Back 4 Blood: How to unlock outfits

The most important thing in a zombie apocalypse? Looking the part. If you want to learn how to unlock outfits in Back 4 Blood, you’ve come to the right place – the game doesn’t make it clear how you’ll get new designs for your Cleaners, so we’ve explained the customization steps below.

How to unlock outfits

You can unlock outfits in Back 4 Blood in a number of different ways. The primary method is to complete challenges listed in the game’s Accomplishments section. These task you with fulfilling certain requirements including playing lots of missions as a single character or beating the game on the harder difficulties. 

Here are the key tasks you’ll need to unlock outfits with each character:

• Complete 250 missions
• Complete a campaign on Nightmare difficulty

You can view the list of these accomplishments and your progress so far any time you’re in the Fort Hope lobby area. Open the Decks/Supply Lines menu (press the Tab key on PC) and swap to the Profile tab at the top right. Click Accomplishments and you’ll be treated to a list of all the challenges available, including the ones to unlock outfits in Back 4 Blood.

Open the Cleaners section and scroll down to see your progress for each character. Completing a campaign on Nightmare difficulty will net you the ZWAT outfit for that character. Here’s the outfit you’ll unlock for 250 missions with each character:

• 250 Evangelo missions: Murder in the Dark outfit
• 250 Walker missions: Trail of Blood outfit
• 250 Holly missions: Plucky in Pink outfit
• 250 Mom missions: Mother Earth outfit
• 250 Doc missions: Clinical Killer outfit
• 250 Hoffman missions: Prepper Blues outfit
• 250 Jim missions: Backwoods Blaze outfit
• 250 Karlee missions: Punk’s Not Dead outfit

You’ll need to play each character a lot to unlock them all, but at least that’s an excuse to listen to the entertaining voice actors. In addition, a few cosmetics are locked behind paid DLC. The Battle Hardened outfits, for example, require you to purchase the Ultimate Edition of the game.

Separate to outfits are Item Sets, which unlock individual bits of clothing for the head, body, and legs of a specific cleaner. These are unlocked through Supply Lines, though you’ll need to progress pretty far through the available cards and options before you start getting access to them.

You can check out Cleaner outfits, including those you don’t yet own, from the Fort Hope Menu. Just click on the Cleaners tab and choose the character you’re interested in.

That’s everything we know about how to get outfits in Back 4 Blood now, but bear in mind that developer Turtle Rock will probably add more options in future. Expect additional DLC outfits and perhaps more methods to obtain Item Sets through in-game activities down the line. If you’re looking to learn more, we can also teach you how to unlock other characters in Back 4 Blood so that you’re working towards the unlocks for the full cast.

Henry Stenhouse

Associate Editor

Henry Stenhouse serves an eternal punishment as the Associate Editor of AllGamers. He spent his younger life studying the laws of physics, even going so far as to complete a PhD in the subject before video games stole his soul. Confess your love of Super Smash Bros. via email at henry@moonrock.biz, or catch him on Twitter.