John Carpenter's Toxic Commando Is Never-Ending Sweet Chaos, And Is Actually Playable On The Steam Deck - Preview

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During Gamescom, there were a few games that won the show for me with their intriguing premise or just straight-up addictive gameplay. John Carpenter's Toxic Commando is one of those games that stole the show for me. It was one of my first appointments, but I was immediately drawn in by the Left 4 Dead-esque gameplay, tight gunplay, and gorgeous visuals. It was chaotic and exciting all the same, and I wanted more as soon as my appointment ended.

Luckily for me, that wait ended recently. I was given the chance to check out the game on my own and preview it, giving me more time to play around with the mechanics and check out more of the progression at my own pace. It also gave me a chance to try out other levels, and of course, play it on the Steam Deck. All in all, I walked away from this impressed on all fronts, and that release date can't come soon enough.

The actual gunplay is just as intense and tight as I remember it. Every shot felt satisfying, the way the UI reacts to headshots kept me engaged, and it felt like I had lots of freedom to do as I pleased within the level. Each stage is semi-open, so we can choose which points of interest to go to in whatever order we want, and it's big enough that having a car is going to help a lot. Still, there are zombies everywhere, and even the empty spots between points felt engaging as we had to defend ourselves from the horde. On top of that, I got to play more stages than I did before, and I am enjoying the variety. The driving itself feels like a lite version of the mechanics they have in Saber's other self-developed title, Snowrunner, and strikes a good balance between realistic and unrealistic.

The general gameplay still feels coded with Left 4 Dead DNA, sprinkled in with some of the lessons learned from World War Z, another Saber Interactive-developed game. You team up with up to 4 people in co-op and run around killing zombies. There are objectives to complete, and you will need to battle special-infected like Tanks that can ram into you and slam you into the ground repeatedly, or suicide bombers with giant red, bulbous spheres that will explode when close. And with a seemingly endless horde able to rise from the swampy ground, it's consistently keeping you on your toes and looking around for better loot, ammo, and medpacks to keep yourself alive.

To get some of this new loot, you will have to go around and find Spare Parts. These aren't difficult to find, but there are a limited number of them. They can be used to unlock new, more powerful weapons, enact defenses in some areas, or even unlock Turrets or Mortars around the level. Management of these will be key to maximizing what we need throughout the stage.

Each person also has a class, and with each class comes a unique special ability and skill tree. The special abilities all vary and will be extremely useful throughout the game, like the Medic's temporary healing circle or the Strike's destructive Fireball (it's more like an electric ball, really). Using them at the right times in tandem will be useful and could be a make-or-break between life and death.

One aspect of Toxic Commando I wasn't able to check out as much at the events was progression, but now I was able to, and I love the systems they have so far. There are player, class, and weapon levels that go up, providing different benefits that all work together to make us stronger. Player Levels give us extra resources to buy new weapon mods and costumes, while class levels will give us skill points to put into our skill tree. Weapon levels unlock new mods and skins to purchase, as well as the ability to upgrade the weapon tier to make it more powerful. Each weapon has its own level, and some pretty detailed customization options that allow us to put different skins on different parts of the weapon.

As for the Steam Deck, that's probably where I was most impressed. I went in not expecting the game to run on the Deck at all. This is a semi-open world with tons of zombies on screen at once with near-constant chaos, vehicles to drive in, and more. So, it surprised me that the game is ultimately quite playable on the Steam Deck so far, enough to the point where I am optimistic the full game could be enjoyable for portable play.

It defaults to low settings, and that comes with FSR upscaling set to Performance. While I initially thought it was a little too blurry, and in some aspects, like the Character Selection screen, it is, it's still very playable. I found most combat entanglements stuck to 30 FPS, as well as driving in a lot of sections of the maps. There are a few spots that were just a bit too demanding for the Deck, and fighting off 200 or more zombies on screen started to see some dips, but the engine powers through pretty quickly, and it never gets too far down where the framerate drops feel awful.

Is this going to be the best experience on the Steam Deck? Of course not. There are many compromises needed to get this game working as well as it is on the Deck. Still, for what it is, and if you can deal with the blurriness, Toxic Commando is shaping up to be a solid experience on the go. And in terms of content, it's just phenomenal. I am so excited to play more and see how the final release looks. It was so much fun playing with my group and ramming through zombies together, coordinating our abilities, and trying to navigate through the never-ending chaos.

John Carpenter's Toxic Commando can be pre-ordered for $39.99 ahead of its March 12th release date.

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