Despite each location’s visual flourishes and incidental details, every mission involves the same prosaic treks from A to B
When – okay, fine, if – the dead return to walk the earth, we as consumers of pop culture will only have ourselves to blame if we perish. The last decade-and-a-half of fixation on this specific end of days provides an encyclopaedic guide to survival, from hypotheses about what kills the dead (headshots, mostly, but also fire) to how to deal with the infighting among a group of survivors (headshots preferable). Like a training video for an imaginary disaster played on loop, zombie fiction has explored every eventuality and prepared us for the apocalypse.
All of which is to say, it’s an extremely well-trodden path along which Saber Interactive’s World War Z shambles. And although it carries a major cinematic IP, its developers seem much more interested in demonstrating their love for Valve’s Left 4 Dead games. It is, after all, a fourplayer co-op shooter, albeit played in thirdperson, which throws hordes and ‘specials’ at you while you navigate episodic scenes from after the global pandemic turns our familiar world into one of smashed glass, police barricades and viscera. The only real nods to the book and film of the same name are incidental – places, names, and that unnerving way its zombies pile up on each other to climb sheer walls. Conceptually, it’s Left 4 Dead 3. Stylistically and creatively, however, it’s closer to Left 4 Dead 2.1.
Denne historien er fra July 2019-utgaven av Edge.
Start din 7-dagers gratis prøveperiode på Magzter GOLD for å få tilgang til tusenvis av utvalgte premiumhistorier og 9000+ magasiner og aviser.
Allerede abonnent ? Logg på
Denne historien er fra July 2019-utgaven av Edge.
Start din 7-dagers gratis prøveperiode på Magzter GOLD for å få tilgang til tusenvis av utvalgte premiumhistorier og 9000+ magasiner og aviser.
Allerede abonnent? Logg på
CHANTS OF SENNAAR
How Babel helped a world of stealth become a world of words
MEGHNA JAYANTH
Around the industry in eight games: one writer's journey through indie to triple-A and back again.
Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell: Blacklist
Sam Fisher's final outing is also his most enigmatic
Post Script
How low should a boss go?
TWO POINT STUDIOS
How a new studio rose from the ashes of Lionhead success not simulated
RAIDERS OF THE ARCHIVE
Wolfenstein-style shootouts are just a small part of the picture in MachineGames' maximalist Indy game
SPLITGATE 2
If it ain't broke, don't fix Split
KINGDOM COME: DELIVERANCE II
A bigger, better - and funnier Bohemian rhapsody
Narrative Engine
Write it like you stole it
The Outer Limits
Journeys fo the farthest reaches of interactive entertainment