John Carpenter's Toxic Commando was provided by Saber Interactive for review. Thank you!
Ever since I played Left 4 Dead, I have consistently been looking for a new co-op game that gives me the same feeling. I was hoping Back 4 Blood would do it, since it came from the original studio behind Left 4 Dead, but there was just something missing. Then comes John Carpenter's Toxic Commando. I first played it at Gamescom last year, and I was blown away. The 1 hour I had with it stunned me, and it felt like a refined Left 4 Dead with intriguing progression, customization, and an appealing semi-open world. Playing it all the way through not only convinced me it's a competent co-op zombie shooter, but it's better than Left 4 Dead.
While there is a story, I wouldn't say it should be a defining reason to get the game. The bulk of it is that zombies are here, and we need to work together and complete missions to destroy them and a gigantic Sludge God that looks like it could destroy an entire town by swinging one of its tentacles. It's okay and does the job, but the main reason anyone should be considering Toxic Commando is going to be for its gameplay, which is just fantastic.
If I had to explain Toxic Commando’s gameplay in a few words, I would say imagine Left 4 Dead as a semi-open map experience, and I love it. The gunplay feels tight, making it so enjoyable to just shoot at zombies. Most of the regular zombies are grunts and can go down in a few shots, and are one-hit kills from headshots. It’s hard to quantify just how satisfying it was to kill them and watch their heads explode; it was just fantastic.
There are special zombies as well, which was another reminder of Left 4 Dead. We have extra powerful zombies that will grab you, zombies with tentacles that can grab from further away, "Skunks" that can make zombies stronger, and even ones with bombs for heads that will try to kamikaze. However, there are some more stationary tendrils that can come up from the ground to whack you or shoot fire lasers at you. This made it extra important to watch the surroundings and make sure nothing was happening around you that you weren’t aware of.
I felt like I was on my toes at all times as I was exploring the map, trying to get stocked up on ammo, extra guns, and currency to prepare myself for the rest of the mission. The semi-open map is decently sized, big enough to drive a car through, but not overwhelmingly big in a way that spreads out activities. Everything is relatively close to each other, making the travel time between points of interest short. This was a great decision, as it keeps the action flowing with minimal downtime for travel. The balance of map size and the locations of points of interest really pulls its weight, making each run feel like back-to-back action, which larger open-world games struggle with.
Still, despite the contained map, I felt like I had a lot of options when tackling my main objective. I could go to these optional points to get super-strong, temporary weapons, stock up on spare parts to activate traps and repair mountable turrets that will help exponentially later on, and even choose from different vehicles on the map that all have different abilities. Some cars can let out huge blasts that blow away zombies, some have mountable turrets, while others can regenerate HP for all teammates around them. I consistently found myself going around the map strategically to make sure I got all the spare parts I would need later and stocking up on ammo and gear to make it through the consistent onslaught of thousands of zombies.
And playing Toxic Commando with a full team of 3 other friends makes the experience even better. Coordinating with friends to tackle the main and optional objectives, as well as managing each of the unique abilities of the four classes, elevates what was already a blast alone. I’ll admit, I enjoyed playing through some missions alone to grind currency to upgrade my weapons, but being able to have a full team with friends just further improves a winning formula.
If I had to pick out one aspect that could have been improved, it would be mission structure. Most missions followed a similar path for their main objectives: gather something, then go to a spot, and hold out for a final, huge wave of enemies. However, even the objectives leading up to the final wave were varied. One map had us finding an ID card and fighting a mutated scientist, while another had us trapping a special infected to take and analyze its DNA. Even though they all generally ended the same way, it still felt varied enough not to feel repetitive. And while the maps themselves don't change, the locations of points of interest do, so there is some minor variety when replaying levels.
Then, we have the progression system, which I found more than motivating to keep going back for more. Throughout each level, we’ll find multiple different currencies that we can use to upgrade our weapons with attachments or buy new skins for them. These, along with everything else in the vicinity, will be easily marked on the map, so it isn’t too difficult to find. A type of that, there are three different leveling systems in the game. We will level up our profile to customize our social banner, level up our class to get skill points to make our abilities more powerful, and we can individually level up each weapon. Leveling up weapons unlocks new attachments that we can buy and use, and will give us the ability to rank up and prestige our weapons. Upgrading our weapons will be the main way. We get more powerful, with some passive abilities that can come from the skill tree, like faster reloading, carrying more grenades, or increasing the amount of ammo we can carry for our primary weapon.
Initially, I actually felt there was something missing from Toic Commando's progression. However, the more I played, the more I realized just how great the system is. I found myself subconsciously going back into maps to just get more currency, so I could tune my weapon. There are a good number of attachment options to tune our guns, and bringing in ranking up, which increases the gun’s stats even further, and prestige just kept me motivated. I even found myself starting to move away from the weapon I used initially, just to start tuning it to make it a worthwhile replacement.
On top of that, the customization system for guns was better than I expected. There are good amount of skin to choose from for each gun, but you aren’t forced to just use one skin on each gun. You can actually choose different skins for different parts of your gun, making attachments like the barrel or magazine have a completely different skin from the base of your weapon. This can make your weapon look extremely unique, and I haven’t seen many games do this. It’s awesome. It makes up for the fact that the skins for your characters are pretty basic.
Now, John Carpenter’s Toxic Commando is playable on the Steam Deck, and I actually enjoyed it this way. However, there are some big compromises to playing this on the go. As I mentioned in my preview coverage for the game, I was shocked that it was even able to run on the Deck. This is a solid-looking game with a semi-open world and tons of zombies and action on the screen at any given time. So, the fact that it can hold 30 FPS most of the time is phenomenal.
The only time I ever saw the game drop below 30 is in those final wave moments. Throughout most of the levels, you’ll be facing groups of 50 to 100 zombies at any given time, but in the final wave, this is multiplied significantly. This can bring down the frame rate to around 24-25 FPS, but this is the only time it has gone down. Otherwise, the frame rate held strong at 30, which is pretty great.
I know this is a first-person shooter, which means it is much better when it’s running at 60 FPS, but to play this on the Deck at all is pretty amazing.
Even though the game is on the lowest visual quality with FSR upscaling, it still looks pretty good. There were some model pop-ins that were noticeable, but the quality was good enough that I could see zombies further away. I was even able to snipe some of them with my pistol from a distance because I could tell where the head was. The game could definitely look better, there’s no doubt about that, but the fact that it holds up so strongly, despite the sacrifices needed to make it run well on the Deck, should be praised.
However, I do want to mention that if you plan to play this on multiple devices using cloud saves through Steam, it will save your graphics settings. I tried using my cloud save on my PC with a 4K monitor, but it defaulted my game to the lowest settings and 1280 x 800 resolution.
While there aren't specific accessibility settings, there are still a good chunk of settings to change. This includes subtitle size, a profanity filter, language, audio settings, controller sensitivity and vibration, swapping shoulder and trigger buttons, toggling camera shake, and changing aim assist strength.
The game does support 16:10 resolutions and has both cloud saves and controller support. There are no HDR settings.
John Carpenter's Toxic Commando surprised me. I expected it to be an enjoyable co-op shooter based on my previous experiences with it, but it ended up becoming my go-to game to play with friends. The gunplay is tight and extremely satisfying, and the decision to use contained maps with easy-to-find points of interest means there's action around almost every corner. There's also so much to upgrade, with gun customization being a very high point, and skill trees for the four character classes improving our abilities further. Even though there could be a little more variety, especially with character skins, John Carpenter's Toxic Commando is one of the best co-op experiences I have had the pleasure of enjoying.
On top of that, it surprisingly runs quite well on the Steam Deck. Even though we need low settings, especially for the final waves of each level, it competently sticks to 30 FPS for the most part, and looks quite good as well. This is a great way to grind and get some currency to upgrade your weapons, but I could see playing through the entire game this way as well.
Our review is based on the PC version of this game.
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John Carpenter's Toxic Commando is one of the best co-op games I have played with fantastic gunplay, great progression, and surprisingly playable Steam Deck performance.
Great review explaining the chaotic fun of John Carpenter’s Toxic Commando, especially the intense zombie hordes and teamwork-focused gameplay. It sounds like a thrilling co-op experience. What part of the game felt most satisfying when playing with a full team?