John Carpenter’s Toxic Commando Review

John Carpenter’s Toxic Commando is a first-person shooter developed by Saber Interactive and published by Focus Entertainment. Set in the near future, a scientific experiment to harness the energy of the Earth’s core goes haywire when it accidentally releases an entity called the Sludge God. It soon begins to turn the soil into scum and mankind into zombies. However, the scientists behind the experiment devise a plan to stop the Sludge God by hiring a team of mercenaries to eliminate the zombies and save the world.

Game Name: John Carpenter’s Toxic Commando
Platform(s): Xbox Series S/X, PS5, PC
Reviewed On: Xbox Series X
Developer(s): Saber Interactive
Publisher(s): Focus Entertainment
Release Date: 12th March 2026

Sometimes a game’s identity is clear the moment you hear its name. John Carpenter’s Toxic Commando wears its inspirations proudly, leaning hard into B-movie excess, splatterhouse aesthetics, and the kind of pulpy sci-fi horror that defined VHS shelves in the 1980s. Developed by Saber Interactive and published by Focus Entertainment, this is a co-op shooter that knows exactly what it wants to be: loud, dumb fun with just enough mechanical bite to keep the carnage flowing.

That clarity of vision is both the game’s greatest strength and its most obvious limitation.

So, What’s the game about?

Have you ever wondered what a Left 4 Dead sequel would look like if they actually played the game? Look no further than Toxic Commando. You and up to 3 others are tasked to complete objectives ranging from eliminating hordes of “infected” to collecting gas cans to refill generators. There is also a small sprinkling of what the newest Call of Duty Zombies was trying to achieve. Vehicles take a prominent stage as they are your way of making it around the large open areas that each mission presents.

At its core, Toxic Commando is a first-person co-op shooter designed for four players. Missions drop you into compact but varied maps filled with objectives, swarms of enemies, and plenty of opportunities to improvise chaos. Gunplay is satisfyingly chunky, with weapons that feel powerful without becoming weightless.

Shotguns thump, assault rifles chatter convincingly, and heavier weapons deliver the kind of screen-shaking feedback that makes mowing down hordes genuinely cathartic. Enemies react well to damage, staggering, exploding, or dissolving into goo in ways that reinforce the game’s splatterhouse identity.

Saber Interactive are once again drawing on their Swarm Engine, the same technology used to impressive effect in 2024’s Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2, to deliver massive encounters packed with hundreds of enemies. Crucially, the engine has a proven track record of pairing overwhelming spectacle with reliable performance, suggesting Toxic Commando will retain smooth, responsive gameplay even as the screen fills with undead mayhem.

That said, Toxic Commando isn’t trying to reinvent the genre. Move from objective to objective, survive ambushes, and hold positions while waves crash against your squad. The difference here is tone rather than mechanics, and for many players, that will be more than enough.

The Missions Behind the Madness

The Drop is essentially the tutorial, showing you what you can expect, from finding new weapons to using scrap to fix defences, learning how the winch system works on cars, to defending a spot while you wait for an elevator. The Drop serves as a streamlined Point A-to-B area, making it very easy to understand.

As for the rest of the campaign, consisting of 8 other missions, most of which are free roam, you can explore and find more things such as hives and scrap. But if you just want to “Golden Road” the game and smash out the objectives as quickly as you can, you can.

For me, this number of missions at launch may affect people’s decision to pick up the game, but with 4 difficulties, there is some replayability. You’ll also level up, meaning more stats on the tree, making it easier in the long run.

Each stage has a new objective for you to do. In the first mission, “Church of the Damned”, the agents are tasked with destroying a couple of Nodes that are surrounded by Infected. Upon completing this, you are then told to head to the church, and you hear a voice you don’t recognise. They ask you to defend the church as they power up a tower. This is when the fun starts.

I built defences, electric fences, turrets & barricades. All in an attempt to keep the horde back. But the only way to build is to use scrap, and that is not handed to you, so you have to go out and find things. I knocked on the church door and a siren immediately blared — the tower was powering up. Red markers flooded the screen showing every direction the infected were pushing in from. Fences, rocks, it didn’t matter. They were coming over all of it. As the waves of infected began clambering over fences and rocks to enter the area, I got a good look at how the horde system worked and how, on some of the harder difficulties, you would need to go out and search the maps for resources.

Publisher Focus Entertainment has confirmed free post-launch additions, including new missions, enemy types, weapons, and vehicles, suggesting, perhaps, that foundations are laid to continually evolve the game’s co-operative ecosystem from day one.

Commando Classes

There are 4 main characters to choose from. Walter Irons, the somewhat leader of the crew. Ruby Pelicano, the rebel. Cato Arman, the mellow herbalist & Astrid Xu, the tech specialist. A crew tasked with finishing a job but caught out and infected, they are given a device that harnesses the power so they can use it in battle. The person who gives them this device is Leon; he takes the 4 back to his base. This is your hub where you can customise your weapons, try them on the range and even upgrade your powers.

I rolled with Astrid Xu, the Tech Specialist. Nothing tactical about it — she just felt right. Whether the Commandos actually differ in size or hitbox, I honestly couldn’t tell you after my time with the game.

Each player chooses a Commando class with distinct abilities and playstyles. Some focus on raw damage output, others provide crowd control or team support. While the class system isn’t incredibly deep, it offers enough variation to encourage coordination and replayability. I chose Medic. This class’s ability involves a med pulse that emanates from my Commando’s body. For all 4 classes, the “ultimate” ability has 4 stages you can upgrade as you progress. Medic’s goes from a healing aura to eventually becoming something you can throw out.

Progression is handled through weapon unlocks, upgrades, and cosmetic rewards. You’re rarely overwhelmed with skill trees or stat spreadsheets, which keeps the pacing brisk. This is a game that respects your time, letting you jump in for a session, make tangible progress, and log off feeling accomplished. However, players looking for long-term buildcrafting or complex synergies may find the systems a bit shallow. Toxic Commando is more about moment-to-moment fun than meta mastery, and it doesn’t pretend otherwise.

Mutants, Monsters, and Mayhem

Like Left 4 Dead, there are specialised infected looking to come and ruin your day. You have your regular ones, delightfully named “Roamers”; these are your hoarders, the ones you will see and kill the most. While easy on their own, many can overwhelm, and they will try their hardest to swarm. Another is the “Skunk” — these look like regular Roamers but are in Hazmat suits, their goal is to spread poison gas that buffs their fellow mutated.

Then you have more unique ones, including Nukers, Stalkers & Heavy/Brutes, who each have their own abilities made to hinder and kill.

With the game being first-person, there were points when I swung around, and there was a Nuker right in my face. Terrifying. As I backpedalled away from the horde on my back, it exploded and knocked me down. Luckily, the AI had my back and was able to thin the pack, so I wasn’t totally swarmed.

Vehicles Matter as Much as Firepower

Anyone who’s caught a glimpse of John Carpenter’s Toxic Commando will know that missions aren’t spent trudging through swamps on foot alone. Vehicles are central to both movement and combat, standing out as one of the game’s most distinctive mechanics. Players can jump into everything from battered sedans and pick-up trucks to ambulances, turret-equipped Humvees, and hulking, heavily armoured HGVs. Each vehicle brings its own advantages and can be upgraded using scrap scavenged from the environment, but the ability to handle unforgiving terrain is arguably the single most important trait of all.

My personal favourite is the police car. Its ability turns it into a moving bomb. Being able to slam this into a crowd of infected and seeing all the bodies go flying is a satisfying scene. Cars definitely feel like a 5th member of the crew. You need a winch for a lot of other things as well, like pulling open vehicles to get loot or pulling gates down to progress.

While Space Marine 2 may shape Toxic Commando’s moment-to-moment combat, Saber Interactive’s experience with punishing off-road simulations like SnowRunner and MudRunner clearly informs its approach to vehicle traversal. The world is thick with sludge and muck, and taking a standard vehicle into these conditions requires careful handling to avoid getting bogged down. Of course, caution rarely survives contact with a zombie apocalypse. More often than not, teamwork becomes essential, with players scrambling to haul a stranded vehicle free from the mire before the undead masses close in.

Four-Player Zombie Carnage

While the load time does take a couple of seconds, multiplayer and even cross-play work very well. My colleague Jordan Andow and I, along with his colleague from Analog Stick Gaming, Jeff Young, all teamed together to take on the hordes. You join through an invite code unique to your game, making it as easy as a few letters to join your friends. The game also has a quick play feature where you can run a map and join random people. As long as servers are stable, this feature should work fine. One last thing, much like old school Left 4 Dead, there is a vote to kick system that could be abused.

Death in multiplayer is handled in a fun way; you get several downs before being completely killed. Once dead you respawn in a cocoon somewhere on the map, and someone has to go and open your pod to revive you. During our play time, I died and was placed halfway across the map. Jeff started to make the trek to get me, but halfway there, I was teleported closer to Jordan, making Jeff’s efforts rather pointless. Whether the teleport triggers automatically or kicks in once a teammate starts moving toward you isn’t clear — and in a co-op game, that distinction matters. A little transparency there would go a long way.

How It Runs

I reviewed this game on Xbox Series X, so the performance was rock solid, with no frame drops during the massive swarm events. I also haven’t encountered a single bug during my time with the game.

There’s even a setting to either prioritize performance or prioritize quality. I played a majority of my time on prioritize performance, as I prefer smooth gameplay over fancy graphics. Of course, you may want to see those fancy graphics, so the option is there.

Final Thoughts

John Carpenter’s Toxic Commando is a brash, chaotic co-op shooter that proudly embraces its B-movie roots. It may not push the genre forward, but it never tries to. Instead, it succeeds through strong execution, thick atmosphere, and a wholehearted devotion to delivering stupid fun the right way.

My biggest concern is where Toxic Commando lands in an already stacked 2026 lineup. I hope John Carpenter’s Toxic Commando finds the core audience it is trying to reach. Zombie survival lovers will really enjoy John Carpenter’s Toxic Commando for its fun, crazy moments.

For anyone wanting a game to jump into with friends, revel in the mayhem, and mow down undead abominations to a pounding synth soundtrack, John Carpenter’s Toxic Commando comes highly recommended. Just leave any expectations of restraint at the door.

If you enjoyed this review, explore more of our in-depth video game reviews across PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X, Nintendo Switch, Nintendo Switch 2, and PC.

Review Disclosure Statement: John Carpenter’s Toxic Commando was provided to us by Focus Entertainment for review purposes. For more information on how we review video games and other media/technology, please review our Review Guideline/Scoring Policy.