Back 4 Blood has garnered considerable acclaim for its zombie-shooting gameplay, but it also features a full story with its own interesting twists on zombie apocalypse fiction. With full cutscenes and a 4-act campaign, Back 4 Blood goes further, in terms of storytelling prowess, than its spiritual predecessor, Left 4 Dead. However, given the somewhat fractured nature of the game's multiplayer, where players may not play through the story in linear fashion, a full breakdown of the story may help players better understand the Ridden zombies and their history.
Back 4 Blood focuses more on gameplay than plot, with its characters, known as Cleaners, working together to fight the invasion and take back the planet from the horde. With the game's more extraterrestrial and even occasionally Lovecraftian take on the zombie menace, they've got their work cut out for them.
Bits and pieces of Back 4 Blood's story are strung together over the course of the campaign, and with a few conversations and scattered cutscenes included for good measure, there's a fair bit to explore. But the game doesn't key players in to quite as much background information about the Ridden and their nature (or origins), dealing more with the on-the-ground story of its Cleaners. A great deal of its backstory has come from developer Turtle Rock's prerelease content.
Back 4 Blood's Devil Worms Came From Space
About 1.4 million years before the events of Back 4 Blood's story take place, a meteor crashed into the northern region of Québec, Canada. Today, the impact crater is known as the Pingualuit Crater and its surrounding area is the Pingualuit National Park. Since the mid-20th century, scientists and geologists have made many expeditions to study the crater and the lake within it for clues about the past - but the last expedition was different.
As the group of scientists and geologists were gathering samples from the crater, one of them found something particularly interesting. It was the perfectly preserved body of a strange worm that no one could identify, the kind of discovery most scientists might dream of making. With the possibility of introducing a new class of lifeforms to Back 4 Blood's world, the worm was carefully placed into a sample container and later studied at a lab in Québec City.
However, while testing some solutions on the worm, it began to wriggle around in the petri dish. The worms turned out to be activated by water, but the scientist had little time to process the discovery before the worm lunged at him. The parasite, now known as the Devil Worm, burrowed into the scientist and immediately took over his body in order to spread itself to more hosts. The parasite spread at an unprecedented rate and quickly turned the Americas into a collection of settlements struggling to survive against what they have dubbed "the Ridden."
Black 4 Blood's Campaign Story Story Setup
The events of the game begin when the settlement of Fort Hope sends out some soldiers to meet with a nearby town, beginning the Cleaners' difficult campaign in Back 4 Blood. "Cleaner" is the term given to those who leave settlements for supply drops, scavenging, combat, and so on. This particular group is made up of Walker, "Mom," Holly, and Evangelo - an ex-Army Ranger, a battle-hardened woman, an orphan with a penchant for baseball bats, and a wisecracking newbie. This group is sent to meet with a man named Renfrick at a bar in the nearby town of Evansburgh, which has managed (thus far) to hold off the Ridden.
Walker informs Renfrick during this meeting that if he wants more supplies, then he must work with Phillips again. General Phillips is the leader of Fort Hope, home base for these Cleaners, and Renfrick seems to have worked with him before. But Renfrick explains he's "done playin soldiers for him," encouraging the others to do the same. Renfrick tries appealing to Back 4 Blood's Chris, the playable character known as Mom, because Phillips somehow is responsible for the death of her son Jason. While she makes her disdain of Phillips clear, she also knows that he's right in believing that the Ridden need to be destroyed for humanity to truly survive.
The Ridden are the term given to those infected by the Devil Worm, which mutates its host into a fast and aggressive creature with the sole purpose of spreading the worm to more hosts. While most Ridden retain enough human features to be recognizable as human, there have been several grotesque mutations that have resulted in special types of Ridden zombies. These include Stinger-types, Reeker-types, Tallboy-types, Snitchers, Sleepers, and a more powerful set known as Hags, Ogres, and Breakers.
The Events Of Back 4 Blood's Story
As Renfrick comments that it's been a long time since any of them saw a group of Ridden, one falls from the ceiling and kills him. The group fights their way out of the bar, narrowly surviving encounters with a Retch and a Tallboy. Not long after making their way out of the bar, Phillips calls out to survivors via the radio to inform them that they will be blocking all exits to the town in order to keep the Ridden from spreading and that they need to evacuate or be left behind.
The group manages to make it across the town's bridge and destroy it, reluctantly leaving anyone they left behind to fend for themselves. On their way back to Back 4 Blood's hub, Fort Hope, they're informed that the settlement is struggling to push back the surviving Ridden, despite the efforts of General Phillips, assorted armed individuals, and a second group of Cleaners. This latter group includes Doc, Jim, Karlee, and Hoffman - a medic, military marksman, lone wolf, and doomsday prepper, respectively.
With the arrival of the main group, Fort Hope is able to fight back the last of the Ridden and secure the settlement once again. They are then sent to Bluedog Mine, a location revealed to likely be the source of Back 4 Blood's Ridden swarm, where a team has already fallen while attempting to seal it. This situation brings a lot of the Cleaners' tension with Phillips to the surface, but they all know that the mine needs to be sealed off and successfully do so. After scavenging for more supplies and survivors following this event, Fort Hope can settle and rebuild.
Their next mission in Back 4 Blood's story is a bit of a surprise, as Phillips tells them that they need to seek out someone named Dr. Rogers, a scientist who is developing a way to fight back the Ridden and is near a breakthrough. Rogers initially set out to study the Devil Worm parasite and develop a way to cure the plague it brought, but that goal quickly changed to finding a way to destroy the Ridden for good. When the group finally meets Rogers, he offers a demonstration of his T-5 weapon for them by launching it via mortar fire.
The explosion doesn't leave much time for reflection as the Ridden begin descending on their location, but Rogers needs his research before they can escape. This leads them to various sites in which Rogers was working and testing Back 4 Blood's T-5, but their last stop is one littered with mountains of bodies. To their horror, the Cleaners are informed that the area was used as a mass grave due to morgues and funeral homes being filled and having nowhere else to put them. Before long, it became a charnel breeding ground.
This is what allowed all the special mutations to occur so quickly throughout Back 4 Blood's story and why the surrounding areas were filled with Ridden and their DOOM Eternal-style gore nests. It's also why Rogers was using this site as a testing ground for his weapon. They gather the last of the research, secure the T-5, and defeat numerous special Ridden in the process. Dr. Rogers ultimately gets a transmission from Fort Hope, simply telling the team that they're "in the endgame now" as they board their helicopter.
Back 4 Blood's Abomination & Ending Explained
Back 4 Blood's Cleaners and Rogers return to Fort Hope, only to be met by fire and hordes of Ridden. In the air, the team makes good use of the helicopter's mini-gun and fires down into Ridden. On the ground, Phillips and his soldiers do their best to fight the Ridden and get people into vehicles for evacuation, but they're quickly being overrun. Suddenly, a violent tremor stops the action for a moment and from the crack in the earth rises something that hasn't yet appeared in Back 4 Blood - a massive, godlike beast simply called the Abomination.
It towers over Fort Hope and uses its tentacles to cause more destruction, but the Cleaners in the helicopter quickly regroup and realize that they have the best means of taking it down. They fly over the Abomination and as it looks up at them, mouth open, throw the T-5 canister out of the helicopter and open fire as it nears the Abomination's face. They seem to do some significant damage, but a special Ridden lobs a part of itself at the helicopter, causing it to crash to the ground.
With both groups now on the ground and the Abomination weakened, they chase it underground and pick away at the Back 4 Blood's final boss' exposed weaknesses. After taking a ton of physical abuse, the Abomination thrashes and causes a collapse in the cavern they're all in and the Cleaners quickly rush to climb out of the cavern through a newly made opening. With the Abomination lumbering behind them, they manage to make it back to the surface, but Doc slips and starts sliding back down towards the Abomination's open mouth. The Cleaners make one last attempt to kill it and save Doc by opening fire, hitting the Abomination directly in the face until it goes quiet.
Doc makes it back to the surface after the Cleaners stop firing, realizing that they beat the Abomination as it falls into the collapsing cavern. As they wonder what this thing was, and whether there could be more, Walker expresses that he intends to find out - with a little help from his fellow Cleaners. While players may be loaded with Supply Points and cards as Back 4 Blood's story ends in victory, there is still little of substance known about the Devil Worm and how it could alter life so fundamentally. More answers may come to light as the journey continues in future updates.