World War Z

[NANO]

World War Z, an official tie-in game of the movie starring Brad Pitt, was announced in early December by Paramount Pictures and Saber Interactive. It was presented at the time as a cooperative online focused shooter game due for PC, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One, though additional details weren’t available at the time.

Now, Saber Interactive CEO Matthew Karch sat down with Official PlayStation Magazine UK for an interview featured in their latest magazine (April 2018, issue 147). To begin with, he clarified that the game will be a third person shooter played from an over the shoulder perspective.

The zombies will feature procedural behavior in order to provide a different gameplay experience with each mission. Objectives may include protecting certain characters and assets or saving survivors; locations from New York City, Moscow, Jerusalem and the movie’s iconic Korean airfield will be available at launch, with more coming afterward.

But of course, the core of World War Z will be to replicate hordes of fast moving zombies, something that’s unique to the game according to Karch.

The idea is to give players the flexible option to play alone or with friends at any time. To me, the real fun with swarms is the online co-op experience – World War Z is the only game to offer an online experience with such massive quantities of fast moving enemies. The sheer quantity of swarming enemies on the screen and the way they interact by climbing over one another to reach areas that would be safe in other games is unique to World War Z. I would say it truly defines the game. Fighting the swarms that can be either one massive enemy or 1,000 individual ones is exhilarating and addicting. We tried very hard to replicate the feel of the film in this respect. The major difference is that in the film you would normally flee the enemy, but in the game, you will be forced to fight. You can blow up cars to kill hordes of zombies and destroy certain structures to alter their path. You can also build fences, plant mines and barbed wire, and place turrets in anticipation of incoming horde.

It is unclear yet whether World War Z will be released in conjunction with the movie sequel or not, though the official Facebook page of the game mentioned that the plan is to launch this year, which seems unlikely for the movie.