First impressions: World War Z on Xbox One

If there is one way to get me to play a video game, it’s throw zombies at it… well, except for Call of Duty, which is weird as it am a huge CoD fan, but not of the ‘Zombies’ part of the gameplay. Now I’ve played a fair few zombie games like Dead Rising, Dead Island, State of Decay, Zombie Army Trilogy and heaps of other games of their ilk, so,a new zombie game will always pique my interest.

Now to say I was surprised that a video had been made of World War Z, and film that is 6 years old who was based on the novel by Max Brooks from 7 years prior to that is underestimating my reaction to discovering this game.

Of course, the story (and rather than go through the intricacies of the novel or the film’s plot I’ll give a rough outline that sounds familiar) is that a virus has infected the human race that turns those infected into a zombie that moves quite fast and will do anything to continue spreading the infection… which leads to some pretty ridiculous scenes in the film of these zombies stacking on top of each other in a fervour… but the zombies won’t attack anyone who is resistant to the virus, leading adventure in this world to be finding a cure.

You know, usual zombie stuff.

This game is made for an online experience but so far I have not been able to get a game online and none of my friends play so I haven’t been able to convince any of them to get it, even though it has a budget price point of $50 (in Australia on release). Subsequently I have been playing this game offline in a local environment with bots playing as my three compatriots. This is a third-person view game and the character archetypes are all interesting and relevant to the environment they exist in ie the New York levels have a bunch of ‘New York’ looking characters, whereas the Israel levels have a more military feel. Each of these characters also have a backstory to see once you have finished any level with each of them.

Basically the game is a grinder: you have to get from Place A to Objective B, killing as many zombies as you possibly can (which swarm like bees) and once you get to B, the NPC there will say ‘we can’t do this until you do that’ which you do and then it moves onto the next level. There is a basic levelling up schedule which increases your weapon strengths and types and your character is prepared for bigger zombies like ‘screamers’ who call more zombies to your locations, and a big bruiser type who just grab and smash you.

The various locations you can play in are awesome, giving you a mixture of environments. The street/ urban look of New York, the older looking building landscape of Moscow, the more suburban/ rural environments of Israel and finally, Tokyo, it its outer lying city environments.

The missions do have a bit of variety, but it’s not SO much different than what I mentioned previously. Actually the look and the gameplay, and even the leveling up system reminds me a little of The Division… if it had a zombie mode.

All in all, my first impressions of this game are that it’s ok, not great, but a fun distraction which I am sure would be enhanced by the more online gameplay. I don’t imagine it has too much longevity though except for those who truly are a slave to the grind.