Zombies are everywhere. Some people believe the market is overstaurated with everything zombie related. From Left 4 Dead, one and two, the Dead Rising games, and even branching into the physical media sector with books like World War Z and the Zombie Survival Guide. This isn't even counting the countless zombie movies, Zombieland, 28 Days/Weeks Later, Shaun of the Dead, or the AMC show The Walking Dead. It's really hard to argue with them. Zombies are everywhere and have taken over our popular culture.
So it's kind of hard to explain why I'm actually excited for Undead Labs' current project, codenamed Class3, from the Max Brook's novel The Zombie Survival Guide. Class3 looks to be a different style of zombie game. Instead of the typical zombie hunting game, the developer's boast that the game is more about survival than anything; just surviving the zombie apocalypse instead of taking as many zombies with when you go. This sounds to be an extremely different play style than the normal run and gun zombie game.
Class3 is an open world environment set in the fictitious city of Dunniway. The game is wholly based on surviving the zombie apocalypse, building a settlement of fellow survivors, and then fortifying its defenses.
When first announced Undead Labs' claimed that the game was going to be the definitive MMOZ, massive-multiplayer-online-zombie, game. Since then Undead Lab's attitude has changed and it's now being released as a 360 exclusive and only being available through the Xbox Live Arcade. They've also dropped the MMO from the game instead opting for a single player and co-op experience.
That doesn't mean that Undead Labs' have given up on the MMOZ game that they originally thought to produce. Class3 turns out to be the first step in Undead Labs' plan with a follow-up game aptly titled Class4 which is supposedly the MMOZ they promised with Class3. ArenaNet co-founder and former WoW lead programmer Jeff Strain is founder of Undead Labs and had this to say about the removal of the MMO element, "We plan to create an ambitious open world XBLA game and use its gameplay, setting, and technology as the foundation for a full online world game" With the flood of MMOs being released it is nice to see that Undead Labs isn't just in it for the money. That they're actually attempting to create a decent MMO by first working on the core game mechanics and are attempting to make a genuinely fun and interesting game out of it.
What are your thoughts on the Zombie genre of games? And on the idea of an MMOZ?
Sounds cool. I'm glad I can just download it on my 360 now!
ReplyDeleteI'd love to see a good zombie MMORPG style game ... doubt anyone will make a decent one for a long time
ReplyDeletesounds exciting hope some does make an decent zombie mmorpg game for us to play
ReplyDeleteThe only zombie game I really play is left for dead 2 or if you count nazi zombies that too.
ReplyDeleteAwesome!
ReplyDeleteSounds cool and exciting! cant wait
ReplyDeletelooks really cool
ReplyDeleteLooks cool! Hopefully its a good zombie game 9not a big fan of todays zombie games)
ReplyDeletezombies are my favorite, I'm gonna check it out.
ReplyDeleteCan never have too many zombies! And a zombie survival MMO would be a nice change of pace
ReplyDeleteA zombie MMORPG would be awesome! It's tough to imagine an MMO outside of the fantasy or sci fi genres (But I guess zombies classify as sci fi).
ReplyDeleteAnd there's a zombie game coming out about zombies attacking while on vacation in some tropical place. Looked cool, but can't remember the name. You should check it out.
I actually did a piece on this a little bit ago but haven't seen anymore information. I just can't wait for it.
ReplyDelete