THE DEAD TIMES
DEAD ARE COMING...
2021: Preview of the Dead: Part 2 - Games
2021 has begun and it has many sights to show you. In the first few weeks of January, I am chronicling the deadliest of undead monstrosities that lie among them. In this second part, the chuckling, manic video games take the spotlight.
Many of the dreaded games waiting in line for the dawn of the day were due earlier but have failed to break forth from whatever development tomb contained them - corpses blocked from their righteous freedom. These unenviable specimens are catalogued in a special MIA section at the end of the article.
Back 4 Blood
Back 4 Blood is basically Left 4 Dead 3 under another name; it's by the same developers, Turtle Rock Studios, and, from what has been shown so far, features almost identical gameplay. In a team of up to 4 players, you co-operate to stay alive and complete various objectives while being chased by an extremely angry horde of Zombies (and, in the case of Back 4 Blood, it looks like a few other undead-related things will join the action).
State of Decay 3
Coming as no surprise to most, Microsoft and Undead Labs continue pushing their State of Decay series. There is not a lot of information out there on what the game will actually be like - other than Zombie animals will feature in some way (assuming the entirely cinematic announcement trailer is anything to go by). The game will be released on PC, Xbox One and Xbox Series X.
Resident Evil 8: Village
I'm including this one on the list simply because it is a Resident Evil game and RE is basically the purifying grandfather of all modern Zombie games. However, I have yet to see a single Zombie in this iteration and, after their brutal absence from the seventh game, I'm sceptical of whether our ghoulish friends will return to the latest instalment. Set in the snow-topped mountains somewhere in Europe, players again take the role of Ethan Winters - returning from RE 7 - as Chris Redfield's strange and shocking actions lead Ethan into a mysterious village. The game is played in first-person.
The Unliving
The Unliving is a strange mixture of strategy game and action-packed dungeon-crawler. You play an evil necromancer who has the power to raise any fallen foe as a Zombie, entirely friendly to you and ready to unlive by your side without question. Your enemies are the do-gooder humans that imprisoned you, keeping you at bay with religious dedication to their church. But now, you have summoned enough power to break the seal and soon, as more and more of your foes die and are resurrected, you shall have a relentless army of dead at your control. May your enemies tremble in fear at your awesome might...
Undying
Undying is an innovative little video game which goes beyond the normal Zombie apocalypse survival by bringing a unique twist; it's not you that has to survive. At the start of the game, you are bitten by a Zombie and your fate is sealed, in mere hours you will become one of the shuffling horrors you fought. However, you have a son - a small, innocent, healthy boy named Cody. He must survive, he must live on, but to do so you will have to impart your well-honed survival knowledge on to him before you can no longer be considered human. Cody will follow you everywhere, he'll do what you do and 'learn' to repeat those actions when the time is right. You cannot just teach though, you'll have to balance showing Cody how to survive with scavenging the resources necessary to enable him to survive through the early days, after you have gone.
Dead Pixels 2: Straight to Video
This sequel to the 2D side-scrolling, Zombie-slaying action platformer Dead Pixels is something I thought had fallen into development hell, from which it would never emerge. Now, more than eight years after the original, Dead Pixels 2 has been resurrected and is on course for release in 2021. It expands on the Zombie-shooting, item-hoarding antics of the first game in almost every way boasting new game modes, co-op play, procedurally generated levels, 100s of items and weapons, full character customisation, Zombies that can now follow you inside buildings and a banging 90s-feel soundtrack. Oh, and lots of dead people to blast - can't forget them.
Gunslingers & Zombies
This turn-based strategy set in the Wild West - recently released on steam early access - looks a lot like XCOM with Zombies in it, and that's fine by me. It plans to expand on the normal XCOM formula with RPG elements, scavenging, unique character traits and heavily-stylized, Wild West environments to explore.
MIA
Dying Light 2
This game looks and sounds amazing - but what on Earth is going on with its development? Announced in 2018 to a jaw-dropping trailer showing the game's ground-breaking scope, development seemed to be going smoothly. The game was kept behind closed doors at E3 2019, disconcerting but not damnable. Then in the early months of 2020, it was announced that the game had been delayed indefinitely and, disturbingly, that's where the trail went cold. Will we see a release in 2021? It seems likely but, that may just be optimism - it is the sequel to one of my favourite Zombie games after all.
Scheming Through The Zombie Apocalypse Episode 2: Caged
The second episode of the adult-themed, comedic game about a Zombie Apocalypse in a world populated by talking animals missed its intended release date last year. However, everything is set for launch in February - just a few more weeks to wait.
Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Quarantine
Still not really sure what is going on with this one or if it can even be classified as a Zombie game at all; the announcement cinematic from 2019 teases at Zombies or Zombie-like creatures but is very light on specifics.
Dysmantle
This lovable-looking, open-world survival sandbox game continues to lounge around in early access. 2021 will hopefully see a full release but no official word as of yet.
Zombie Killing Simulator
The highlight of this game is Zombie slaughter - nothing more and nothing less. It appears that finding the most gruesomely awesome way to kill the dead is taking its time.
Mist Survival
2020 was the planned release date for this innovative open-world, survival game. With that year now come and gone, the new launch date is undefined, lost in the mist.
The House of the Dead I & II remakes
Since the official announcement of the plan to remake both of Sega's classic light-gun shooters back in October of 2019, nothing further has been said about the status of the project; no release dates, no announcement of platforms the remakes will be available on and no word of how the games will even function now that light-guns are not really a thing anymore. Here's hoping that 2021 will bring some delicious news soon.
Project Zomboid
With developers, 'The Indie Stone', unwilling to give ETAs for their Zombie game, I simply have no idea if a full release will come in 2021 or not. The game has been in early access for years already, with updates being launched fairly regularly so, even though the end may still be a long way off, you can rest assured; this passion-project is not going anywhere.
7 Days To Die
Like Project Zomboid, this large-scoped Zombie survival simulator continues to languish in early access with no hint of when the full release will be. Regular updates come and bring more features, graphics improvements and so on.
The Black Masses
This intriguing Medieval Zombie RPG has, like so many other independent Zombie video games, taken the early access route of development. According to the information on the Steam product page, full release should not be that far off but, as with all games in this situation, nothing is certain.
Dead Matter
I'm not too sure what is going on with Dead Matter; the open-world Zombie survival simulator that started life as a mod for an existing game but is in the process of mutating into a fully-fledged, standalone beast. Rumours abound that the game was coming soon to Steam early access but this was back in February 2020. Looking at the game's website, the latest developer video update about the technical gubbins behind the game is dated September 10th 2019.
Dead Island 2
Here we go again, guys; every year I tell myself Dead Island 2 is never going to happen - I can finally take it off the yearly preview lists and forget about it. But no, there is always something - usually a vague tweet about the game still being in-development, the publisher's, Deep Silver, just don't want to show anything off yet. And, low and behold, look what happened, nothing for most of 2020 and then, bam, a tweet that the game is "still in-development". *sigh* I know I say this every year but, at this point, does anyone even care anymore?
DESCRIPTION:
2021 trundles on like the relentless dead and with it, Zombie projects both old and new shall rise from the ground. In the second part of the 'Preview of the Dead' article, we take a beastly dive into the world of video games.
CATEGORY:
Preview of the Dead
WRITTEN BY:
DATE UPLOADED:
17/01/2021