The act of shooting in the direction of teammates to kill enemies.
Typically in cooperative
videogames, backscratching occurs when enemies are surrounding a friendly player or NPC, and the player shoots or attacks almost directly at the friendly player or NPC to clear the enemies off their back. This is more common in games with melee enemies and very little or no
friendly fire damage, such as the popular and beloved Left 4 Dead series.
The term was originally comes from armored tank warfare, where if enemy infantry are crawling all over a friendly tank trying to plant a sticky bomb or open the hatch or shoot
inside or something, a tank will shoot their machine gun directly at the friendly tank, causing ricochet to kill the enemy infantry, leaving the heavily armored friendly tank relatively unscathed.
Have you played Left 4 Dead 2 yet? Go play it and experience the magic of backscratching!
Term Officially Coined by the
professional player Kazoooooooooooooooooooooo
