Over the last 18 months or so I have found myself asking, “how often must we play a new co-op zombie shooter?” and the answer has always been “at least once more”. It seems to have been one of those things where a few years back a bunch of devs all noticed that there hadn’t been one for a while, but didn’t realise they weren’t the only ones to have noticed until the games all started coming out. Anyway, Saber Interactive revealed John Carpenter’s Toxic Commando, to be published by Focus Entertainment, at tonight’s Summer Game Fest. It’s an 80s-inspired FPS for up to four players, and you shoot a bunch of zombs.
John Carpenter’s Toxic Commando – Reveal Trailer | Summer Game Fest 2023
Shout out to the choice of music. I don’t know about you, but the footage of the hordes of zombies kind of reminds me of Days Gone – but shh, we can’t talk about that in case we set off a Tweetstorm. Other elements in the trailer fit kind of neatly into the Left 4 Dead category (one shared by Back 4 Blood, obvi) of co-op zombie shooter i.e. occasional big hordes with larger specially mutated zombies filling the role of tanks or damage-over-time type enemies.
Toxic Commando is doing some stuff differently, though. There are several bits in the trailer that put an emphasis on ploughing a big vehicle through a crowd of zombies while your co-op pals shoot the deados off the front and side. I can imagine that being fun to play! Plus, there’s old JC. The big guy. The man upstairs. John Carpenter’s level of actual involvement in the game is unconfirmed, but he’s at least engaged enough to deliver one of the most charming celebrity quotes I think has ever been attached to a press release like this. Here it is in full:
“It’s exciting to be collaborating on a new video game with Focus and Saber. Look, I really like shooting zombies. They keep telling me that they’re called ’the infected.’ Please. They’re ghouls, dude. They blow up real good and there are a ton of them. People are going to love this game.”
Fucking, right on, John. This man knows where it’s at vis. being told something isn’t a zombie when it’s clearly a zombie. The status on the blowing up real good has yet to be confirmed, but hopefully we’ll have a go at some point before it’s out in 2024. It looks to be one of those Epic games, by the way, which is where the store page is live.
NotE3 and Summer Game Fest 2023 is over for another year. You can find out all the latest news by visiting our E3 2023 hub, or you can catch up with our round-up posts of everything that was announced at Summer Game Fest, the Xbox Games Showcase, the PC Gaming Show, Day Of The Devs, and our top highlights from the Wholesome Direct.
