John Carpenter’s Toxic Commando hands-on preview — “It’s all in the reflexes”

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August 25, 2025

On August 25, 2025

If you’re a John Carpenter fan you know what I mean when I say “This has a very Carpenter soundtrack” or “Yep, this is some Carpenter dialogue” or “This story is Carpenter as hell”. The Fog, Halloween, The Thing, Christine, Black Moon Rising, Big Trouble in Little China, In the Mouth of Madness, and Ghosts of Mars all have very signature elements that are immediately recognizable and uniquely his. Lots of Directors have tried, but admittedly none of them have had much success. When I heard he was helping to bring a videogame to life, I admittedly winced a little. Could developer Saber Interactive bring his signature style to life. We recently assembled the Coward Crew to take John Carpenter’s Toxic Commando for a spin, and we’re happy to say “Yeah, this is Carpenter, through and through”. Let’s get into it and make some zombie chow.

So the story goes, in the near future, tech company Obsidian, under the direction of CEO Leon Dorsey, began a project to harness the power of the Earth’s core. As more people gather up to help with the project, more and more people reported seeing some sort of demonic creature when they closed their eyes. Generally speaking, that’s not good. Then, on October 29th of 2033, that demonic creature revealed itself to be none other than The Sludge God. This massive subterranean demon emerged from the ground, turning all of the scientists, guards, and anyone else within range into shambling mind-controlled husks. Surprisingly, as most CEOs aren’t the “take responsibility type”, Leon has a plan to fix the problem, and you and your team are at the heart of it. After a very long bit of radio silence leading up to this update, it’s time to assemble up, Toxic Commandos, because it’s time to save the world.

Recently we put together a trio of commandos to head out and try to do exactly that. First, you’ll need to figure out your squad makeup. You can play in a team of up to four, with AI picking up the slack for any empty team seats, and cross-play enabled right out of the gate. It’s not a surprise as this is coming from the Saber Interactive team that brought us the incredible Warhammer 40K: Space Marine 2. Just like that game, Toxic Commando utilizes the Swarm Engine, though it’s not the only influence – we’ll touch on that in a bit. If you played Space Marine 2 then you know that the engine supports a whole lot of creatures on the screen at once, and that’s on full display here as well.

Setting out on foot we had one gunner with an AR-15, one with a shotgun, and one with a sniper rifle. Our AI companion had a jackhammer shotgun and pistol combination to round things out. Before long, our coordinator back home was telling us to target massive throbbing tentacles ripping forth from the ground. Getting too close to these would cause them to stab or crush you, but filling them full of lead would make them retreat. Before long, I found our first vehicle – a partially armored Humvee. Despite being sunk deep in the mud, it was in remarkable shape, with concertina razer wire wound on the back and sides to keep zombies from crawling on top, a mostly full tank of gas, and what looked like Browning .30 Cal mounted in the sling assembly. Mounting up, I spotted the next cool thing that only the team at Focus Home could bring.

Focus Home not only publishes Space Marine 2, as well as this upcoming title, but also Roadcraft, Snowrunner, and Mudrunner. Watching the Humvee go from being fully stuck in the mud, seeing the tires lurch and spin, then finally break free showcased the tech from their other games being brought to life here. It adds to the realism, and when you’re hip deep in muck, trying desperately to dislodge your vehicle, it adds to the panic.

When the team is fully locked in the mud (or worse), there is another feature that makes an appearance from the Mudrunner series – the grappling hook. You can attach either from the front or rear, firing a rope anchor into nearby objects and then engaging a small motor to haul the truck out of the muck. You can also use that same grappling gun to rip the doors off buildings, opening them up to be raided for weapons and supplies. Always be on the lookout for opportunities to retrieve supplies.

Each character in Toxic Commando has a class assigned to them. The four we’ve seen thus far are Strike, Medic, Operator, and Defender. Those translate to damage dealer, healer, support/engineer, and tank, respectively. As you roam about the environment you’ll see nasty glowing spikes jutting into the sky with sparkling sludge seeds sticking out from the body. Ripping these free (after clearing any creatures guarding it) you’ll collect “sludge seeds” that can be used to upgrade your class and their 30+ skills unique to them.

As you level up, your character will earn Skill Points. These points can be allocated to the four classes to expand their capabilities. As a level one example, when the Strike unleashes their special attack (which is, unsurprisingly called “The Strike”), it can be upgraded to lob six fireballs into the area, damaging (and likely killing) any enemies in the blast radius. Additional grenades, being able to more easily free yourself from grabbing zombie hands, faster reloads, more mags, and more help create the character you want to build. The Medic can push out a healing aura in a 6 meter radius, but upgrades can raise the size of that, obtain the ability to self-revive, carry additional health packs, and more. Similarly, the upgrade their drone to be more effective in combat, release an EMP, and even heal, revive, or help with repairs. The Operator can drop a bubble shield to keep the team safe, and how long that bubble lasts, how big it is, and if it confers any additional improvements such as better reload speed, additional bubbles to split up the team, more ammo, and a number of other team advantages. With a level cap of 40, you’ll likely need to be pretty picky to make precisely the characters you want.

When you finish up a mission or “match” you’ll return to base. Here you’ll get a rating for the whole team (who got the most kills, what type of critters did they splatter, who dealt the most damage, who drove most, etc.) as well as some badges to commemorate your achievements. Headshots, revives, co-operative kills, etc. all contribute to this list of badges, though I’m not precisely sure what they’re used for beyond bragging rights. You’ll also earn a bit of experience for your character, as well as for your weapons that you used during the mission.

We already talked about skill points and leveling up, but weapons can be upgraded as well. Each is graded on accuracy, range, damage, handling, fire rate, penetration, magazine capacity, mobility, and reload speed. Customization can see you changing EIGHT different attachments, including seven sights, five barrels, four underbarrels, three magazines, two grips, etc. just for a single gun. These unlock as you level up, but then you have to pay for them with your hard-won currency. Additionally, each weapon can be painted, again costing Sludgite. Not done? You can also buy charms for your gun. More Sludgite. Considering the dozens of weapons that are tucked under the heading of Assault Rifles, Handguns, SMG, Shotguns, Sniper Rifles, Special Weapons, Melee, and Consumables, this can be literally hundreds if not thousands of hours of grinding to earn enough Sludgite to dress up your weapon collection. Sure, you can focus on just one or two, but even then a few hours of play barely bought me two low-end attachments.

Beyond weapon customization there are cosmetics for all four characters (hats, armor, colors, etc.) as well as a half dozen vehicles with customization, and even a player card you can dress up. What’s worse is that the three Sludgite currencies are split by difficulty – story offering the orange variant, Normal offering a tiny bit of the pink variant, and Hard having the only shot at getting the purple Sludgite. Frankly, the only real axe to grind I had with Toxic Commando is the grind. Thankfully, all of this is in Beta, so it’s subject to tuning, and that’s precisely what needs to happen – this is way too much grinding.

At launch, it looks like there will be a total of nine maps. These maps are absolutely MASSIVE, and you’ll be running multiple missions on each one, slowly chipping away at the story-driven mission contained therein. It very much reminded me of the sub-missions in games like Left 4 Dead, which is high praise indeed.

In the field, just about everything you do in Toxic Commando involves timing and a minigame to pull off. When the pressure is high because enemies are everywhere, nailing the timing on a pull-start generator might be a little scarier. Yes you can practice most of these at the base, but nothing prepares you for doing it when there are hundreds of zombies moving towards you at high speed as their special units lob grossness at you. When everyone can hear you flub the cord pull on that generator over and over, the whole team feels it.

One of the team’s favorite moments were spread out throughout each mission. At any time a situation the team would suddenly find themselves imperiled, or some huge moment unfolds where the team finds themselves backed against the wall. For example, at the end of one mission we had a flood of incoming enemies that we were holding off pretty easily…until we suddenly lost control of the situation. We backed up against a building, slowly retreating against the wall until the nearby weapon that was charging finally fired, taking out all of the enemies and saving us from a painful death. These gameplay sections are the “all is lost” moments you’d come to expect from a Carpenter movie, so it’s great to see it so expertly captured here.

John Carpenter’s Toxic Commando is shaping up to be a solid cooperative over-the-top action horror game that somehow manages to do more with the concept than just be another Left 4 Dead clone. It also manages to capture the signature 80’s Carpenter style. While it’s been a long wait to get here, the wait till release isn’t that long – John Carpenter’s Toxic Commando is headed to PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, and PC via Steam and the Epic Games Store in early 2026.