Trial of the Worm

— **Kenny**

**Trial of the Worm** is a player-vs-environment (PvE) game mode in Back 4 Blood. It has been announced on November 8, 2022 alongside the River of Blood expansion, which has been released on December 6, 2022. The game mode is available for all players and does not require an expansion to be accessed. Players can tackle the mode alone in Offline Mode or in a pre-made group, or find teammates via the matchmaking system.

## Overview

Trial of the Worm can be either accessed via the player's menu or by interacting with General John Phillips/the other characters in Hope. This mode offers a four-player co-op experience that gives players a new type of challenge.

The mode plays almost identically to the Campaign mode in terms of content, so players will be familiar with the mechanics overall. Once a Mission has been started, it will be played as if it were in Campaign mode, with one difference being that while the six Hives would always have the Skull Totem Task, the regular Campaign Missions would always keep a Silence Is golden challenge. This means that if a team has selected, for example, the Resurgence Mission, the Cleaners will have to move from the Saferoom they started in to the destination Saferoom. Trial of the Worm features a gauntlet of four Missions, that players can run through to collect a **Bonus** of 75% more Supply Points  over Recruit, just like the Veteran Difficulty. The default number of Fabulous Mementos is five and they can be increased by the Player Modifier Tree up to six to eight in total. Ugly Chachkies is the only inactive card in this mode, which would still be available to pick up at a Deck / randomly in Mission Intel boxes, but would have no effect.

Players will be able to apply Corruption Modifiers that will not only increase the replay value, but also the challenge that awaits them. There are Corruption Modifiers, grouped in four main categories, each of them having 15 points, i.e. 60 modifier points in total. The mode also features a score system alongside an online Leaderboard.

Players may use Burn Cards, but the Hell Can Wait card cannot be used, as no Continous will be available to them.

In addition, the Cleaners will have access to the Vendor in each Mission and the KSC Vendor Crates within Ridden Hives will feature all supplies that the regular vendor crates have to offer.

Completing Missions within the Trials of the Worm game mode will count towards the progression of Accomplishments that require a certain feature inside Campaign Missions to be completed, but will not count those Missions as accomplished, e.g. it will not mark Act 5 as completed in Nightmare/No Hope if those are done in Trial of the Worm, although secrets inside those would be available to find and achieve.

## Score System

The mode features a score system, that allows players to compare with other Cleaners at Personal/Friends and Regional Score tables in the Leaderboards. To earn score points, players can complete Mission objectives or collect a new Memento type, dubbed **Fabulous Memento**. There are 5 Fabulous Mementos in each Mission by default, the number of which can be increased by spending points in the Player modifier category. The score multiplier can reach a maximum of x51., with the Horde, Ridden and Player max. bonus multipliers being x10, while the Difficulty's max. is x20. The base x1 adds to the score of up to x50 for the total of x1 to x51 .

## Corruption Modifiers

The mode will offer four categories of modifications: **Difficulty**, **Ridden**, **Horde**, and **Player**. Each of these categories can be boosted up to 15x and grants an increased score multiplier. Players have 1 minute and 30 seconds to choose their preferred Corruption Modifiers. These modifiers can stack as for example the **+5%** Damage-modifier from the Ridden category can become a **+15%** Damage-modifier.

### Difficulty

Players basically start at the lowest difficulty level, which is  **Recruit**, but with each subsequent level the difficulty is gradually increased. While the usual Campaign Mode's Recruit, Veteran, Nightmare and No Hope are all implemented as their first rank (I), they can also be buffed to intermediate higher ranks, up to III. There is also a fifth difficulty - Legendary, that has four ranks, unlike the lower difficulties. It functions as a harder difficulty level than No Hope, with the differences of further lowering Trauma Resistance and increasing the Riddens Strength and Friendly Fire.

### Ridden

The Ridden category offers a variety of ways to boost Common Ridden and Mutations. The following is a breakdown of the individual ranks and the individual modifiers per rank:

At Rank 15, players will have to deal with the following 12 Ridden modifiers:

  Headshots Only on Common
(Bullet & Melee hits on the body/limbs won't damage and kill Common Ridden)

### Horde

The Horde category offers, among other things, the possibility to increase the number of Common Ridden and Mutations and to strengthen Boss Mutations. These Horde modifiers are available between Rank 1 and 15:

The following 8 Horde modifiers will empower the Horde at maximum Rank:

  Chance for **+1** Roaming Boss

### Player

The Player category, in addition to increasing the number of Fabulous Mementos, allows for a variety of negative modifications that limit the Cleaners' effectiveness.

On the highest settings, players will be affected by the following 11 modifiers:

 **+3** Fabulous Mementos
 **-1** All Accessory Slots

## Corruption Cards

Main article: Corruption cards
In addition to new cards, the Corruption Cards receive two new types: **Boons** and **Curses**. These additionally support or make it more difficult for the Cleaners to successfully complete a Mission in addition to the usual Corruption Cards.

In Trial of the Worm, all Corruption Cards have a level, which reflects the approximate beneficial or detrimental potency. The higher the level, the stronger the positive or negative impact of the card. Below is an example of three level variations of a card.

### Boons

**Boons** are powerful enhancements for the Cleaners that increase their chances of successfully completing a Mission.

To keep the overview simple, variants of Boon cards have been omitted from the list.

### Curses

**Curses** are the polar opposite of Boons. These cards make it more difficult for the Cleaners to successfully complete Missions.

For clarity, variants of Curse cards have been excluded from the list.

## Mission Pool

Main article: Campaign

At the start and between each Mission, players will be able to select one of three randomly selected Missions. The Mission Pool includes most Campaign Missions from Act 1 to 6, including the Ridden Hives.

Ridden Hives can only be accessed via a Mission selection and Hive entrances are disabled within all Missions. The Inner layer, The Nursery cannot be played in this mode. Players have 1 minute and 30 seconds to choose their preferred Mission.
Players who don't own DLCs and are without a player who owns the DLC expansions such as Tunnels of Terror, Children of the Worm, or River of Blood will randomly be able to access Missions of those expansions via this mode, although the final Mission of the game (Behold the Harbinger) is an exception as the players will be able to access ten out of the eleven non-Hive Missions, although all six Hives would randomly be optional. The Inner Lair (The Nursery) won't be accessible as it counts as a sub-hive, outside of the regular Hives. Additionally, there are three base game Missions, that are likely not among the optional Missions. These are: The Sound of Thunder, Heralds Of The Worm Part 1, and Act 4: The Abomination itself. This means Trial of The Worm grants access to of 46 of the 51 Missions.

Passing the Missions and Hives via this mode will not grant the Mission-completion achievements like for Recruit/Veteran in Act 5 or 6. Despite of this, some of the DLC accomplishments, like finding the Secrets in the Hives and Acts 5 and 6 will register.

## Leaderboard

Players can access an online leaderboard by either interacting with the whiteboards in Kenny's tent or selecting it using the menu. The leaderboard offers a comparison between all players of a region and the filter option of how one's friends have performed so far.

The following information are displayed while looking at the leaderboard:
**Name**, **System**, **Score**, **Multiplier**, and **Timed Played**. In addition players will be able to jump to the top of the leaderboard and toggle through platforms via a keybinding.

## Achievements

**Trial of the Worm** must be accessed in order to satisfy the unlock conditions for the following Achievements / Trophies:

## Trivia

* On November 23, 2022, an individual responsible for managing the official Facebook account of Back 4 Blood posted the following comment:

— **Facebook user managing the Back 4 Blood Facebook account**

However, it was later revealed that this statement from the official Back 4 Blood Facebook page was entirely inaccurate, as all the information in the article was, in fact, correct at the time. It appears probable that the user in question lacked access to the Trial of the Worm mode, leading to the dissemination of this erroneous statement.

## Gallery

Back 4 Blood – “Trial of the Worm" TutorialVideo tutorial that provides a brief overview of the mode.