REVIEW – “John Carpenter’s Toxic Commando” has a neat throwback aesthetic and fun co-op action, but lacks on weaker hardware

As of right now at launch, I’m feeling pretty good about John Carpenter’s Toxic Commando overall. What’s here is beyond competent and a remarkable start to what could be a co-op mainstay for friend groups and those that want at least one good game in this lane whenever possible. Carpenter’s work and influence help elevate it enough to be noteworthy, the ’80s lack of subtlety is appreciated, and more good decisions than perplexing or bad ones make for a good game indeed.

I knew this day would come eventually, when a game would be so impacted by Xbox Series S limitations that I’d have to contend with it somehow. It’s a shame it came at this very moment because John Carpenter’s Toxic Commando is fun as we’ll get into, but the experience is unignorably soured by the reality of the situation.

But let’s get into the basics first. John Carpenter’s Toxic Commando is a co-op zombie shooter/off-road driving simulator, named thusly because one of the masters of horror himself, John Carpenter, contributed to the story of this game as well as its score. Already, there’s cause for curiosity, but let’s work in the fact that it’s made by Saber Interactive who have some notches on their belts like working on the Halo series, Evil Dead: The Game, Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2, and probably the most relevant game to this one, World War Z. Now you’ve got my attention. When I saw the game’s reveal last year, I just hoped it would be even half as good as Left 4 Dead, the game it’s very fair to say it was channeling the most, and maybe a notch or two above Back 4 Blood, which did not successfully capture that same magic as Left 4 Dead.

Carpenter’s name and involvement did this game the biggest service though. By virtue of his fingerprints, we have a game that feels so delightfully ’80s in its theme, execution, and vibe. It feels and acts like a B-movie with explosive violence, body horror, solid characters, and more camp than an RV park. His musical score sets the scene as well, relying on moody, eerie synth lines and foreboding atmosphere that never lets you forget that, as much action as this game packs, it’s also indebted to horror.

The story hits all those points as well. Humans, in their infinite hubris, dig to the earth’s core to harvest its power and energy, accidentally unleashing the Sludge God, a gooey monstrosity that corrupts the surface and reanimates people as zombies. Well, they’re not officially called “zombies” except by the player characters. Their official scientific name is “homo mortus” per Leon, the aging scientist sending you on errands looking to revert the world back to the way it was BSG (that’s Before Sludge God). Let’s be real though, they are zombies, or infected if you must, taking on different forms from the simple, single-minded mobs that run at you (called “roamers” here) to more mutated special ones that have much more power and intelligence like the formidable Slob that dispenses the most “oh shit!” moments in the game just like the Tank did in Left 4 Dead.

Leon can’t do it without you though. There’s a ragtag team of homo sapiens to dispatch the Sludge God and whatever you want to call its offspring. You get Walter who is charming, sometimes funny, and usually dumb; Ruby is angry, rebellious, and Italian; Cato is the calming straight man of the group; and Astrid is the most capable – smart, professional, and all about results. To a degree, they all operate on tropes you’d find in ’80s movies of this type, but narrowly escape being dodgy stereotypes. I gravitated toward Astrid because she’s voiced by Charlet Chung (D.Va from Overwatch) and has a cool blonde streak in the front of her hair. Shout out to Arin Hanson.

No matter who you pick to play, you also get a class. Thankfully, they’re not locked to any of the characters so you can mix and match with your group. I liked Operator the most as it gives a drone that, when activated, mauls groups of zombies and does considerable damage to special ones. You can also spec it to help revive teammates and perform other actions, freeing you up to do your thing autonomously. Medic gets a healing aura which is absolutely invaluable in a game like this, just crowd around your pal and oodles of health get 5Ged into your body in dire times. Strike is a damn mage, able to lob energy balls that cause sizable splash damage and vaporize weaker groups of roamers. Defender of course gets a little dome shield that doubles as a force field that hurts any enemies that have the audacity to enter it.

All these cool abilities don’t make your weapons obsolete though. You have a primary weapon and a sidearm, and you’ll be using both amply in addition to your melee weapon and combat gear (grenades, mines, Molotovs, etc.). Toxic Commando specifically targets the retired Call of Duty prestigers like me with how the game offers level resets once you hit level 10. You lose all your upgrades and attachments you gave it, and get a skin in return. In other words, it’s not worth it and I regretted it immediately when I tried it with my highly upgraded, legally distinct AK-47.

All weapons are unlocked from the beginning. On one hand, thank the Sludge God you don’t have to slog through much of the game to simply unlock options. On the other, it does moderately cut down on unlocks and progression you could have otherwise indulged in. Given how slowly you tend to increase your profile level later on, I’ll take it. I like being able to experiment, find what I like, and lock in to dump Sludgite currency into buying new attachments for it.

Speaking of currency, you’d be forgiven for launching the game and getting into a lobby only to sigh deeply at the existence of a few different currencies in the game. Luckily, at least upon launch, there’s no microtransactions and everything is earnable via gameplay. Sludgite is the most common, rewarded for doing pretty much anything worth doing including completing missions and used to purchase weapon attachments and tier boosts for extra damage. You can find bushels of it to collect in-game along with Residium which is a bit rarer and harder to come by, used for cosmetics for your character and skins for guns. Mortite is the rarest, only regularly obtainable by playing on Hard, also for cosmetics.

All of this is well and fine if moderately cookie-cutter in this era of games when we’ve seen so many try to capture co-op lightning in a bottle, but what sets Toxic Commando aside from some of its aesthetic decisions is its reliance on vehicles. The maps in this game are larger than many of its peers and influences with many points of interest being found off the main paths of objectives. There’s a fleet of cars and trucks that help your group get from point A to B, whatever those designations mean to you and it certainly doesn’t always have to be the next objective. Driving is very weighty with mud and sludge caking up your tires and sloped ground inhibiting your progress so you may have to use the winch that many bigger vehicles come with to tow you out of some trouble.

Each mission follows this structure, though some offer unique vehicles and gimmicks like having to drive from safe area to safe area to avoid being overcome by sludge which causes you to bleed health. The maps offer little diversity from one to the next, but enough to count. A map might have more road damage and apocalyptic destruction than others so you have to take detours, or more verticality via winding roads and valleys.

Each map has a designated area to find Sludge Seeds which can be used to break yourself out of sludge prison pods if you die and respawn. Without one, a teammate has to free you, and if you save it at the end of a mission, you get bonus rewards so it’s in your best interest to swing by that area on the map and get them. Well, one map thought it’d been a good idea to place its Sludge Seeds on a road badly broken and fissured apart by sludge, the only way to get them being platforming up, down, and around with a death pit below. Too bad it’s not very easy to do so. Jumping on winding tendrils and thin, broken road segments with the subpar performance I had is just the worst and absolutely led to at least two deaths for me.

The meat of the game is the interaction between players and enemies, the former dependent on you playing with friends or finding good/cool/funny randoms, the latter on chance. The prospect for big set piece moments is nice. For instance, me and three others I was matched with had zero spare parts required to activate traps and open up weapon cases with heavy guns that’ll punch holes even in the sludgiest of infection at the big finale of a mission where we had to defend a VIT (Very Important Truck). It was only up to our weapons and abilities, no other tricks or treats, and right when the truck’s health ran out because we could not properly defend it, the objective timer also ran out. We thought we lost because a character barked a line that signaled failure, but the ending cutscene played instead. We won? We won. We probably shouldn’t have, but we did.

My time with Toxic Commando afforded me a number of those kinds of moments which make you want to keep playing even if you’ve technically seen it all with one playthrough. The game’s structure isn’t so concrete where every match and mission plays out the same exact way, but the framework is consistent. Since other similar games have worn down the novelty of this type of co-op game, one of them by Saber Interactive themselves, it means new ones really have to do something different or extraordinarily well to shine above the rest and, at least technically speaking on the Series S, it’s just not up to the task.

And by “it”, I really mean the console. Aside from potato PCs, I’m under the impression that the Series S is the worst way to play Toxic Commando. It’s maxed out at 30 frames per second which isn’t the end of the world, but playing online with others exacerbates some reliability and response issues which for me led to problems with aiming, being reflexive, and generally good at the game. I also felt some of my inputs being “eaten” as if I didn’t press a button at all. This affected reloads, sprinting, and other interactions with the world that were frustrating. I also noted that the game does not work well with the Quick Resume feature and my guess is it’s due to the always-online nature of the game (which in and of itself is another negative). Even in a lobby all by myself, going to the Xbox Dashboard to do something else for even a minute will kick you to the title screen when you relaunch the game.

PCs (at least ones that meet recommended specifications) of course can dial in any settings they want or are capable of. Xbox Series X and PlayStation 5 all enjoy the choice of a performance mode locked at 60 FPS at 1080p even during tense action, and a quality mode that can render 4K at 30 FPS. Since I’m a performance guy on any game that has it, this is a pretty big disappointment, and while I haven’t seen any particular reason why Series S missed out from the devs, I can assume it was a hardware limitation as we’re getting later into the console generation with games getting more demanding. Load times are also quite longer than I’d expect, and I encountered my fair share of launch glitches.

There’s a definite flow state to making this game work. Spawn in, find a vehicle (preferably with a winch to access more stuff and complete some objectives that require it), and determine how thoroughly you want to ransack the map. Most of the groups of people I was matched with were completionists, wanting to visit most places before going to those shiny yellow waypoints to push the game along. I question just how “optional” some things are like collecting spare parts which feel needed if you want a smoother experience during the final stand moments of missions.

It took me a little under nine hours to beat every mission on Normal difficulty, but I’m sure it’s no surprise that’s far from where the game ends. If the game wins you over, there’s a lot left to do. Try out higher difficulties, max out more weapons, level up different classes, and have fun with friends (with crossplay!). I committed almost double that time before I felt like I had seen enough for my honeymoon period with the game and could spit out these 2,300 words about it. Toxic Commando will live (or die) by the post-game support it gets which should be no surprise. Future expansions, cosmetic DLC, and whatever else Saber can surprise us with need to keep the party lively and on fire for those like me to return often.

That’s all speculation though. As of right now at launch, I’m feeling pretty good about John Carpenter’s Toxic Commando overall. What’s here is beyond competent and a remarkable start to what could be a co-op mainstay for friend groups and those that want at least one good game in this lane whenever possible. Carpenter’s work and influence help elevate it enough to be noteworthy, the ’80s lack of subtlety is appreciated, and more good decisions than perplexing or bad ones make for a good game indeed. It’s just too bad about the Series S version on which this review is, unfortunately, based. If I commit to playing this game more in the future, I’m likely going to cop it on PS5 or PC.