POSSIBLY A SLEEPER BUILD?

The latest release in the co-op zombie horde shooter genre. Developed by Saber Interactive in collaboration with filmmaker and composer, John Carpenter. Who has provided input on the musical composition and artistic direction of the game. Saber Interactive studio itself is
an established and well-known name in
the gaming industry. They have given us titles in the past, such as World War Z, Snowrunner, and Space Marines II.

Interestingly, you can find influences from those previous titles in Toxic Commando.
Ever since the success of Left 4 Dead,
the genre of co-op zombie horde shooters
has received many entries. Most of which were attempting to replicate its success,
only to fail. Toxic Commando has its work
cut out for it if it wants to distinguish itself
and stand out from the rest
in this genre.

RATING

VISUALS

GAMEPLAY

REPLAYABILITY

PERFORMANCE

GAME INFO

GENRE:

Action-horror, FPS

DEVELOPER:

Saber Interactive

PLATFROM:

PC, XBOX, PS5

RELEASE DATE:

March 12, 2026

Reviewed By: Sabber & Aziz

Published On: 8 Apr 2026

SHOOT, BOOM & SHOOT AGAIN

For a game in this segment, there are two
elements it needs to get right, and they are
the hordes and shooting. The hordes are
excellent, the studio’s expertise from Space
Marines II and World War Z reflects in this
game. Enemy variety itself is also excellent,
with interesting looking enemies and unique attacks. Shooting is good. It doesn’t feel,
per se, superb, but it is satisfying enough.
A wide variety of guns is available for all
kinds of weapons, except for snipers.

Unique to the game is the class system.
Granting special superpower-like abilities,
like fireballs or a healing aura. There are 4
classes, and each class has its own skill
tree that unlocks abilities and character
improvements. To play, you choose one of
the story missions and the difficulty you
want to play on, then go into free-roam
levels. You can play any mission with
either the bots or co-op with friends
or through matchmaking.

Each level has the main objective, as well as many side objectives and loot areas for exploring. You can find special weapons like grenade launchers or a rail gun. You can also find spare parts, which are used for many
things in the game, such as opening special weapons crates, unlocking defences within
an area you have to fortify, and vehicle
repair. There are multiple different vehicles
that spawn on random map locations,
each having its own special abilities.

Some of the vehicles are an ambulance with
a healing area ability, a sedan with speed
boost, a Humvee with an EMP blast that evaporates zombies, and a pulley winch.
The vehicles need to be fueled and have
their ammo resupplied for those with
weapons. There’s also a very light muddy
terrain simulation element, which you can
use the pulley winch to speed through.
Drawing an element from Saber’s other
game, Snowrunner.

CINEMATIC & EXPLOSIVES

The story in Toxic Commando is probably best described as forgettable. The introduction to the characters and story is very awkward
and badly paced. Plot exists purely as just
an excuse, and sometimes best ignored altogether. However, the overall plot of
the world itself, while generic, is still good.
The 4 main characters are beyond bland,
having no actual charisma between them
at all. Which really feels a lot like
a missed opportunity.

As the game has a lot of impressively well shot cutscenes that are graphically very attractive
to look at! The game itself is very polished in the technical sense, with very impressive graphics. Environments are very grungy, enemy designs are very visually interesting, and the music suits the atmosphere well. Enemies almost always explode when you shoot them, and everything feels very
actiony and gory, all while running smoothly,
at least in my experience.

SOMETHING'S MISSING

The main campaign of the game takes about 8 hours. After the main campaign, there are no special gamemodes to unlock or anything like
that. The endgame is basically customization. Playing the missions at greater difficulty rewards you with more kinds and quantities
of in-game currencies used to
unlock customizations.

Some of which are cosmetic, like gun skins
and hats, or weapon mods. And while gun customization is very in-depth the car and character customizations is very basic.
You can also prestige guns to improve their
stats, resetting all the gun’s mod unlocks.
The class skill trees are packed enough to require more than 8 hours to fill.

And while there is a degree of randomization with the objectives and loot spawn on each
level every time it is replayed, you can only
do the same thing so many times before
it becomes repetitive.

PRETTY SOLID

Toxic Commando definitely does a few things differently with its class system and light muddy terrain driving simulation elements.
It knows what it is well and acts accordingly.
It has excellent graphics and cinematic direction, as well as being well-polished.
The moment-to-moment gameplay and action are great. It is a great social experience to go over with some friends. But the lack of
content for the endgame leaves much
to be desired.

The customization options to grind towards are great, but not enough on their own. Especially when the game takes about only
8 hours to finish, which is not bad in itself in any way. Not every game has to be tens or hundreds of hours long, but unlocking some fun game modes after finishing the story would do well for replayability value beyond grinding for currency to unlock things.