John Carpenter’s Toxic Commando review

We’re nearly 18 years removed from the launch of Left 4 Dead and Call of Duty: World at War, two multiplayer hits that paved the way for an uprising of undead co-op experiences. Yet, most imitators in their wake fail to come close to replicating what makes them special. That element is unbridled chaos, fits of laughter, and a good amount of cheese. John Carpenter’s Toxic Commando brings all of that to the table, as Saber Interactive’s shooter navigates nostalgia and thrilling action with ease.

I’ll admit, though, I wasn’t completely sold on John Carpenter’s Toxic Commando at first. Initial trailers and gameplay breakdowns show glimmers of promise, but it didn’t grab hold of me. It always bugs me when FPS game footage uses an FOV value of 80 and the demonstrator doesn’t play like a real person would. Yet, as someone who revels in zombie-themed shooters (I literally have a Ray Gun tattoo), I remained hopeful that there could be something worthwhile here.

But what does it actually mean to be a Toxic Commando? In a not-so-distant future, scientists are eager to harness the power lying within Earth’s core, hoping it can bring economic and resource growth. Of course, it all goes horribly wrong, unleashing a blood-curdling entity known as the Sludge God instead. So what do you do when zombies and tar-like substances are overrunning the planet? You keep them behind a crumbling wall and hire a ragtag bunch of mercenaries to blow their brains out.

It’s the exact kind of gnarly 1980s fodder you’d find in movies like The Dead Pit, City of the Living Dead, The Keep, or Carpenter’s The Fog. You’ll find all the hallmarks here: sarcastic banter, madcat characters, b-movie plot devices, and plenty of blood. John Carpenter also provides the score here, soaking every frame in a pulsating synth score, stacking plenty of earworms. There’s the danger of its often lovably trashy tone coming across as irritating, veering into MCU humor territory. But Saber Interactive manages to walk the line well, leaning in these elements authentically.

With Carpenter’s name slapped over the title, I’m happy to say that Toxic Commando does make good on that inclusion. It isn’t just a fancy executive producer credit as such. Saber handles Carpenter’s contributions to the world and lore well, while injecting enough of its own identity into the mix. It’s very much a game that shares DNA with the developer’s World War Z title, with plenty of Carpenter’s wit in there.

In the two weeks since I started Toxic Commando, I find myself pestering my friends to squad up. I’m playing on the Asus ROG Ally Z1E, primarily through ROG Ally Bazzite. This is basically a fork of Linux that gives Windows handhelds a Steam Deck user experience. However, during my time testing out the game on Windows 11, the performance differences are mostly marginal. Booting it up for the first time, you’ll need to wait a good five to ten minutes while it compiles a wealth of Vulkan shaders. Ultimately, that’s a good thing to ensure it runs smoothly. Given the bombastic nature of Toxic Commandos, my concerns around how a three-year-old handheld PC could handle it were high.

At 15W TDP at 1080p with the default settings, it mostly sticks around 30fps. I personally prefer about 40 to 60fps on a handheld, but it’s still pretty playable like this. When I switched to a mix of low and medium settings, the game once said there wasn’t any VRAM left, even though I’d allocated plenty. I haven’t run into that issue again, though.

For most of my gameplay, I’ve had frame generation on with a 60fps target that’s capped at the same value. On average, Toxic Commando hangs around the 50fps range, even when the screen is packed with particle effects and enemies. It occasionally dips to about 45fps, but it barely affects gameplay.

Bumping TDP up to 25 or 30W makes it far more stable, consistently hitting my target framerate easily. It’s a noticeable leap in performance from the game’s demo, which I’d already put a bit of time into. I’m going to chalk this up to an older build of the game. Saber Interactive has also deployed some small patches to the game during the review period, ironing out a few quirks in the run-up to launch. For those of you employing third-party plugins like Lossless Scaling/Decky LSFG-VK, framerates can take a seat in the 115 to 120fps area – albeit with some input latency.

This kind of relatively casual shooter is the perfect experience for a handheld, and it’s great to see it operate well under pressure. Considering that Saber Interactive isn’t shy about bringing its games to the Nintendo Switch 2, I’m hoping we can see a Toxic Commando Switch 2 port down the line. So, before you fire a single bullet, you can rest assured that it won’t crumble on your handheld PC.

To get you up to speed, a 15-20 minute tutorial lays down the basic mechanics of shooting, interacting with vehicles, and light puzzle work to arm yourself during defense stages. From there, the real zombified meat and potatoes of Toxic Commando come into view. Staying true to its cinematic ambitions, the action unfolds across multiple acts. Each mission begins with a Stranger Things-esque title card, as the camera sweeps through the typeface to bring us into the scene.

For those who like carnage, you can ramp things up to a higher difficulty tier if you’ve got a death wish. Some horde-based shooters need a difficulty bump to unlock their true potential. Even on the equivalent of medium, I’m glad that Toxic Commando healthily balances its challenge odds, because the swarms here are awe-inspiring.

Toxic Commando uses World War Z’s swarm technology, building off of it to throw absolutely everything at you. It leans on those moments Left 4 Dead pulls off so well, where flesh-eating husks surround you and will stop at nothing to pummel you. Other enemy types can be so beefy that I wouldn’t be surprised if you let out a few curse words. When you’re not fending off the knashing teeth of a zombie, you’re preparing for hell in a desolate compound.

With a base of operations to roam around, it effectively acts as a pre-game lobby to set up your loadout, level up your skills, and find a few mini-games, too. There are four operators to choose from, each of them accompanied by various cosmetics you can unlock with in-game and paid currency. The clothing options aren’t exactly worth it in my opinion, but the strengths of tweaking shine in the loadout system. You can outfit weapons with a myriad of attachments in a class system that echoes the better days of Call of Duty.

I think it’s neat that a lot of the game’s guns are accessible from the start, allowing for experimentation from the moment you dive in. I’m still finding out what weapons I prefer to use, although I’m quite partial to a trusty assault rifle. You get surprisingly granular with your guns, as customization lets you choose which parts of the weapon you want to switch up aesthetically. It means that no two weapons look the same and are unique to your tweaks. Beyond the expected arsenal of death dealers, you can find special weapons that truly pack a punch.

Gunplay can feel a little floaty and weak in the game’s early hours, which the lack of an FOV slider at launch doesn’t help, although the developer promises to release this feature soon. However, the more you descend into the madness, the better it becomes. Ripping through waves of enemies while hipfiring an AK-47 is a twisted hit of dopamine in itself, as I mow them down Rambo-style. What I really appreciate, though, is that Toxic Commando doesn’t ignore how good a simple handgun can be in a shooter.

Whether you love making dents with a big f*** off revolver or turning zombies into a puddle of flesh with a semi-automatic pistol, Saber makes sure that even the smaller weapons deliver on the fun factor. But there’s another way to get the job done. Did I mention that you have superpowers? Yes, rather than give you an otherworldly Wonder Weapon like COD Zombies, you are the Wonder Weapon. From possessed drones to enormous blasts of lightning, you can choose between four distinct powersets.

None of them are locked to any specific operators, either. You’re free to mix and match between your squad, and I’m really glad Saber didn’t lock these down. Initially, I found myself using The Strike ability, which delivers shattering explosions on anything in its path. However, given the volume of foes in my way, The Operator powerset is more to my liking. This is the drone I mentioned earlier, and it’s very useful for crowd control. And yes, if you’re someone who loves taking up the mantle of your team’s healer, there’s a dedicated set of powers dubbed The Medic.

Outside of fights, each stage is bigger in scope than I initially assumed. Every map features vehicles to take command of with your team, and they all offer various benefits. Trucks can use winch claws to get through tougher terrain and utilize an EMP strike to rid themselves of any sludgy obstacles. Other cars can deploy speed boosts. It’s down to pure luck as to what vehicle you’ll find along the way, as they spawn differently when you drop into any given mission. If you’ve been indulging in Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 Zombies, driving around is similar to fixing up Ol’ Tessie in Ashes of the Damned.

Some of Toxic Commandos’ brightest moments come from using the vehicles, with a mixture of panic and giggles to see as you escape pure terror. For as fun as Toxic Commando can be, there’s no doubt that it can be slightly repetitive. Variation doesn’t really extend beyond visiting designated areas, shooting or defending something, then moving on. I’m someone who likes to wipe away hordes until the odds become too much, but I can see some fans of the genre pining for a bit more substance. In the context of the campaign, it isn’t necessarily a glaring problem given how quickly you blast through it. I do wonder how this might impact the game’s post-launch content, though.

John Carpenter’s Toxic Commando is a fleshy romp of guts, guns, and great times with your mates. It’s the kind of old-fashioned multiplayer goodness that’ll take you back to booting up your Xbox 360 in 2008, waiting for your friends to finish their tea and get online for the evening. In a sea of live service games that are desperate to grab your time through FOMO, Toxic Commando is a refreshing change of pace I’ll be happy to revisit time and time again.