Zombie Games Best Of The Best

What to play while you wait for CoD Zombie content

Call Of Duty: Advanced Warfare has been praised by many gamers and critics as the best CoD game in years. Our own review (of the PC version) recognised it as an improvement on last year’s game with “glimpses of brilliance” and a great story mode. Despite the general success of the game and some of the exciting new features it offers, many fans of the franchise are focused primarily on a single issue: is there a zombie mode?

Call Of Duty’s zombie modes have long been popular with fans of the games and, according to a recent report from IGN, there will indeed be zombie content included in a season pass DLC package. That’s great news for a lot of gamers out there, but the interesting thing is how much this relatively simple game mode still matters to fans. It’s one of many indications that zombies represent some of the hottest character types and themes in all of the video game industry these days. So with that in mind, and in celebration of more CoD zombie modes on the way, here’s a look at several of the most enjoyable zombie gaming options out there today.

7 Days To Die

Released late in 2013 for OS X and Windows devices, 7 Days To Die is one zombie video game that has it all: combat, survival, exploration, and plenty of surprises. Basically, the game tosses you into a zombie apocalypse following a third world war and challenges you to survive the day and night in whatever ways you can. But it’s the little things that make this game particularly interesting. For example, your character will need nourishment (encouraging more exploration), and the zombies get stronger and more aggressive after dark. You can find the game at 7daystodie.com.

Plants vs. Zombies 2

PopCap may just have the most popular zombie game in any video game market with its wildly addictive twist on the tower defense setup. In Plants vs. Zombies, players use various plants to defend a given base from a slow but deadly wave of oncoming zombies. As one progresses through levels, new plants and upgrades are available to battle more dangerous zombies on trickier terrains. The original game is a blast, but the sequel app was particularly engaging and offered a great deal of variety, though it received a fair bit of criticism for being one of the first particularly big name “freemium” games (a free download offering in-app purchases). USGamer.net even went so far as to give the game a negative review almost entirely because of its payment model. But the bottom line is, you can have hours and hours of fun with this game without spending a dime.

Zombie Rush

Zombie Rush isn’t an action- or strategy-based game like the others on this list, but rather a take on an arcade slot machine that uses the popular zombie theme to create an appealing setting and design. Still, what kind of slot machine do you know of that has a description beginning with “A whole bunch of undead has decided to invade the neighborhood and dump radioactive waste everywhere”? This is how the game is teased at Intercasino.com, and once you start playing you’ll find a number of fun ways in which a traditional zombie onslaught setup is used to make a normal slot experience all the more fun to play. It may not ultimately be the sort of engrossing, adventurous game we’re used to in the zombie genre, but it’s worth noting for its success in bringing the concept to a different gaming genre altogether.

Sniper Elite: Zombie Nazi Army

The title kind of says it all. Available on Stream and PC (but rumoured to be on the way to PS4 and Xbox One), Sniper Elite: Zombie Nazi Army is an add-on to the Sniper Elite gaming series that thrusts players into a fictional spin-off of the end of World War II. Basically, Hitler has created a zombie army and your job is to team up with any remaining humans (Allies and/or enemies) to battle the undead. In a way, it’s refreshingly fictional for a modern zombie game. Not that any zombie game can necessarily be realistic, but most new games in the genre tend to focus on detailed, realistic apocalypse scenarios. This one’s just all-out historical fantasy, and it’s all the more enjoyable for it.

Dead State

We’re cheating a little bit including Dead State, as it’s only being released this month and therefore is something of an unknown commodity. However, it sounds incredibly fun. Designed as a turn-based RPG survival game, Dead State places you on a team of surviving humans looking to survive, protect themselves, and rebuild in the face of a zombie apocalypse. The game’s website describes an open-world format with a great deal of exploration possibilities and various perspectives, ultimately making it sound like one of the most thoroughly imagined zombie games out there.