The Back 4 Blood beta seems to be a success. Fans of Left 4 Dead were happy to get back into the universe and murder hordes of zombies as the spiritual successor played pretty similarly to the original. However, while players enjoyed the death and blood, a few of them were left shocked when the zombies suddenly turned racist.
In a rather strange turn of events, Back 4 Blood beta players have reported cases of zombies yelling racial slurs at them, the n-word to be precise. As reported by Kotaku, writer Zack Zwiezen also faced this issue several times during their playthrough. In Twitter videos posted by @HomBKE and @DotoDoya, the particular growl seems to stand out very distinctly.
However, WB Games has come out with a statement saying that the sound in question isn’t supposed to be what it sounds like. “Our team has been made aware of offensive language that can be heard when playing the game,” said the statement. “This was not recorded or ever intended to be part of our gameplay. The audio is a result of two different Ridden growls that are playing simultaneously and when heard together sound like that word. We are working diligently to fix this issue, which should be completed either in time for the Beta, or when the game launches.”
It seems that what sounds like a racial slur is actually a case of some unfortunate sound mixing. It looks like an honest mistake and the devs have assured that they’ll be fixing it for the final launch.
Turtle Rock Studios has also announced that there will be no versus campaign in Back 4 Blood. As for why it’s absent, the developer said, "We have a lot of defensive equipment and our specials are good at ambushing. Defending worked far better for our game than running from A-B".
In our preview for Back 4 Blood we said, “The game seems worth your time for the campaigns alone. Back 4 Blood is a brilliant, thrilling team-based shooter that somehow manages to iterate once again on Turtle Rock’s old ideas in ways that feel fresh and inventive.”