Despite being over a decade old at this point, Valve’s Left 4 Dead is seeing a remarkable surge in spiritual successors as of late. Last year’s Back 4 Blood saw plenty of hype near its launch thanks to its pedigree and the innovations it made on the formula that made the original so beloved. Now, in a strange echo of that, Stray Bombay, the new studio of former Left 4 Dead writer Chet Faliszek, has launched The Anacrusis, which just so happens to be a a remarkably similar sci-fi variant of that old classic franchise.

The most frustrating thing that The Anacrusis shares with Left 4 Dead is a distinct lack of setup or a cohesive narrative. There are things happening in each of the game’s three current episodes, but why they’re happening or what events caused them are left needlessly vague. There is a small bright spot in the writing department, however, as the character’s snippets of dialogue and brief conversations do a lot to give them a little more personality than might be expected. Unfortunately, while nice, these moments are hamstrung by their infrequency and brevity. The game could definitely do with allowing them to be a bit chattier.

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Much of the overall gameplay is a spin on the Left 4 Dead games, from the inventory to the set pieces, though there are some key, if minute, differences. Probably the most impactful and interesting deviance is the perk system. Scattered around the various areas of the episodes are Matter Compilers, which give players their choice of a permanent random buff to one of their abilities. The buff’s effects have a wide range and can be anything from augmenting the different weapons on offer to giving the player a one-hit shield after using their protective Pulse to push away enemies. These powers can be quite fun to play with and do add to the game’s general replayability, though it can be frustrating to lose them if the party wipes and has to replay an episode section, as they don’t hold over until the next checkpoint is reached.

This is an encounter with a Brute in The Anacrusis.

The threat of replaying game segments is potent for more than just that reason. Not only are the levels as a whole quite long, but the sections can take upwards of almost half an hour to beat. When this aspect of the level design is combined with an emphasis on exploring the levels in order to find both gear and perks, the progression loss can be very frustrating. Admittedly, this irksome aspect of the game can be overlooked somewhat when playing with a group as failure is simply more time to play with friends, but in the single-player game mode, or when paired with a random group, it is hard to not feel like the fun of the game is beginning to seem overshadowed.

Unfortunately, the woes for solo players don’t stop with the lengthy level design as the game’s bot AI is in need of some major reworks. At the current moment playing alone feels less like adventuring with artificial allies and more like piloting around glorified turrets that steal healing items. They’re actually not terrible turrets, but the bad thing is that this is all they are capable of doing outside of healing. They cannot throw grenades, use specialty weapons, or even use all of the available weapons despite there only being three outside of the default pistol - which they also don’t use. Playing alone is playing completely alone, and it feels like it.

This is one of the climax battles in The Anacrusis.

To say that The Anacrusis is better with friends is an incredible understatement, as it’s less like a different experience and more like a completely different game. Everything just feels more cohesive with co-op. Teamwork and communication make objectives and combat more exciting, while death feels less like a chore. This is the type of game that is meant to be played one way and one way only, but when it’s that much better, there’s nothing really wrong with that, and The Anacrusis is well worth anyone's time if they can put together their own team to tackle it with.

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The Anacrusis was released on January 13th for the PC, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S. Screen Rant was provided a digital Steam key for the purposes of this review.