Undead Labs’ Zombie MMORPG
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.
