One of the biggest surprises of 2023’s Summer Game Fest Showcase was undoubtedly John Carpenter’s Toxic Commando, a new zombie horde shooter from Saber Interactive and Focus Entertainment, in partnership with the horror movie legend. Toxic Commando looks to be a chaotic co-op FPS game, and for all you starving Call of Duty Zombies fans (like myself), this might be a great alternative when it drops.
Of course other comparisons are being made to Back 4 Blood and Left 4 Dead, which are fair, but there’s a large group of CoD Zombies enthusiasts out there in desperate need for a new zombie-slaying co-op experience, and this looks like it’ll fit the bill.
The game’s reveal trailer, which you can watch below, sees a team of Bon Jovi-enjoying commandos driving their beefed up SUV into a battle with some undead abominations. According to the game’s official page on the Focus website, these zombies spawned from the awakening of the “Sludge God”, who is Toxic Commando’s main big bad by the sounds of things.
In a refreshing change for a full reveal trailer these days, we actually saw some decent gameplay snippets alongside the cinematic stuff. As well as some fun-looking boots-on-the-ground FPS action, vehicles appear to play a big part in Toxic Commando too – we see modded trucks and ambulances plowing through hordes of zombies.
The Focus website also confirms there is a class system, and says you’ll be able to “unload an array of gunfire, grenades, special abilities, and freaking katanas”.
While it didn’t commit to a concrete date, the Toxic Commando release date will arrive in 2024 at some point. You’ll be able to dive in on PS5, Xbox Series X|S, and PC when it does drop.
Our best co-op games list is already packed with great titles, and Toxic Commando joins a shortlist of upcoming PS5 games and upcoming Xbox Series X games that could earn a spot on there in the future. While the Call of Duty 2023 release date may revive the series’ Zombies mode, I think Toxic Commando could also fill that void if COD misses the mark again.