With John Carpenter’s Toxic Commando, Saber Interactive and Focus Entertainment are looking to combine the pulpy fun of 80s action horror with the kind of large-scale co-op chaos that made games like World War Z so addictive. It’s a premise that sounds tailor-made for Carpenter’s legacy – equal parts gruesome horror, tongue-in-cheek humor, and cinematic explosions – and our hands-on at Gamescom showed us how those elements are shaping up.
What we know
The setup is pure B-movie madness. An experiment to draw power from the Earth’s core goes horribly wrong, unleashing an ancient terror known as the Sludge God. This monstrosity begins corrupting everything in its path, warping the land into foul muck and transforming people into hideous undead creatures. Enter the Toxic Commandos – a ragtag group of mercenaries brought in to do the job that the “real professionals” were too expensive to hire.
As a co-op first-person shooter, the game revolves around teaming up with up to three other players to fight back against the hordes. Players choose from distinct classes, each offering their own abilities and preferred loadouts, ranging from conventional guns and explosives to more exotic gear like katanas. Vehicles also play a key role, letting squads pile into a truck or buggy before storming across the corrupted landscape. The game is coming to PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X|S, and supports both solo play and multiplayer, with the promise of progression systems to unlock skills and refine playstyles along the way.
What we saw
We met with Focus Entertainment at Gamescom, where we went hands-on with a demo build of Toxic Commando. This session dropped us straight into a variety of scenarios alongside fellow journalists, giving us the chance to experiment with the different classes, weapons, and vehicles while pushing through hordes of slime-infested monstrosities together.
What we thought
The first impression is that Toxic Commando nails the vibe it’s going for. There’s a clear love for 80s action horror here, from the tongue-in-cheek banter between characters to the pulpy premise of a group of misfit mercenaries fighting against an eldritch apocalypse. That tone gives the game a distinct personality, making it stand out among a crowded field of co-op shooters.
Gameplay feels both familiar and fresh. On the one hand, mowing down endless waves of enemies recalls other horde shooters, but the addition of vehicles and the way they tie into the flow of missions makes the experience more dynamic. The rhythm of piling into a truck, storming across corrupted terrain, jumping out to clear objectives, and then pushing forward together gives the action a natural cinematic cadence. It feels like you’re part of a team moving through an actual story rather than just running one firefight into the next.
The game also shows promise for solo players, which is unusual for a title so heavily marketed around co-op. Enemy encounters and objectives still feel like they’re built with narrative progression in mind, so even without a group of friends the structure doesn’t come across as hollow. Of course, the co-op mechanics remain a highlight – reviving teammates, strategizing which class combinations to bring, and simply rolling out together in vehicles adds a fun social layer that doesn’t get in the way of accessibility for those who want to go it alone.
Visually, the game isn’t pushing the envelope in terms of raw fidelity, but it’s clear and effective in how it frames the action. Enemy swarms are easy to read, vehicles crunch satisfyingly through corrupted terrain, and environments shift between claustrophobic chokepoints and wider arenas that allow the hordes to close in dramatically. The audio design leans heavily into Carpenter’s influence, with ominous synth beats underscoring the action while weapons and explosions carry plenty of punch. Together, these elements reinforce the action-horror movie feel, which is arguably the game’s strongest selling point.
If Saber can balance the spectacle with enough variety and progression to keep things engaging over the long run, John Carpenter’s Toxic Commando could be more than just another horde shooter – it could be the one that finally nails that perfect mix of cheesy horror fun and cooperative action mayhem.
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