Bite Me

WE LOOK AT THE EVOLUTION OF ZOMBIE VIDEOGAMES AND WHY THEY JUST WON’T DIE.

- Adam Bryant

Undead, Walkers, Infected, Zombies. If you play videogames, you’ve almost certainly played one that features them. Ever since the release of the original Xbox, we’ve seen zombies, in some shape or form, turn up on Microsoft’s family of consoles at least once every year.

Not only that, but the last ten years has seen the release of more than half of all zombie-focused games ever developed, and true to their relentless nature they just keep on coming. So what is it about these rotten stumblers that makes them so enduring?

As a culture we’ve been fascinated with the idea of people returning from the dead, in part thanks to George A Romero’s 1968 zombie classic Night of The Living Dead, but it wasn’t until the mid 1980s that zombies shuffled on over to videogames. This initial wave of zombie games struggled to be genuinely scary due to the limited graphics and sound capabilities at the time, but as technology improved, developers found new and interesting ways in which to entertain us. And when we say entertain, we mean pepper our dreams with recurring nightmares of dead-eyed freaks trying to crawl through our bedroom window and eat our tasty flesh.

Capcom’s survival horror game Resident Evil shot zombie games into the mainstream in 1996. The key to its success wasn’t just because it looked better than other games, but also as a result of clever game mechanics. Limited ammo and healing herbs meant that whenever you came upon zombies you had to quickly decide on fight or flight. The sound design and music was incredibly well done; the simple echo of a ticking clock was able to elicit so much atmosphere. Then there’s the saving mechanic, which had you using finite ink ribbons to record your progress on a typewriter. Saving, you did in moderation, or you could be left with no more ribbons and be forced to survive long enough to find another.