John Carpenter’s Toxic Commando Review – Mindless, Muddy and Middling

Saber Interactive knows how to put a lot of enemies on-screen at the same time. They proved it with World War Z and they flexed that same swarm tech again in Space Marine 2. Now, we have John Carpenter’s Toxic Commando, and it wears its inspirations proudly on its sludge-covered sleeves. You team up with three friends, pick a class, and shoot thousands of undead and other mutated horrors while driving trucks through muddy terrain. It’s a simple pitch that works, for a while. But this game is also a very clear product of its genre. It does not break new ground, nor does it attempt to meaningfully define itself in a way that gives it a real identity.

The story, for those who care, is pure 1980s B-movie camp. An experiment goes wrong, the Earth’s core spits out a bunch of toxic sludge, and now a massive entity known as the Sludge God poses a threat the likes of which have never been seen. You play as one of four mercenaries hired to make a delivery, which they promptly botch and are left to clean up the mess. The characters themselves are not great. You have people like Cato and Walter constantly spitting out cheesy one-liners. And none of them have the personality or aura of zombie-slaying extraordinaire Leon S. Kennedy to pull it off. Sometimes the banter is funny, but mostly it is just grating. The biggest offender is Leon (an undeserving recipient of the name), the NPC overseeing and funding the operation, who never shuts up for a second in the hub between missions. For the love of the Sludge God, give me ten seconds to spend in-game currency on some new weapon attachments without hearing Leon belt out several lines expressing his annoyance over the brief downtime. The atmosphere is at least fairly engaging, and the synth-heavy soundtrack pulses perfectly when the action ramps up. That action comes bundled with oversized guns, exaggerated blood splatters, and a license to cause absolute chaos, all serving as a reminder that Toxic Commando doesn’t take itself too seriously.

When it comes to the actual shooting, Toxic Commando feels great. Saber’s Swarm Engine is doing the heavy lifting here, giving players no shortage of fleshy targets to perforate with their punchy arsenal. Hundreds of zombies are regularly seen cresting over dilapidated structures or scrambling up walls in disgusting dog piles. There are floods of regular roamers, but the levels pack in special infected to throw at players too. This is standard for the genre, but their designs are a bit uninspired. The Snare tries to grapple players and leave them vulnerable until freed by a teammate. And there’s the Stalker, which shoots projectiles from a distance that can knock players to the ground. While these advanced enemy types force groups to communicate, they feel like carbon copies of monsters we have been fighting for countless years. I could have forgiven them for being mechanically mundane if their designs were at least exciting. We could have had bizarre, body horror monsters inspired by John Carpenter’s other works, like The Thing. Instead, we just get slightly larger zombies with pustulous red weak points. That said, there’s still a fair amount of panic when the Medic is engaged by the tank-like Slob as the overwhelming hordes are closing in.

Muddy Buddies

The weapons keeping the monstrous masses at bay are aggressive and loud, perfectly punctuating the ensuing violence. Underlining the loadout are four classes: Strike, Medic, Operator, and Defender. Each one has a specific role and a unique ability. The Strike class, for example, comes with a massive plasma fireball ability. It can be charged up to wipe out a whole cluster of zombies in one shot. It is incredibly satisfying. The Medic, my most used class, is essential for harder difficulties since they activate healing auras. Each class comes with multiple variations of their core ability, giving players flexibility in how they want to build out their character. The Medic can decide between instantaneous permanent health restoration, gradual bursts of temporary health, and a final option that blasts targeted locations with healing auras. Similarly, the Defender’s initial fixed shielding ability can evolve into multiple smaller fixed shields or a large mobile bubble. It’s satisfying to play around with the different ability forms to figure out what works best for the group and mission needs.

Toxic Commando attempts to set itself apart from the crowded zombie genre through its driving mechanics. Saber has lightly lifted the surface level of their MudRunner game, forcing players to navigate muddy environments that will leave truck tires spinning as the team tries to navigate each mission’s open map. Getting from point A to point B is often going to require a vehicle. These vehicles come in a variety of flavors, such as a self-destructing police car to a health-restoring ambulance. Perhaps the most useful of them all are the trucks with an attached winch, mostly due to the aforementioned presence of difficult terrain. Only by using the vehicle’s attached winch can meaningful progress be made out of the vulnerable situations. It greatly speeds up the otherwise slog of maneuvering through the mud as roamers descend on the vehicle. The winch can also be used to rip open makeshift barriers and car trunks to clear pathways and provide access to critical resources such as ammo, heavy weapons and health canisters.

To keep players engaged, Toxic Commando features a lengthy progression system. As missions are completed, three different types of in-game currency—the exact type is dependent on the difficulty level selected—and XP are accumulated. These resources are used to upgrade class skill trees and unlock a wealth of weapon attachments. Anyone who has played a competitive FPS in the past couple decades will be familiar with the framework present. Optics, grips, barrel types and more can be swapped out to affect stats like damage, mobility, accuracy, etc. Admittedly, the unlock process is a bit of a grind, as it felt like I could only afford a single attachment after a 30-minute run. But that’s how they’ll keep people engaged as the seek to max out their favorite firearm. There are also cosmetic skins for characters and vehicles, but they mostly boil down to palette swaps. The unique headgear for the characters, which require the currency earned from Hard difficulty or higher, are not terribly exciting either.

Sludge Drudge

It won’t take long to notice the repetitive nature of Toxic Commando. The missions themselves lack variety. You drive to a location, get out of the truck, push a button, and defend the area from a massive wave of zombies. You do this over and over with little variance. The open maps are nice to explore the first time around, but they all start to blur together into a mess of craggy woodlands and abandoned buildings. There are not really any tightly scripted set-pieces that made other co-op horde games, like Left 4 Dead or Saber’s own efforts on Space Marine 2, so memorable. Instead, players are given a limited sandbox within which they must make their own fun.

It is worth noting that Toxic Commando is not a game to be purchased for those only planning to play solo. There is no offline mode, and the bot AI is genuinely terrible on anything above the Story difficulty. They will stand idly by and watch you die as a Slob beats you senseless, regardless of how many times you spam the help button prompt. You need real people to coordinate class abilities and manage the vehicles as the difficulty ramps up. The true fun of the game only reveals itself when you’re playing with a full group of known players who communicate effectively. Otherwise, it all falls apart with AI teammates or the mixed mileage of connecting with randoms.

John Carpenter’s Toxic Commando Review Verdict

[Editor’s Note: John Carpenter’s Toxic Commando was reviewed on PlayStation 5, and a copy was provided to us for review purposes.]