Left 4 Dead meets Snowrunner: testing John Carpenter’s Toxic Commando
11.3.2026
Translation: Katherine Martin
Pictures: Philipp Rüegg
What’s better than mowing down zombie hordes with your mates? Doing it with a flamethrower, from an armoured vehicle. John Carpenter’s Toxic Commando mixes co-op shooters with muddy road trips.
From the moment the first trailer was released, I knew this game was made for my friends and me. Eighties horror setting, check. Cooperative shooter action, check. Vehicles ploughing through mud, check. John Carpenter’s Toxic Commando sends four loud-mouthed action heroes into a zombie-infested restricted area to slay the Sludge God once and for all.
It’s obviously drawn some inspiration from Valve and Turtle Rock’s iconic series Left 4 Dead. Toxic Commando, however, has delivered a fresh (and mud-splattered) take on it.
Plough your own path
Let’s get one thing straight first. Although legendary horror director John Carpenter’s name has been slapped into the title, his style isn’t hugely present in the game itself. Yes, Carpenter was involved in the creative process. As a big fan of his films, however, I mostly noticed his artistic fingerprints on the short, gloriously trashy cutscenes. When you watch them, you find out four mercenaries are teaming up with a shady CEO and researcher named Leon Dorsey to destroy a hellish monster.
A beast awakened by Dorsey’s tech company digging too deep into the earth. After thousands of people were turned into zombies, a gigantic wall was built to seal off the area. In search of a quick buck, the mercenary squad find their way in anyway – only to end up infected as well. With that, the Toxic Commando is born. And there’s only one way to stop it: destroy the Sludge God.
That all sounds pretty dumb so far. But that’s exactly what I was expecting from a game with this title. Except for the first and last two, you can do the nine missions in any order. These involve shooting your way through various sections of the restricted area. Sometimes you’ll be acquiring monster DNA, sometimes gaining access to a weapons factory, other times decoding an EMP device. In essence, they all pan out the same way; you need to click on marked locations on the map to either activate or retrieve something.
While Left 4 Dead sends you off on a fairly straightforward path from A to B, you can freely explore Toxic Commando’s levels. It’s certainly worth doing so. For one thing, your weapons only level up when you kill enemies. Only then can you install enhancements such as sights, larger magazines and longer barrels. To get them, you need Sludgite, a mysterious crystal growing all over the zone that’d be guaranteed to fetch record prices in woo-woo circles.
For cosmetic items like weapon and character skins, you need Residium, which you find scattered throughout the levels. There’s also a third currency called Mortite, which you only get if you play missions on Hard or Very Hard. Get your hands on that, and you’ll be able to unlock additional cosmetic items. However, the crummy pieces of jewellery you can get with it aren’t much of an incentive. Even the six skins available for each character are samey.
From «boom boom» to «vroom vroom»
Personally, I prefer investing my Sludgite in new vehicle paintwork. Yep, you read that right. Toxic Commando has vehicles – and quite a few of them, in fact.
There are usually two or three in each mission. From simple cars to flamethrower-wielding pickup trucks to armoured military jeeps with turrets, the selection’s not to be sniffed at. Most vehicles are equipped with a winch, allowing you to rip open locked doors or drag yourself across rough terrain.
It’s no coincidence that there are echoes of vehicle simulator Snowrunner here; both games are Saber Interactive titles. To fans, the mud physics will be unmistakable. Mind you, they’re much more flexible in Toxic Commando. Even the humble sedan can drive through the deepest pits, albeit slightly more slowly. This usually becomes an issue when unwanted passengers latch onto your bumper.
Each vehicle has its own special ability. The Ambulance heals everyone inside, the Grit lays mines and the Maverick emits deadly magnetic waves. If you’re playing with a mouse and keyboard, you activate the EMP function by hitting the Shift key. However, since I’ve been conditioned to press Shift to activate Turbo, I’m always activating vehicles’ special abilities by mistake.
This is especially annoying when I’m driving the police car. One wrong move, and the self-destruct countdown starts. And of course, since Murphy’s Law apparently applies to the zombie apocalypse too, it happens ten seconds after I’ve painstakingly repaired the car and filled it up with petrol. «Out, out, out,» I yell as I dive into the mud. «You’re such a clown,» my friends say in the chat, laughing.
The best moments in the game are the unintentionally comical ones. One time, I try to stash a petrol can in the back, but end up lighting it on fire instead. Not only does our vehicle go up in flames, but I also create four human torches, who’re then forced to try and extinguish themselves in the mud. Unfortunately, there are no reliable accounts to ascertain whether this happened immediately after the self-destructing police car incident.
If you’re riding in two vehicles, make sure you let sensible people drive. The more spirited members of my friendship group tend to misuse the winch as an arresting cable.
Zombies in your own team
John Carpenter’s Toxic Commando isn’t meant for solo players. If you play alone, the AI takes on the roles of your companions, causing most of the atmosphere to go down the drain. Plus, the NPCs are almost as stupid as the corny one-liners they reel off by the bucketload.
In one mission, you take a battery from a petrol station to a garage 100 metres away. Since the area’s contaminated, you need to carry an anti-sludge device that creates a protective dome around you. The NPCs are the kind of people who’d spend a firefighting mission toasting marshmallows on the flames, so you’re forced to do both jobs. This means alternating between throwing the battery and the anti-sludge device in front of you like a shot-putter training for the Olympics.
From medium difficulty mode upwards, there’s a basic amount of coordination required. Especially when it comes to the defensive battles that finish off every mission. These involve getting into position, activating turrets, electric fences and mine launchers, and arming yourself against the zombie hordes. You need spare parts for that, but there are a handful available in each mission at most. These parts can also be used to open crates containing special weapons. Though if you keep your eyes peeled, you’ll find those weapons lying around too. Special weapons have limited ammunition, so use them wisely. I always need to fight the urge to immediately pull the trigger on grenade launchers, machine guns and railguns. Plastering the streets with zombie body parts is just too good.
The standard arsenal of weapons is decent too. From shotguns and assault rifles to melee weapons such as katanas, there’s everything you could possibly want. The weapons have plenty of oomph, mowing down regular zombies with one well-aimed shot. Exactly as they should.
Lacklustre monsters
The four playable characters are essentially walking mannequins, differing on a purely aesthetic level. Instead of choosing between them, you choose between four classes. There’s the Strike, whose special attack is essentially a lightning bomb; the Medic who can create healing domes; the Defender, who reduces damage; and the Operator, who has a drone that attacks enemies from above. You can improve the special abilities of each class in the skill tree. The upgrades don’t offer that much individuality, but they motivate you to go the extra mile in missions to collect extra XP.
The role-playing element is something I always missed when playing Left 4 Dead. However, the game’s special zombies are more unique. Toxic Commando may have more, but they don’t generate the same thrill as the likes of a Tank, Jockey or Witch. Most of them are almost identical copies of the ones in Valve’s game. The Goon charges at you and drags you off, the Snare grabs onto you or your vehicle and the Slob is an absolute tank that takes and deals serious damage. With the exception of the Slob, you can usually finish them off in seconds.
The Nukers are more fun. These are zombies with glowing orbs on their backs – essentially moving red barrels. What do you do with red barrels in games? Yep, you got it – you shoot them. Nothing in Toxic Commando is more satisfying than shooting a Nuker in the middle of a zombie swarm, then watching pieces of zombie flesh fly in all directions.
If you get too close to one of these blood-spattering fireworks or if the undead take you by surprise, your comrades help you up again. If they’re too late, they can revive you twice per mission in a kind of cocoon. There are also blue seeds you can find and use once to resurrect yourself from the dead. Once you’ve used up that option, you need to restart the mission from scratch, losing most of the resources you’ve collected.
Varied level design, only limited replay value
The nine levels are designed to feel atmospheric. They’re reminiscent of the dystopian prison island in Escape from New York or the supposedly idyllic coastal town in The Fog. Both are well-known Carpenter works from the early 80s. Crashed helicopters, abandoned military bases, beached shipwrecks – all surrounded by a metre-thick layer of mud. Carpenter even contributed his own soundtrack, which he produced with his son.
Despite the open game world, the missions are less varied than in Left 4 Dead (to make yet another comparison with the genre inventor). That has The Director, an AI that dynamically adjusts the game’s pace and difficulty. In Toxic Commander, apart from changing starting points and deciding which locations to go to in which order, missions always play out in almost the same way, even when repeated. Still, at least human players provide an element of unpredictability.
John Carpenter’s Toxic Commando will be available for PC, PS5 and Xbox Series X/S from 12 March. I tested the PC version provided to me by Saber Interactive.
In a nutshell
Monstrously fun, but only with friends
If loads of shooting, silly remarks and minimal mental gymnastics appeal to you, you might like John Carpenter’s Toxic Commando. This co-op zombie game has expanded on the Left 4 Dead formula with vehicles and satisfying, Snowrunner-style mud physics. The open levels entice you into exploring, and the missions boast plenty of variety. Even if they do always end with a wave of zombies bigger than your pile of shame.
The weapons have a nice boom to them, the zombie world’s visually atmospheric and there’s a good variety of monsters. However, as far as mechanics go, the zombies aren’t a patch on the monsters in Left 4 Dead. John Carpenter’s Toxic Commando even has to admit defeat to the ageing – but still legit – title on the long-term motivation front. Despite its more linear levels, Valve’s co-op shooter plays differently on each run thanks to clever AI.
Priced at just under 40 CHF/euros, John Carpenter’s Toxic Commando still offers plenty of bang for your buck. But only if you play with friends. Solo, the game quickly starts to feel monotonous – your team’s as brainless as the zombies you’re crushing under your tyres.
Pro
- Atmospheric world
- Satisfying ways of murdering zombies
- Vehicles inject variety and chaos into the game
- Gets more fun with each additional player
Contra
- Quickly gets boring if you’re playing solo
- Limited motivation to play long-term
Philipp Rüegg
Senior Editor
Philipp.Rueegg@digitecgalaxus.chAs a child, I wasn't allowed to have any consoles. It was only with the arrival of the family's 486 PC that the magical world of gaming opened up to me. Today, I'm overcompensating accordingly. Only a lack of time and money prevents me from trying out every game there is and decorating my shelf with rare retro consoles.
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