Zombies have staggered and bashed their way into nearly every part of the gaming community, from shooters to RPGs to pretty much anything you can imagine. If you can mod it, there’s a zombie mod for it. And we’re unsurprisingly giddy about that.
One area where the walking dead have not experienced as much success is in the realm of MMORPGs, but Jeff Strain and his Seattle-based company, Undead Labs, are working to change that, one brain-eating misanthrope at a time. Strain wants to create not just a successful zombie MMO, but a successful zombie MMO on consoles.
Strain is no stranger to MMOs. He was a founder of ArenaNet and a bigwig at NCsoft, exec producer of Guild Wars, lead programmer for World of Warcraft, and has credits in numerous other Blizzard games. In an interview with Destructoid, he explains what he wants to do and why.
There are a few zombie RPG games out now, but most of them are limited web-based games. Strain is setting out to make the “best zombie RPG ever”. Unlike the gameplay style of Left 4 Dead, Strain’s apocalypse will see survivors working together to build communities, reinforce defenses, gather supplies, and defend themselves when the hordes hit. He says that he wants players to feel like they really must try to live and perhaps rebuild in a world beset by the undead scourging of the Earth. He says that unlike traditional MMOs, his zombie MMO will be focused on more survival elements, with quick bursts of intense action. Also, unlike Left 4 Dead, survivors will probably have to make due with makeshift weapons, for the most part. He mentioned sharpened pencils and lawn chairs.
Why a console MMO? Strain essentially says that while MMOs have a loyal PC player base, it’s about time the genre expanded to incorporate the growing console market. He remarks that it wasn’t so long ago that many thought a first-person shooter on a console would be worthwhile, but then games like Halo appeared on the market. He hopes his MMO can tap some similar magic.
Strain wouldn’t comment on what would happen if a character became infected or how player-versus-player elements would be staged, but he did mention that he’s amongst the younger generation of zombie lore lovers, so don’t expect your walking dead to do much walking at all.
Zombicidal Forums » Site Discussion » Post Discussion
Undead Labs’ Zombie MMORPG
(8 posts)-
Elunah
offlineSeattle TedAnd I'm all out of bubble gum.Posted 9 months ago # -
mkcompy
offlineMember -
Elunah
offlineSeattle TedMy guess is that there won’t be, unfortunately. I don’t think I’ve ever heard of a single MMO that has been developed on more than one platform.
Posted 9 months ago # -
adrian
offlineMemberi would like to see some gameplay of this game
Posted 9 months ago # -
zac
offlineMembersounds awsome
Posted 9 months ago # -
Sybilz n Bitz
offlineMemberOh no... it goes against my oath not to play MMOs...
BUT IT'S ZOMBIES!
Oh Ted, give me strength!Posted 9 months ago # -
Harlequin
offlineMemberPosted by unregistered user: HarlequinStrain is an idiot if he thinks putting this thing exclusively on consoles is a good idea.
Also, one fairly successful MMO does exist cross-platform and it’s called Final Fantasy Online (XI). It’s been around for a while and is still running so cross-platform can be done.
The problem is that most MMO’s are developed for the PC from the start, but in theory, if they’re designed to be cross-platform in the beginning, then things could run more smoothly. Also, it’s typically easier to “port up” to a PC than it is to “port down” to a console, so there’s no reason why this couldn’t exist on multiple formats.
Posted 9 months ago # -
Tats
offlineMember
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But will there be a PC version AVAILABLE? Some of us don’t have 360s or PS3s.