Back 4 Blood's Children of the Worm DLC lands tomorrow, looks rad

Turtle Rock's cooperative zombie shooter Back 4 Blood will regurgitate a fleshy new chunk of DLC from its gullet tomorrow. Titled Children of the Worm, it'll see players battling a very different kind of foe in an all-new campaign act.

As the DLC's title hints, these new enemies are pro-zombie cultists, who fight alongside the game's undead Ridden with guns, jars of acid, and Wolverine-style metallic claws. People fighting for the zombies is plainly ridiculous, I say, having just survived a pandemic that many people refused to believe was actually happening.

You'll be battling these cultists in the new fifth act of Back 4 Blood's campaign. The act has six chapters, which is a little shorter than the than the three main acts (although considerably longer than the one-shot fourth act). Nonetheless, going from the trailer footage, it looks like it'll take players to some interesting new locations, such as a prison overrun with Ridden, and what appears to be a wooden fort either built or occupied by the cultists.

Children of the Worm also introduces a couple of new weapons, including a bow for killing cultists silently, and a new "Cleaner" (good grief this game's naming convention is terrible). Said new Cleaner is Prophet Dan, a scripture spitting Irishman with a very fetching moustache. He's easily the most distinctive playable character I've seen in Back4Blood. Outside of a couple of characters like Holly and Hoffman, the Cleaners are a fairly forgettable bunch, an issue that extends to Back4Blood's visual design in general.

Nonetheless, I do think the Back 4 Blood is an enjoyable enough spin on Left4Dead's magical formula, and this DLC looks set to give the game an injection of personality that it's hitherto lacked. Children of the Worm launches tomorrow. Publisher Warner Bros hasn't specified a price, but the first DLC pack Tunnels of Terror debuted at $15/£12/€15, so expect Children of the Worm to within that ballpark.

Rick has been fascinated by PC gaming since he was seven years old, when he used to sneak into his dad's home office for covert sessions of Doom. He grew up on a diet of similarly unsuitable games, with favourites including Quake, Thief, Half-Life and Deus Ex. Between 2013 and 2022, Rick was games editor of Custom PC magazine and associated website bit-tech.net. But he's always kept one foot in freelance games journalism, writing for publications like Edge, Eurogamer, the Guardian and, naturally, PC Gamer. While he'll play anything that can be controlled with a keyboard and mouse, he has a particular passion for first-person shooters and immersive sims.