John Carpenter’s Toxic Commando | Xbox Review

June 18, 2026 Scott Clark

I’m not the world’s biggest multiplayer fan. Sure, I played my fair share of Goldeneye back in the day and could hold my own against the best of my friends. I also reached prestige level in Titanfall when it first came out. But I would never consider myself to be a “sweaty” gamer by any stretch of the imagination. If I’m playing online, I prefer to play cooperatively, which is probably why John Carpenter’s Toxic Commando worked for me much better than I expected. With that said, unless your game is called Borderlands, I tend to drop it like a bad habit sooner than later.

Shockingly, I’ve played Saber Interactive‘s budget title with the same group of buddies for far longer than I anticipated, and I can’t wait for our next session. It’s ridiculously fun, has a gameplay loop that never gets stale, and is rather impressive with its quality despite its budget price.

Let Off Some Steam

Toxic Commando‘s setup has the same energy as John Carpenter’s films, but with a pretty cheesy 80s story. A man named Leon Dorsey messed up an experiment to harness the Earth’s core energy. He inadvertently summons the Sludge God, and ancient eldritch entity that not only infects the soil but also turns humans into zombies. Dorsey recruits the Toxic Commandos, a rag-tag group of mercenaries, to help him overcome his mistake.

The group doesn’t know what kind of job they’re jumping into to and wind up getting exposed to the sludge on their very first mission. Their new “boss” provides each of them with a power suit to stave off their impending doom, but it puts them on the clock. The suits will fail to work after a week, which means the commandos have seven days to save the world. The plot is campy, but it works well enough.

The game is split up into three acts, each with multiple missions that always involve taking out waves of zombies. The gameplay is very reminiscent of Left 4 Dead in that there are very specific types of sludge that each function differently. If you remember warningly calling out “Witch!” back in the day, you’ll end up doing the same thing here, but with names like “Slob”, “Nuker”, “Good”, and so on. The variety is great, and thrown in with the hordes, they all feel threatening yet manageable.

Green Berets for Breakfast

I haven’t played a game with this much bang for your buck in a long time. Toxic Commando may only have three acts, but this is a game designed to be played multiple times. With four different classes, each with their own skill tree, there are tons of options to unlock. The weapons are numerous and each have their own individual levels. There’s always something to make your character a better sludge-killing machine, which is what drives you more than the story.

The gameplay is also refreshingly diverse. You’re not merely going from point A to point B trying to survive like you might expect. In some missions, you’re reaching a stronghold that needs defending. Here you spend scrap and spare parts to fortify your defenses, provided you didn’t spend them on upgrades on that run. Other levels task one player with driving a slow-moving bus through the level. The rest of the team must stay in close proximity to stay alive. It’s a fun way to keep things from getting stale.

What’s most impressive to me is how well this game runs, considering it’s a budget title. With literally hundreds of zombies running toward me, I never once encountered any slowdown. On top of that, the game looks much better than I expected. Don’t get me wrong, I’m happy that this game only costs forty bucks, but I wouldn’t have been upset paying full price for this one.

John Carpenter’s Toxic Commando Final Verdict

If you enjoy playing cooperatively with your friends, John Carpenter’s Toxic Commando is an easy recommend. If I could more easily coordinate with my friends, I could have gotten well over 100 hours of play time. It’s a blast to play and surprisingly doesn’t get old. Sure, it might start to feel repetitive after multiple play-throughs, but the unlocks will keep you coming back for more. Whether is your abilities, weapons, or even cosmetics, there’s always something to be striving for. The progression makes you feel accomplished, and the gameplay is beautifully balanced. I feel like this title may have been glossed over this year, but don’t hesitate to go back and give it a shot.

To hear me talk more about John Carpenter’s Toxic Commando, be sure to listen to the March 17th, 2025 episode of The Gaming Outsider Podcast around the 1:15:51 time stamp.

This review is based on an Xbox Series X copy of John Carpenter’s Toxic Commando provided by Sandbox Strategies for coverage purposes. It is also available on PlayStation 5 and PC.