Summary
Zombies. Some people love them, some hate them, and video game developers can’t seem to get enough of them. While pop culture’s zombie obsession has mellowed in recent years, there’s no denying that there are a ton of zombie games out there. At this point, there’s a zombie game for everyone, fromexcellent retro zombie gamesto comedy games and, of course, terrifying zombie horror games.
That’s great news for those of us who enjoy crushing zombie skulls. There’s something uniquely satisfying about squashing hordes of shambling undead. The truth is, zombies really aren’t all that scary.Many zombie games aren’t even horror games anymore, and we’ve put together a collection of some of the best examples. They might be a little scary or creepy in places, but even the biggest scaredy-cat can work their way through these games. We’ve limited the list to games featuring genuine zombies and ignored games likeThe Last of UsandDays Gone,which feature enemies that look and sound like them but aren’ttechnicallyzombies.
DayZhas a long and storied history. Anopen-world game built on a shoestring budget, it started life as a popular mod for military simArma 2before being made into its own standalone game.DayZisn’t just partly responsible for the huge surge in popularity of hardcore survival games; it also inspired the creation of the originalPUBG. The original mod came out in 2013, with the standalone game coming out in 2018, soDayZhas been in constant development for quite a while now.
Perhaps once upon a time, Bohemia Interactive envisionedDayZas a survival horror game, but the horror aspect has long been dropped. The focus inDayZis on realistic survival mechanics and avoiding hostile players. Anyone who has spent any time in a recent build ofDayZwill attest that the zombies are little more than an environmental hazard and a minor annoyance.DayZcan get very stressful, but it’s never scary (barring some custom servers). InDayZ, the real horror is other people.
Project Zomboidis sometimes referred to as survival horror, but it’s really not. It’sa tough-as-nails zombie gamethat plops the players down in a dense urban environment and expects them to survive for as long as possible. It’s a hardcore survival game where, outside the occasional human, the only enemies are zombies. These shambling, old-school-style zombies are dangerous 1-on-1, but encountering a horde can spell disaster.
Project Zomboiduses a 2D top-down perspective that saps the horror out of its premise. It’s easy to see how a first or third-person version could be scary, butZomboid’sgraphics are more cartoony than scary. Things can get tense, and a zombie catching the player off guard might make them jump, butZomboidis rarely “scary.” After a few hours of getting to know the game’s systems, the player can turn their character into a gun-toting zombie-killing machine. While the survival elements remain a constant threat, the same can’t be said forZomboid’sundead.
Any of theDead Islandgames could have made this list, but we choseDead Island 2because it’s arguably the most action-heavy and least scary entry in the franchise. One ofthe best zombie RPGs in recent years,Dead Island 2is all about the player building up their survivor and slicing their way through as many zombies as possible. The story is bare bones, and the game is surprisingly short for a modern release, but while it lasts, it’s a lot of fun.
Set in L.A.Dead Island 2has the player working through Hollywood mansions, zombie-infested film sets, and city streets full of the undead. The main focus is on getting up close and personal and killing zombies with an impressive array of melee weapons, but the developers threw in some guns for good measure. Most zombies are soft and squishy and put up little fight. Things only really get tense when facing off against annoying special-type zombies like the Screamer or Brute. The one time the game dips its toes into horror territory is during the theme park boss fight against a zombified clown. While not that scary in itself, it’s certain to trigger anyone with coulrophobia.
State of Decay 2is another zombie survival game that takes the undead threat and makes them more of a nuisance than a terrifying horror. One ofthe best base-building zombie games,State of Decay 2has the player choosing a base and then focusing on building up a viable community of survivors. There’s not really a “main character”. Instead, each player-controllable recruited survivor has their own skills and personality. As survivors fatigue easily, the player will find themselves swapping between them often.
In small groups, zombies are easy to handle, especially once the player has found some decent weapons and built up their survivors' stats. The only real source of fear is the game’s perma death mechanic, which means one lapse in judgment can lead to the death of a favorite survivor. There are no jump scares, and the sheer number of zombies the player faces robs them of any intimidation factor. The game’s art style also focuses more on cartoony graphics than horrific realism.
For those not in the know, theZombie Armygames are a spin-off of the popularSniper Eliteseries. WhileSniper Elitehas always focused on stealth, “realistic” sniping, and careful planning,Zombie Armyhas always been about taking out hordes of zombies with friends. The series borrows many elements fromSniper Elite, like the “realistic” sniping mechanics and kill cam, but offers a very different experience.
Zombie Army 4is the most removed entry fromSniper Elite. While sniping is still the bread and butter of combat, there are far more sections where the player will have to take on zombies up close and personal. Compared toSniper Elite, the maps are far more linear, and the players are mostly funneled from point A to B, wiping out hordes of zombies as they go. It’s a simple experience that scratches the zombie-killing itch nicely. Throw in some friends into co-op, and it becomes one of the best zombie shooters around.
Dead Rising 2has a story. Something about finding Zombrex to stop the protagonists daughter from turning, and finding a way to escape a zombie-infested mall while uncovering the truth behind the outbreak. WhatDead Rising 2really cares about, though, is giving the player as many outlandish and gruesome ways to kill zombies as possible, all while wearing ridiculous outfits. Imagine Bugs Bunny loosed in a zombie apocalypse and being handed an R rating, and that pretty much sums upDead Rising.
TheDead Risinggames feature countless crazy and bizarre weapons. These weapons are usually created by strapping two or more objects together. That can be as simple as a spiked baseball bat and knife-boxing gloves, or as outlandish as a wheelchair with machine guns taped to it or a homemade lightsaber. Usually, the weirder the weapon, the better it is at killing zombies. For an older game,Dead Rising 2had impressively-sized zombie hordes, which the player was tasked with fighting through while building up as high a combo as possible. Killing zombies was never very difficult. Instead, the biggest threat came from the game’s psychos, powerful human enemies that acted as bosses. Unfortunately, the franchise peaked withDead Rising 2.Dead Rising 3was a bit of a letdown, and the scariest thing aboutDead Rising 4was the fact that Capcom locked its ending behind a DLC.
Lollipop Chainsawharkens back to a different age of gaming. One ofthe best zombie comedy games,it stars an overly-sexualized, just-turned-18-year-old cheerleader who carries around her boyfriend’s severed head and chops up zombies with a chainsaw. It never took itself seriously and had as much fun with its premise as humanly possible.
A classic beat-em-up, the game’s combat was fast-paced, gory, and emphasized, building up combos and using special moves. This surprisingly good combat was broken up by hilarious mini-games and some fairly basic character customization. All of it was all held together by a colorful, comic-book art style that complemented the game’s zany and irreverent sense of humor. Fondly remembered today by those who played it,Lollipop Chainsawis something of a cult classic, and even has a remake/remaster on the way.
Many people take mobile games for granted these days, but back in 2009 they were a big deal. Along with the likes ofAngry Birds,Plants vs. Zombieshelped to revolutionize mobile gaming and proved these bite-sized experiences could spawn massive franchises.Plants vs. Zombieswas a relatively simple tower defense game where the player used different types of pants to fight off waves of zombies.
It might have been simple, but it was also addictive. In 2009, everyone and their mother were playing this game on their phone. The cartoony, comically-animated zombies were about as unthreatening as possible, and the plant units were outright adorable. The original game was an immediate hit and spawned several sequels and spin-offs, including an odd third-person competitive shooter. The franchise isn’t as popular as it once was, but the fact remains thatPlants vs. Zombieswas a great zombie tower defense game with surprising depth.
Ask any zombie fan what the most disappointing zombie film is, and there’s a good chance they’ll say Brad Pitt’sWorld War Z. Barely based on the book of the same name, the film lacked nearly everything that made its namesake a cult hit. When a video game version was announced, fans approached it with trepidation.
World War Ztakes more inspiration from the film than the book. A cooperative-focused zombie game, players pick a survivor and load up before dropping into a camping mission where they must complete simple objectives while mowing down massive hordes of zombies. It’s similar toLeft 4 Dead—the best co-op zombie game ever made, and only missing from this list because it can actually be scary — but on a much bigger scale. While the initial launch wasn’t particularly well received, the Aftermath rerelease went much smoother and managed to fix many of the complaints made about the game.World War Zis at its best when players are working together to kill the seemingly endless groups of zombies that fill the screen, but its quieter moments can be a bit of a drag.
