John Carpenter's Toxic Commando Review - A.K.A WWZ 2

Let’s be blunt. This is just a V2 reskin of World War Z. Long before Saber Interactive slapped John Carpenter's name on the box, this game was running on the exact same engine, relying on the same gameplay loops, and suffering from the exact same bugs. For what they are charging, you get shockingly little in terms of actual playable content.

Hiding behind the John Carpenter name:

They can use the legendary horror IP as a shield all they want. The story, characters, and dialogue are some of the most low-effort cringe I have suffered through in recent years. Saber spectacularly failed to capture endearing 80s B-movie cheese, steering right into modern millennial slop instead. Between the mid character designs and the relentless, painfully unfunny one-liners, the banter actively annoys you while you play.

Meatier guns with zero variety:

The guns are finally better designed in the audio department. Since the majority of the arsenal is straight-up ported from WWZ, they actually sound meaty and acceptable. The actual gameplay feel is a massive letdown. Most of the assault rifles are completely indistinguishable from one another during a firefight. The only distinctly unique weapon is the ACW10 grenade rifle, which is naturally ported over and locked behind a pre-order bonus.

Pointless open maps and scripted swarms:

The open map design adds absolutely nothing of note, especially in public co-op. Most of the map involves driving to a Point of Interest to collect parts and Sludge Seeds for bonus XP so you can survive the end-of-map wave defence. The vehicle addition might look like a nice touch, but it acts as tedious busywork to drag out the playtime and justify the empty, open zones. Collecting fuel and repairing tyres is simply not fun.

The zombies and specials are standard horde fodder. Even on Very Hard mode, the special infected just blend into the mindless mowing without standing out. The Swarm mechanics are back and quite fun, but they are strictly limited to specific scripted areas and the end of the map. The only time you actually get to do the chaotic driving and run down hundreds of zombies is in those heavily restricted zones. The open map itself literally contributes nothing of value.

A progression system built to waste your time:

The classes are fine. They offer nothing new or innovative, but they are fun enough and have skills that allow for different builds, even if half of the options are absolute garbage. The weapons are where Saber's old habits kick in hard. Guns have XP levels and unlocks, but Saber aggressively throttles your progress.

Hidden XP caps: You must get kills with a weapon to gain XP, but you will hit your hidden cap 10 minutes into a 30-minute mission and have absolutely no idea your progress has stopped.

Arbitrary resource limits: Currency for upgrades, attachments, and cosmetics is capped incredibly low. There is zero reason for this other than forcing players to buy items they do not want instead of saving for the gear they actually need.

Punishing economy: Attachments are massively expensive, demanding continuous, forced grinding with a specific weapon before you can even begin to customise it.

Half-arsed prestige and pointless melee:

Do not even get me started on the half-arsed prestige system. Saber decided that once you max out a weapon, the only way to get an animated skin for your favourite gun is to prestige. This resets all your attachments and levels back to zero without refunding your spent resources. You are basically left with a Level 1 weapon that is completely unusable on Very Hard mode, and you have to do this individually for every single unlock.

Melee weapons are just as much of an afterthought. Normal attacks cost stamina. Seriously, think about that for a second. In a massive zombie horde game, you can do exactly five heavy swings before running out of stamina, and there is not even a proper melee class or focus to support it. It feels like a deliberate design choice from developers who just love to waste the player's time and restrict actual experimentation.