New Back 4 Blood Trailer Introduces The Game's Cast And The Disturbing Ridden

A new trailer has arrived for Back 4 Blood, a spiritual successor to developer Turtle Rock's Left 4 Dead series. This time the focus is on just who you'll be playing as in the zombie apocalypse multiplayer game, as well as several of the enemies you'll face. Just don't call them zombies, as thanks to a viral worm infection, much of the planet's populace has been transformed into what survivors call Ridden.

In the trailer above, Back 4 Blood breaks down its roster of characters, which all serve several different functions as part of the team. War veteran Walker gains increased accuracy from precision kills, team medic Doc has several healing perks, the quick-footed Karlee can sense hazards, and marksman Jim is perfect for players who prefer to eliminate Ridden from a distance.

Survivalist Hoffman can spawn ammo with every kill, the agile Evangelo can break out of grab traps, and Mom has an instant revive ability. Rounding out the cast is Holly, who recovers stamina with each kill and can hit a few Ridden heads out of the park with her modified baseball bat.

As for the Ridden, the Breaker is an infected enemy whose armor allows it to leap right into the fray of a party, the Snitcher summons more Ridden to swarm players, and the Ogre mashes several infected into "meatballs" that it throws at players. The most disturbing Ridden you'll probably come across though is the Hag, which will literally attempt to eat a player whole. It even has a number of arms sticking out of its mouth, to make escape almost impossible.

Back 4 Blood launches on October 12 for PS5, Xbox Series X|S, and PC, as well as PS4 and Xbox One. One of its more interesting mechanics is a new rogue-lite card system that makes each run different, which some fans were concerned that it could be used to push microtransactions on players. Turtle Rock addressed the matter in a separate post and insisted that the cards will not be available for purchase via any in-game storefront or first-party storefront.