John Carpenter's Toxic Commando Review: Rough Edges and a Lot of Heart

John Carpenter's Toxic Commando is a new action-adventure FPS that hopes to bring some new blood into the world of zombie shooters. This co-op game has some interesting things on offer and really leans into the fully cinematic moments that John Carpenter is known for. It's developed by Saber Interactive, the minds behind World War Z and Space Marine 2.

If you've played some zombie shooters before, you'll have a pretty solid understanding of what's going on and how everything works. The game, for the most part, keeps things pretty simple, but that works both for and against it. There is an overall story here with some interesting lore and characters, coupled with some fun gameplay where you'll mow down thousands of undead hordes.

I played about ten hours of the game, mostly solo, which is an important part I'll get to later, and really found myself enjoying the game even as I replayed levels to get upgrades or try out new things. The game has some really cool pieces, but there are some pretty rough edges on this one that can hopefully be smoothed out in the future.

What is Toxic Commando?

If you've ever played Left 4 Dead or Back 4 Blood, you'll feel right at home here in Toxic Commando. The game works pretty much the same way the classic Left 4 Dead games worked. Everything is mission-based, so you'll choose a mission to go on, a difficulty, get yourself and your allies all kitted out and ready for the mayhem.

That's not where it ends, though, because Toxic Commando adds in something a little different to enhance your mayhem capabilities with classes. There are four to choose from, each one filling out its own niche and providing some very useful help in combat. Each class levels up individually, so all the skill points are individual, and they can be reset at any time for no cost.

There's also a nice arsenal of weapons to choose from, including some fun equipment to use that'll help you tear through the normal and special monsters you'll face during missions. Beyond that, there is one big difference between this game and previous incarnations: you'll be able to drive nine different vehicles, all with their own abilities.

You'll absolutely need a vehicle as you traverse the rather sizable maps and make your way to your objective. There are some other objectives or helpful places you can stop off to get things like health, ammo, and resources. Planning your route through the level is an important part of the game, but not more important than blowing the undead sky-high.

Classes and Commandos

One of the more interesting aspects of the game is the class system that's also coupled with different characters you can play as. They aren't intertwined, so you don't need to choose between your favorite character and class. Having the freedom to pick whatever character you like the most and have it not impact your gameplay was a nice choice, giving players a little more control over themselves.

Each character fills a niche much like the classes; you have two more flippant characters combined with two who take things a bit more seriously. Their personalities were interesting, and the banter between them was solid in the downtime between objectives. It never felt like they were talking too much, and the dialogue between them was well-written enough to garner my attention most of the time.

In terms of classes, all four have a singular ability with a ton of upgrades that let you decide how you prefer to play that class. It added some extra depth to the game and made leveling feel necessary to take on the tougher challenges. The really cool thing here is that the upgrades stack, so when you get the next level, it's actually adding both that level and the previous level together.

While running through one class for most of the campaign, it became apparent that you'd have to play through most of the campaign a second time if you were hoping to level the next class. It was a little disheartening to realize you couldn't upgrade the difficulty without facing an incredibly difficult uphill fight, at least in solo.

A Truly Wild Story

I've played a lot of weird games with darker overtones and strange lore, but Toxic Commando is definitely up there in terms of strangeness. The monsters you face off against aren't actually zombies, but rather, infected humans. They're infected by some kind of crazy Sludge God monster that's being contained in a massive area thanks to the guy who hired you, Leon.

It's an odd setup that lends itself well to some darker humor and more ridiculous conversations. It also brings some levity to otherwise very disturbing information, such as some people choosing to be infected to worship the Sludge God. Leon is significantly more macabre about everything while your characters discuss objectives and how messed up the whole situation is.

The biggest problem I have with the story is that there just isn't enough of it. Each of the nine missions has a short intro cutscene followed by a longer, more story-focused one, but neither really pushes beyond just shoveling you to the next mission or wrapping things up in a nice little bow.

With only nine missions to play and no other modes or anything to push the story forward, you're sort of left wanting when it comes to information and character interactions. By the end of the campaign, everything seems wrapped up in a nice little bow, but it's possible to expand on it, and hopefully, it will be expanded on to add some more variation in what you can do and what each mission looks like.

Specifically A Co-op Game

This might sound a little odd to bring up, but I wanted to make sure I touched on it, considering most of my time with the game was spent solo. Playing with other people is a significant improvement to the formula rather than playing alone with bots. The bots can be helpful, and you can use them to set up defenses and whatnot, but that's about where it ends.

Toxic Commando is a game meant to be shared with other people, whether that's randoms online or friends. Since I had access to the game along with a small population of people, finding a game or others to play in my games was rare, to say the least. It didn't detract from the story, but it did hurt the game as a whole.

The bots are helpful and can do some basic things, but they can't drive vehicles or activate objectives. They're even more useless when you try to push into harder difficulties, which is compounded by the fact that when you die, you're dead for good. It makes sense, since there wouldn't be a real challenge if you could just die continuously, but never have to worry about a game over.

I'm sure when the game is out and randoms are more plentiful, it'll be a much more enjoyable experience. Even with that said, you can still get a solid 10 or so hours out of the story since missions can take up a good chunk of time. They're probably much faster when you aren't doing everything literally by yourself, which is incredibly time-consuming and frustrating.

The bots can't grab ammo for the heavy machine gun, or fuel, or anything. They don't have healing for you to use, beyond the temp heals of the Medic class, and they can't really help outside utilizing spare parts. The spare parts help is awesome when you're defending an objective, but in those in-between moments, they just make more work for you. Want to reload the HMG on the back of the vehicle, and put some gas in the tank? Do it yourself because the bots won't help.

Riding in Style

One fascinating aspect of the game is the inclusion of vehicles that all possess different abilities. It gave some more meaning to choosing what cars you might want to utilize while completing the mission. For instance, in a round I played with some randoms, we brought both the Ambulance, for healing, and the HMV-Maverick, for the heavy machine gun.

While their abilities and the weapons potentially attached are a big part of what makes them interesting, there is a piece of game design I've not really ever seen used before in a game like this. Most of the maps have dirt roads that are covered in water, basically making them muddy. This slows down the vehicle and, in some cases, can prevent you from ever moving.

It added another layer to thinking about the path you would take to the objective. It was something I hadn't ever considered, but after experiencing it, I really enjoyed how much more tension it added. Most of the vehicles on the muddier maps have a way around this, like boosting or using the wench, so it was never frustrating to the point where I felt hindered.

Vehicles in games like this are usually far less entertaining, but they really nailed the driving aspects and gave each car an identity. They aren't a crazy innovative change from how things work normally, but they are really fun to drive, which is important given that you'll spend most of your time in a vehicle.

Visually Disturbing in the Best Way

The art direction for the game really nailed the creepy tentacle sludge eldritch horror vibe. The color palette isn't exactly going beyond the pale, since everything is mostly dark and sombre colors. That doesn't stop things from looking spectacular, from the enemies to the tendrils that cover the map.

Visually speaking, there aren't many moments where you're overlooking some spectacular vista, but you are often overlooking a horde of monsters approaching whatever objective you might be covering. The special monsters are another breed of freaky, but they still communicate how they work pretty well.

For instance, the Goon is the charger of the group and is built like a battering ram, while something like the Snare is an amalgamation of tentacles that serves as the grappler of the group. Once you see them, it's pretty easy to guess what they'll do. Not only do their designs easily convey what they do, but they look perfectly creepy and intimidating.

Though nothing can compare to the cinematic set pieces that the game sets up for each mission. From defending the gates of churches to watching swarms of monsters cross large open areas. Each monster is well-defined, and watching the explosions and bodies fly is a pretty surreal moment.

Progression for Fun and Challenge

Progression in this game is a little bit wonky; some of it is really great, while other parts leave something to be desired. It works similarly to other zombie shooters you know and love, but it's a little rough in this game. There are three main forms of progression: weapons, class levels, and cosmetics.

Weapons do have cosmetics, but we'll get to that in a second. You can purchase upgrades for your guns using the resources you gather during each of your runs, like sights and various attachments. They aren't a necessity, but they can be helpful when you're progressing towards prestiging a gun, resetting it, and unlocking a unique skin.

Class levels and cosmetics work the same way as most games. You'll acquire XP, which grants you skill points to spend on your classes, and the resources you collect can be spent on cosmetics for all sorts of things, from your character to vehicles. The rarer and more interesting cosmetics can only be bought with a resource acquired during the harder difficulties of the game.

Cosmetics overall are pretty fun, and there are a ton of them to get. If you're a fiend for cosmetics, you'll have your work cut out for you, as every single thing in the game has some level of customization. One really cool thing that I appreciated was that you can change individual parts of a gun and color them how you please. It was a nice additional level of freedom for cosmetics.

I only had one real problem with progression in respect to classes; it felt counterintuitive. As you play through the campaign, you'll probably end up playing with just one class, the one that appeals to your playstyle, and by the time you finish, you'll be around level 15. That's when the skill tree is fully unlocked, and you can start doing some fun build crafting.

The only issue is that if you want to try out another class, either during the campaign or after, you basically have to go back through the campaign or do random missions at the same difficulty if you aren't being supported by stronger players. It does help keep lower-level players from jumping into things they can't handle, but it also means you're stuck at the same difficulty for a bit longer.

With no horde mode and just the campaign missions to play, you're a little limited in how you go about leveling. It does mean you'll get a very good feel for the levels themselves, but it can get a little tedious, especially as a solo player. If you're playing with a group, it'll probably still be a little frustrating having to stay at the same difficulty or go backwards if you don't feel like you're making an impact.

In its best moments, John Carpenter's Toxic Commando is an unbelievably good time. Even in its worst moments, it's still a pretty solid zombie shooter with some great set pieces. That being said, any problems with the game can and probably will be fixed in time. The janky bots and frustrating solo player experience definitely make things a little rough around the edges, but underneath that is a fantastic game that will absolutely exceed your expectations if you give it a chance.