about the name 4Loop, I have to say that I was impressed by its appearance at the State of Play showcase this week - a proper dive into its gameplay was just what it needed after I was left extremely underwhelmed by its reveal at The Game Awards in December.

Before we'd seen it in action or even knew it'd be (distressingly) called 4Loop, word of a new project from Left 4 Dead creator Mike Booth began to bubble to the surface last year. We then discovered that this was being made by Bad Robot Games, the videogame division of J.J. Abrams' production company, with backing from Sony. Then, at The Game Awards, the name and our first look at gameplay was unveiled. I can't lie, that reveal didn't meet my expectations, given the involvement of the dev largely responsible for one of the best co-op games ever. It fell very flat.

There were some cool visual ideas, such as a floating boss that looked like a satanic Rubik's Cube, but with its 'you're expendable, we can just re-print you' narrative, it felt to me like an attempt to just be another Helldivers 2. That'd make sense on Sony's end, given that game's ongoing success, but I was hoping for something a bit more novel.

However, in yesterday's State of Play showcase, 4Loop got some decent airtime, offering up some more intriguing gameplay footage and a much fuller explanation of its roguelite, erm, loop.

Each session begins at the tactical map - a series of nodes connected to each other that act as your route to a final boss battle at the end. Each node represents a mission that you and your team of (you guessed it) up to four players must carry out - so long as at least one person makes it out alive, you'll succeed and move to the next section of the tactical map. Fail, and it's run over. While gearing up between missions, all team members get to vote on which node you jump to next, meaning you can pick the objective types that play into your strengths (or just your personal preferences). The content of these missions, from what was shown, seems fairly basic - rescue a hostage, harvest some resources and extract, that kind of thing. But it's the actual combat sandbox that's impressed me most.

As well as an array of guns and weapons for taking out enemies, there are plenty of other ways to outsmart your PvE foes. There are portals (something this Splitgate enjoyer can get behind), you can go invisible to sneak past enemies, you can pick Blink Berries that can be used to teleport enemies away to a random location on the map - it looks far more promising than the rather action-less reveal trailer back in December.

That hellish cube boss returns in the gameplay footage too, with Booth explaining that while trying to precisely shoot all of its rotating squares to deal damage, you also need to navigate a "dynamic obstacle course of lasers." Even if the objectives of the actual missions leading up to final encounters are on the basic side, more unique boss battles will certainly make up for that. This cube of doom seems to be a positive indication of how Bad Robot Games is tackling bosses, so more of the same, please, Mr Booth.

Finally, it's confirmed that the footage shown is still pre-beta and that "upcoming playtests" will be rolled out to help refine and shape the game. After the recent dramas around the public playtest-less Highguard, that's a huge sigh of relief. With 4Loop set to launch on PC as well as PS5, those playtests should hopefully be accessible on Steam sometime soon. However, no concrete dates or windows were given.

I'm really glad my mind has been changed on 4Loop, but (without wanting to get too caught up on Highguard again) it does demonstrate how first impressions really matter for multiplayer games like these. Short, punchy trailers often do an injustice to these kinds of games - sure, establish your setting, your tone, and your world, but it's just as important to effectively show what kind of gameplay loop you're actually offering.