From Romero to The Walking Dead, zombie stories are hardly ever actually about the threat of the shambling horde. They’re about the threat of us, the ways we turn against each other in times of crisis. Man is the real monster, and all that – and rarely is this more evident than when you’re knee-deep in a multiplayer session of Zombie Army 4: Dead War with a squad of people you would previously have called friends.
Dead War is nominally a cooperative game – the four of you are fighting back the same waves of enemies, working towards the same end-of-level objective – but there’s not a huge amount of teamwork involved. Perhaps this stems from Zombie Army’s beginnings as a spin-off from the Sniper Elite series. While those games did introduce co-op modes, the fantasy they traded on was always about being the lone sniper in his nest, separated from the rest of the world by the glass of a scope. Dead War brings you closer to the action, taking foes that for the most part need to be within clawing distance to pose a threat and then throwing them at you by the dozen, so that individual headshots quickly become impractical (though never anything less than satisfying).
With a full squad and a seemingly endless horde to manage, multiplayer can get very busy, and your primary interaction with fellow players is generally getting in each other’s way. An ally walks right in front of that shot you’ve been lining up, or worse, blows your target back to hell themselves with a lucky shotgun blast. There’s no friendly fire to worry about, at least not where bullets are concerned, and while this is handy for keeping the peace it can make it feel like you’re all ghosts, haunting the same spot but on separate planes of existence.
This story is from the April 2020 edition of Edge.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 8,500+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber ? Sign In
This story is from the April 2020 edition of Edge.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 8,500+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber? Sign In
Hi-Fi Rush
A progress report on the games we just can't quit
Dragon's Lair
An old-fashioned dose of movie magic - but one that trades in a novel type of glamour
DAMBUSTER STUDIOS
How the former Free Radical found the fun amid corporate crises
THE MAKING OF... HARDSPACE: SHIPBREAKER
How Blackbird Interactive cracked the formula for a sci-fi tale of dystopian deconstruction
DREAM TICKET
As Media Molecule prepares to move on, we get the inside track on Tren, its spectacular swan song for Dreams
SILENCE IS GORDON
Why does the mute protagonist still loom large over the landscape of firstperson-viewed games?
AS ABOVE SO BELOW
After 13 years, Remedy is ready to make the game of its dreams
LAIKA: AGED THROUGH BLOOD
This apocalypse is not for the birds
FOREVER SKIES
Though its knightly get-ups remind us of the Arthurian tone of Dark Souls, and its gothic environments carry the miasma of Bloodborne’s Yharnam, it doesn’t take long for Hexworks’ Soulslike to spill beyond the mould in which it’s been set.
LORDS OF THE FALLEN
Though its knightly get-ups remind us of the Arthurian tone of Dark Souls, and its gothic environments carry the miasma of Bloodborne’s Yharnam, it doesn’t take long for Hexworks’ Soulslike to spill beyond the mould in which it’s been set.