Updated at: 15-04-2022 - By: Leo Hall

Gaming with friends and the pandemonium that ensues when all your meticulous plans go awry are some of my favorite moments. When it comes to creating memorable moments in a video game, World War Z appears to be a competent but simple shooter. An ideal location for four people to get together and battle large zombie hordes while laughing about it as the results come in. The formula used in World War Z isn’t innovative, but it’s proven to be entertaining.

That World War Z has an absurdly large number of zombies on screen at once, making it unique among other zombie shooters, is the game’s true selling point. The game’s trademark hordes pile up on top of one another to scale walls and get to your location. This one really shines when you take out the bottom floors of these undead pyramids and watch them all fall to the earth. Even though it’s a lot of fun to mow down hordes of helpless adversaries in this manner, there isn’t much more to see here that adds any real dynamic to the game’s action, instead providing tedious gunfights devoid of any meaningful challenge or strategic tension thanks to a lackluster cast.

Everything looks and feels too similar in World War Z compared to games like Left 4 Dead where you’ll recognize distinct adversary types instantaneously — for example, adjusting strategies to deal with an oncoming boomer threat. Although it has “gasbag” enemies, hazmat-suited foes who explode and poison everything in their path, as well as the usual assortment of shielded foes with which to contend, these are so easily dealt with and get lost in the chaos of huge throngs of Zs that you never feel the need to switch up your tactics to deal with them.

We’ve fought millions of zombies, defended checkpoints against swarms of undead, set up turrets and laid down barbed wire, and prepared our team for onslaught after onslaught, and barely raised an eyebrow the entire time. It’s all good and dandy; it’s just mindless, tedious, and safe.

We’ve been pleasantly surprised by how well this port works on the Switch. While the frame rate occasionally drops into the 20s, no gyro is supported (which isn’t a big deal considering the game’s generous aim assist), and image quality can degrade when large hordes approach your location, this is the full-fat World War Z experience, looking decent and playing well on a portable console.. This is a great version of a game we expected to struggle on the Switch, and Saber Interactive deserves credit for making it happen.

A little more flair or ingenuity in the set pieces or strange weaponry with which to kill your adversaries would have been nice. However, World War Z is a perfectly competent but absolutely dull endeavor, doing what you’d expect it to without any surprises or flair. A good time can be had if you have a few friends to play with, but it’s unlikely to be something you remember for a long time.

The defensive objectives are always enjoyable and strongly push you and your team members to work together.

For defensive goals, which are the most popular and enjoyable, you have approximately a minute to determine where to deploy machine gun turrets while communicating ideas and picking areas for your colleagues to stand guard. My team and I always looked forward to these meetings since they were usually fun and pushed us to work together.

During one memorable mission, we were placed in an underground warehouse with a poison-filled room on the bottom floor of a multi-story area. To find the key to the ventilation system, we had to search one of the dead bodies in the poisonous fog, which meant that one of our team members would have to sustain damage in the process. So, after a quick deliberation, the rest of us opted to shield our brave coworker from falling through the grating above. The uneasy scenario swiftly deteriorated into a full-blown battle when adversaries emerged from the thick fog.

Even while it was a lot of fun, it’s unusual to see World War Z stray so far from its obvious source material. It’s easy to keep things interesting by setting up timed bombs in an abandoned warehouse to fend off an oncoming horde, or by protecting an isolated scientist from a zombie invasion, but these ideas have been done to death.

World War Z is fun, but just a little more added originality could’ve gone a long way toward making it feel like its own game.

Take a look at the amazing, but rare, unique zombies that arrive periodically to cause havoc. Gasbag, a poison-spewing monster, must be taken out from a safe distance, while Lurker, a predatory foe, must be distracted by a fellow team member. You also have the annoyingly distant Screecher that summons extra zombies, as well as the massive Bull that can quickly incapacitate a teammate and dismantle a mission if given half a chance. This is a fun group of characters, but they’re all clones of the Special Infected from Left 4 Dead 2. World War Z could’ve benefited greatly from a bit more creativity in order to feel more like its own game.

On top of that, the majority of your weaponry appear to be somewhat boring. A shotgun blasting off heads and an SMG slaughtering hordes of enemies both feel like they’re supposed to, but they’re not the most exciting methods of combat. With its satisfying blast and fun-to-use crossbow, the one weapon in World War Z that sticks out is the one that sends small groups of zombies flying. Fun to use, but unfortunately it’s one of the few tools that provides a new way to deal with zombies.

Except for the Rocket Launcher and a few other high-explosive weapons, no one on my team was vying for any of the two dozen or so regular weapons that were laying around. You can easily add more fascinating options to World War Z’s story and people while yet maintaining a more serious tone with the “realism” of its vanilla weapons. Disappointingly, it makes little effort to do so.

For example, class and progression systems have become more or less common in the genre since Left 4 Dead in the years following the game’s release. It’s possible to specialize in a certain area like gun damage, melee, explosives, or healing, and the more time you spend on a class, the more powers you gain. With each class, you get a unique tool that helps define your role in the group, such as the Exterminator’s deadly Molotov, or the Slasher’s paralyzing Stun Gun, which can be used to incapacitate your foes. The higher the difficulty, the more crucial this is, and it’s enticing at first to experiment with different special goods and upgrade them. When you’re ready to take on more difficult stages, but your character hasn’t advanced as quickly as your skill tree, the allure fades away because it becomes a chore to earn something like an increase in C4’s blast radius.

The enormous hordes of zombies in World War Z lack the same unpredictability of Left 4 Dead’s famous AI Director.

The appeal of playing with better weaponry and upping the complexity fades quickly because all 11 missions can be accomplished in less than five hours. This job can grow monotonous at a certain point, so it’s best not to keep doing it over and over. It’s a shame that World War Z’s massive swarms of zombies lack the unpredictability of Left 4 Dead’s legendary AI Director, which makes revisiting stages less diverse.

At the very least, the surroundings of World War Z set it apart from Left 4 Dead. It was a breath of fresh air running across the icy landscapes and scary museums of Moscow. In Tokyo’s streets and New York’s crumbling subway stations, one can see the post-apocalyptic sorrow and devastation. One can see a lot of the World War Z-inspired behavior in these hordes, such as the frantic look of zombies pouring over roofs, trampling over one another, or forming mounds that pile up on top of one another as they rush toward your location. It stands out from the pack of zombie shooters because of its outstanding visuals.

There’s a good reason why World War Z insists on you playing with a full squad of real human players rather than by yourself or with a partial team. During one of our missions, a member of my four-person team had to leave out, leaving us with a bot as a partner, and things went downhill fast. AI dummies are notorious for getting lost, getting stuck, and being left behind in areas where the rest of the team is working. A missed headshot from your handgun can notify adjacent adversaries in sneaky situations where the zombie AI feels right and responsive. A lack of self-awareness and self-preservation makes sense to them.

Most of World War Z’s attention is given to its PvE campaign, although the game also has a very basic PvP component. Only a few games in each mode retained my interest beyond a few rounds of each choice. PvP gameplay is enjoyable and the levels are well-designed, but there’s nothing new to see here except for occasional zombie swarms rushing through to keep things interesting. Despite its novelty, it isn’t enough to keep a shooter of this simplicity engaging for too long.

Some games World War Z

Battle of Yonkers

A five-year-later videogame adaptation of a film is strange. Still, it’s strange that World War Z takes inspiration from the 2013 film when Max Brooks’s best selling 2006 novel is sitting right there, full of fantastic stories of survival and human drama. The “Lobo,” a special shovel-based melee weapon designed by Marines and used by the reconstructed American Army, is the lone mention to the book. Players that pre-ordered the special edition of World War Z will receive the Lobo as downloadable content (DLC).

While I’m not unhappy about the movie adaptation of the novel five years later, ha ha, that would be foolish, it did away with the book’s uniqueness in favor of turning into a generic zombie film that was eclipsed by other, superior zombie films. This is similar to World War Z, which is an uninspiring zombie shooter compared to other co-op games.

The Globe War Z campaign follows four individuals as they fight to live in the United States, Israel, Russia, and Japan after the outbreak of the pandemic that would bring the world to its knees. I had a lot of fun traveling throughout the world to participate in various initiatives. By alternating between the sparse desert and the icy streets of Russia, the story is given a broader scope and greater universality. Switching between characters every few stages rendered the survivors unrememberable. It’s a fascinating cultural shift to go from a New York City firefighter to a Russian Orthodox priest, but their names escape me.

Left 4 Dead, Vermintide, and Overkill’s Walking Dead all have a similar feel to World War Z. A group of four of us set out to hike, shoot, and scavenge for weapons and healing supplies. We opened the gates and sought to avoid being pounced on, poisoned, or abducted by powerful special opponents as we made our way across the wilderness. Even if I’m the best marksman in the world, I still need a kind hand to lift me back up when I’m down. Teamwork is essential.

World War Z, in contrast to the other games I described, features interchangeable characters and multiple classes of play. Whether I’m playing as Bunko Tatsumi, the Hello Kitty–toting teenager, or Angel Flores, the New York guy, I may play as a medic or a “slasher.” A New York Giants shirt is the only thing I know about him (other than that). This is a deviation from Left 4 Dead and Vermintide, which both have the same characters and gameplay.

The Fixer class was my favorite because it may assist the team by dumping ammo bags. I had a lot of fun helping my team prepare for a major battle by ensuring that everyone has enough powerful explosive rounds on hand. Some unique benefits became available to me as I progressed through the classes. One of the higher levels for the Fixer allowed me to return to life if all of my teammates were knocked out. Having one final opportunity to courageously rescue a comrade and save a fatal mission was a wonderful experience.

Big zombie hordes are the one thing World War Z stole from the film that works. Zombies in the movie jump over each other to scale the enormous concrete walls that surround Jerusalem. When zombies are halted by fences or walls in World War Z’s gigantic hoard fights, they pile up, climb one other, and surge over them. I had a lot of fun spotting these mounds in the midst of the commotion. As rewarding as it is comical, shooting into the pile’s foundation causes it to crumble like a junior varsity cheerleading squad’s attempt to hold up a human pyramid.

…and that’s about it…. A few hours after finishing the campaign, I did it again to unlock stronger weapons and more abilities for each class. In addition, there is a multiplayer mode called “PvPvZ” that feels like an afterthought and should be mentioned only once.

Great panic

Even if World War Z is forgettable and boring, there are moments when it’s fun to watch. In my opinion, Overkill’s The Walking Dead was a terrible game. World War Z, on the other hand, is largely good but falls short in a few critical design decisions that other games have handled better.

The Gasbag is a good illustration of this. One of the most terrifying zombies in World War Z is the Gasbag, just like the Boomer and the Globadier in Left 4 Dead. An undead medical professional or emergency responder, the Gasbag, was killed and decayed while wearing a hazardous material suit. One of the worst things you can do is to get too close to a refrigerator full of year-old food that has been sitting in the back of the fridge for a while.

Killing a Gasbag with a headshot does not release the gas cloud, which is a neat feature. It defies logic that a headshot would keep odors contained, but it’s beside the point. In the thick of a commotion, it’s enjoyable to neutralize a threatening opponent by shooting them in the head.

The problem is that it is rarely brought up. It’s easy to shoot the Gasbag in the head at short range thanks to the yellow hazmat outfit. Boomer memories include a distinct sound, blood spatter, blindness, and the sense of helplessness that went along with it. I think of the Boomer as a jump-scare in my head. Now, when I think of the Gasbag, I picture a distant puff of green gas. An excellent thought is squandered in this manner.

Every premise in World War Z has been done better elsewhere, but it’s given a fascinating twist—and then it doesn’t matter at all. In spite of its familiarity, this isn’t as brilliant or enjoyable as the previous offerings in the series.

FAQS:

Was World War Z any good?

Even if World War Z is forgettable and boring, there are moments when it’s fun to watch. That Overkill’s The Walking Dead game was a complete disaster. World War Z, on the other hand, is largely good but falls short in a few critical design decisions that other games have handled better.

Is World War Z fun alone?

Even though World War Z is primarily a co-op game, you may play it solo if you like…. You can then choose to eliminate the AI partners and play fully solo, however we think this makes the level quite difficult given the game’s design for four players.

Is World War Z good offline?

When you don’t have access to the internet, the offline mode is handy — it works, quite literally, in offline mode. It’s possible to use AI-controlled bots on all three difficulty levels.

Conclusion:

If you can find a few friends to play with, World War Z is an ordinary zombie shooter that provides a nice five or six hours of gameplay. However, this Switch rendition is superb, providing the full-fat experience without any technical glitches or other drawbacks. It’s monotonous and unsurprising. Don’t expect much more from this one if you’re simply looking for a simple zombie slaying experience with some mates.