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Your Visual Guide to This Year's Zombie Games

Shaun McInnis
By Shaun McInnis, Editor

Using the power of Venn diagrams, we offer an occasionally informative look at the year's most exciting zombie games.

I believe it was Thomas Hobbes who once wrote, "Life in the zombie apocalypse is nasty, brutish, and short." Or maybe that was Winston Churchill? I'm not sure. The point is, when you're being chased down by zombies--real or virtual--you probably don't have a lot of time to spend sifting through massive amounts of information. So with that in mind, we've come up with this visually oriented guide to three of the biggest zombie games arriving this year. Or at least, three games we're hoping will come out this year, because they all look pretty rad for decidedly different reasons:

A Visual Comparison to Other Games

With the Uncharted series, Naughty Dog has established itself as one of the industry leaders in storytelling and building realistic characters. It's pretty much got the market cornered at this point. And with The Last of Us, it looks like Naughty Dog will adapt those skills to a human-survival-with-a-sprinkling-of-zombies story set in a lush, postapocalyptic world overtaken by nature. You know, like the setting of the criminally underappreciated Enslaved: Odyssey to the West.


Considering its stylized and cartoony aesthetic, Fortnite couldn't be more of a departure from Epic's recent work on the Gears of War franchise. The gameplay seems to be quite a departure as well, because this is no straightforward third-person shooter. You'll actually be designing and assembling your own structures to withstand the zombie onslaught. We like it! It's definitely a more effective approach than letting yourself get bitten and repeatedly shouting "revive me!" at your fellow survivors.


This one's a little like a snake eating its own tail. See, Gears of War is a direct evolution of the modern third-person shooter formula popularized by Resident Evil 4, and now it looks as though Resident Evil 6 will take a cue from Epic's manly shooter franchise with a sticky cover system of its own. But there's also a point in the trailer where a character--who I can only assume is named Buzzcut McRoundhouse--totally wrecks some zombies with a hand-to-hand combat montage that looks more like Devil May Cry than Resident Evil.

Shaun McInnis
By Shaun McInnis, Editor

Shaun McInnis has always dreamed of an a open-world car combat RPG based on Jack Kerouac's On the Road. Outside of video games, he enjoys photography and learning impractical coffee brewing techniques.

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devastion913 23 pts

@vicsrealms UC and other good console titles for ports of The Witcher, STALKER, and other good PC games without complaints from either crowd, I'd make that trade 100 times over. But, fanboys will always complain when "thier" titles lose exclusiveness.

vadagar1 17 pts

only got one thing to say RE 1 with new graphics

chechak7 12 pts

Only the last of us is worth it here....maybe RE6 will be good 2

Albaficas 22 pts

Only the last of us is worth it here.... RES6 just became a gears of wars clone..no more survival horror jsut brainless shooting --->zillions zombies That new epic game wont sell more than 1.5mil The last of us will put the rest of the list in the trashes.

icetone 11 pts

thats litterally what I thought of the Last of Us when I first watched the trailer

anangelsdemon 5 pts

I love how I can tell if an article is written by Shaun without even looking at the author. The man has a gift for writing entertaining articles.

kakashi552 5 pts

it looks like facebook stalker is hungry for keyboard. by the way, great picture, shaun

DarknautXXX 5 pts

Would have been fun to see comparisons made to Lollipop Chainsaw

rasputin177 6 pts

@dubel_07 28 weeks later was awful? Did you see The Expendables?

dubel_07 5 pts

28 Weeks Later was awful- I hope RE6 isn't as bad as that.

Iamtrent424 5 pts

When I first seen Eli from the Last of Us I said she looked like Eli Page. But as a game maker its good to base your characters on same actress or model

Marky360 21 pts

[This message was deleted at the request of a moderator or administrator]

RyuRanVII 7 pts

No Dead State and Project Zomboid. Predictable.

trivolution 5 pts

The only real zombie I saw, is the Facebook Stalker. Make that "are".

sangdolee 5 pts

wow very creative i love it ! ^.^

LonelyHippie27 9 pts

I want Zombies in GTA V.... Thumbs up if you approve

Shacrob 5 pts

The last five years of last decade (and 2010/2011) have had a lot of attetion to zombies...and also on the TV series, i have never write or complain about the zombies but this will be my very first post. Dont get me wrong im ok with the zombies and i love Resident Evil (where the real zombie franchise started), but enough with it! Companies have been picking up the zombies just too much imo, the only zombie related thing i will look out for will be only for Resident Evil, NOTHING MORE, hope for this zombie fashion really end this year, damn...

Codester_41 18 pts

@ shaunmc ... Oh... That makes more sense.

nate1222 91 pts

I'm kinda burnt out on zombie games. Having some zombies "in" a game is cool, depending on how they're incorporated. But entire games based on zombies is tired. I really miss the OLD Resident Evil games (RE1-RE3 and Code Veronica). Those games required actual "survival" elements, such as avoiding zombies, rationing ammo and solving environmental puzzles. This current wave of zombie games are all just run-and-gun affairs geared towards Call of Deuchebag buffs.

strawhat1987 6 pts

[This message was deleted at the request of a moderator or administrator]

garrett_duffman 5 pts

[This message was deleted at the request of a moderator or administrator]

crazyintheface 5 pts

@joselin333 Because the character looks like her.

19Gam3NErD91 5 pts

@F10yd sir,that game was just awesome,i can assure u that! although it pretty much didn't have anything to do with zombies as far as i know!

joselin333 5 pts

i dont understand why juno was there ...?¿?

scarred_fox 16 pts

after watching "last of us" trailer, it reminded me of "I am Legend" but with zombies, not mutants

Visionisto 5 pts

@reprividi5 I don't see where it claims the picture is from 28 days later could you point it out for me?

F10yd 5 pts

I'm still waiting for a Condemned 2 PC port

DiamondSlicer 5 pts

Funny, I actually made the same comparison with Ellen Page when I first saw the trailer of The last of us.

shaunmc 48 pts

@Hurvl It's a good Scottish name.

Hurvl 11 pts

I thought Buzzcut McRoundhouse was a Saturday Night Live or other popular culturally known character, but Google (who knows everything and is never wrong) only gave three results and all quoted this article. A unique joke name, that's a surprise!

rprevidi5 9 pts

The picture used for 28 Days Later in the Resident Evil 6 "As Seen In Movies" is actually 28 "Weeks" Later...

lucas_lotr 5 pts

@Kero100 there is the Legacy of Kain series, and i would highly recommend Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver for the PSone.

warhawk-geeby 55 pts

@dougdriller85 Yeahhh.. I gave up on them a long time ago..

lilflex1 5 pts

@Kero100 the closest one i can think of is bloodrayne

Kero100 5 pts

Just curious... Is there any game base on vampire? I can only think of Castlevania :)

dougdriller85 5 pts

good call warhawk.....the last time res was remotely scary was maybe nemesis

dougdriller85 5 pts

buzzcut mcroundhouse hahahahahahahaha aka hunk prob

shaunmc 48 pts

@Codester_41 It's the environment from Enslaved, not the creatures.

darkknight9174 7 pts

Haha, great comparison. The Last of Us is more accurately a mix between "I Am Legend" (environment),"The Road" (father and child in post-apocalyptic setting) and "Uncharted" (graphical style, girl looks like a girl version of young Nathan Drake, father looks like a grittier adult Drake)

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