I’m assuming it’s some kind of shading wizardry, but that’s only an educated guess. The technology behind those swarms is pretty neat. An early example in that aforementioned trainyard, which sees you establish a fortified position on a gantry, fending off a massive swarm that pours over tiers of parked rail carriages like a fleshy waterfall. It’s in these dramatic set-pieces where World War Z is at its best. These areas are conveniently equipped with deployable defensive equipment, such as rolls of barbed wire, automated gun turrets, and even mortar-pipes. In one mission you help guide a train through an industrial railway yard in another you must rescue the crew of a downed military helicopter in the centre of snowbound Moscow.Įach of these missions is broken down into smaller sub-objectives, many of which involve establishing a defensive perimeter and holding off the Zeke swarms. Left 4 Dead’s structure was basically 'Get to the safehouse and don’t die,' whereas each mission in World War Z has a specific goal. The other key difference is that World War Z is more objective-based. Killing enough zombies at the base of this pyramid will eventually cause the structure to collapse, sending zombies tumbling back to the bottom and buying you a little more time.
Indeed, the game’s most unique mechanic is how the zombies create giant, writhing pyramids of bodies to clamber up walls. World War Z’s zombies don’t so much horde as surge, moving like a liquid as they attack in terrifyingly large numbers. Perhaps the biggest difference is how the Zombies, or Zekes as they’re known in WWZ, behave. World War Z isn’t a complete copy, however.
The Screamer also excels at hiding in awkward places, which means you often need to take risks to eliminate the blighter. The most original (and dangerous) of World War Z’s special zombies is the Screamer, who triggers endless waves of undead until he’s killed. The GasBag, meanwhile, is a HAZMAT-wearing zombie that expels a cloud of its own rotting gases when killed, basically a combination of Smoker and Boomer.
The Creeper, for example, is basically Left 4 Dead’s Hunter, but without a shirt on. World War Z even has its own variants of Special Infected, all of which are similar to examples in Left 4 Dead. You need to work together to fend off the zombie hordes, while scavenging more powerful weapons and equipment and occasionally helping allies to their feet. Up to four players assume the roles of survivors during a zombie outbreak, across four separate campaigns split up into several chapters.Īnyone who has played Left 4 Dead will be instantly familiar with how World War Z works. World War Z apes Valve’s incredible cooperative shooter in every way save the camera perspective.
Indeed, the more pertinent comparison here is not World War Z, but Left 4 Dead. Beyond that, Saber could have slapped any zombie franchise on the cover and nobody would’ve batted an eye. The only real connection to either franchise is the fact that each campaign mission takes place in a different city around the world. Let’s make one thing clear: This game is based upon the World War Z film, not the book. World War Z never even considers pretending to be more than what it is, and there’s something weirdly admirable about that. Despite having roughly the same originality as a chair, this unashamed throwback to Xbox 360-era shooters is enjoyable in a mindless sort of way. Here’s the thing, though: I don’t mean this entirely as a criticism.
In fact, I’m convinced World War Z was actually made by Saber Interactive in 2009, but it accidentally misplaced the source code and then rediscovered it 10 years later. It’s a third-person cover shooter in which you shoot almost literal waves of zombies, an inferior Left 4 Dead clone that’s launched about a decade after the peak of zombie popularity. As games go, World War Z could not be more generic.