John Carpenter’s Toxic Commando – PS5 Review

John Carpenter’s Toxic Commando is a squad-based first-person shooter from Saber Interactive, the developers behind various remasters, the Mudrunner games, a few VR titles and, most importantly for this review, World War Z, a similarly co-op shooter which uses a similar structure to this game but now features a story and musical score from horror movie legend John Carpenter, the Director behind legendary films such as The Thing, Big Trouble in Little China and They Live.

The game is set in the near future and sees a four-person team of mercenaries getting trapped in a military zone that has been overrun by zombie-like mutants that are heralding a primaeval force known as the Sludge God.

This lends itself to some very World War Z-style action. You have to make your way through nine levels, completing objectives such as blowing things up, delivering items and turning on the power to machines, all the while being attacked by mobs of mutants.  Occasionally you’ll need to fortify your position and defend the area (just like WWZ).  So far, so standard.  And you’ll want to do this all in co-op because the AI doesn’t seem to want to get involved in any tasks.  They’ll kill mutants all day but try to get them to carry a fuel can or explosive and they look at you like they’re powered by a Commodore 64.

It’s nothing new, let’s get that straight. World War Z is the obvious comparison, but any other co-op shooter has trodden this ground before: Killing Floor, FBC: Firebreak, Left 4 Dead, Helldivers 2, Aliens: Fireteam Elite.

The one thing that sets this game apart, because bless him, but John Carpenter’s contributions don’t, is the driving element. Vehicles are an important factor when it comes to getting around and that’s because the terrain is pretty hard to traverse. In fact, you’ll need a vehicle with a winch most of the time because the roads in this game are basically just sloppy paths. Remember, Saber Interactive made Mudrunner, so they’ve got form when it comes to this sort of thing.

Now, I absolutely detested every second of Mudrunner, but the driving here wasn’t nearly as frustrating, and I ended up taking that role in my four-person squad. Driving around and capturing resources is pretty enjoyable in Toxic Commando and certainly helped to put in a little bit of much-needed distance from World War Z.

Unfortunately, though, everything else is pretty much a direct rip from their zombie shooter. The gunplay feels pretty similar with plenty of real-world weapon archetypes (rifles, SMGs, sniper rifles and so on), all of which work fine but can feel a little bit ‘light’ in that they lack a bit of oomph and impact when you fire them. It all feels a bit like a PC FPS from twenty years ago.

It’s fine but a little underwhelming, as is the whole levelling up mechanic, which also feels like a carry-over from World War Z. You’ve got a little skill tree which improves all the things you don’t care about rather than what you want (which is damage, health and speed). It’s great that my drone can now sort of help me repair a car, but that’s not going to help when a mutant is trying to chew my arm clean off.

Sure, you can level up your guns, but that just forces you to stick with one because the levelling-up process takes an annoyingly long amount of time. And, of course, the trophies expect you to level absolutely everything up – equipment and classes – which is, frankly, a commitment that none of my squad had any interest in pursuing.

And aside from the fact that this all feels very similar to World War Z, each level begins to feel the same as each other after a while. Sure, they do add the occasional mechanic, usually some sort of hassle that you have to deal with, but it’s generally just the same thing over and over. That is apart from the final level which suddenly adds the sort of carnage and insanity that the game threatens to produce the rest of the time. It’s definitely the coolest and most fun part of the whole experience.

But once that’s over, all you can do is keep replaying the levels, grinding EXP and pushing the difficulty up and up. This sort of game structure isn’t exclusively Saber Interactive’s fault; everyone’s at it these days, but what happened to the days where you just had a fun, sizeable campaign that stood up to one quality playthrough rather than padding itself out with endless playthroughs?

In terms of presentation, things are okay. The visuals remain clear enough, despite all the mud, but they never really excel. It’s all got a bit of a double-A look to it and feels like it could have been a PS4 game. It is all built on Saber’s Swarm Engine, which is proprietary and starting to look a little creaky. The sound is a bit better despite neither the dialogue nor the music feeling like classic John Carpenter fare.

But, with all that said, this will end up attracting a loyal community of players who will probably enjoy it. If you loved World War Z and squad-based shooters in general, crack on. There’s a capable game here. Maybe we need to stop looking to be inspired by games in 2026 because a lot of them are like this now: safe, predictable, a little dull and yet full of unearned confidence.