Motives don’t get much simpler than hunger. There’s a time and place for the symbolic evils of Silent Hill and the like, but sometimes you need something more direct. That’s where zombies come in. (Un)fortunately, there are almost as many zombie games as there are zombies in them. That gives you a ton of choices, but it makes finding high-quality experiences tough. Whether you’re looking for survival, strategy, or a head-popping FPS, these 5 underrated zombie games are the perfect Halloween fix.
Survivalist: Invisible Strain
Stealth, combat, basebuilding, and NPCs with distinct skills and personalities? Survivalist: Invisible Strain is a few things, and one of those things is complex. Another is hard. Even the HUD takes some getting used to, but once you do, the game’s depth and beauty are undeniable. Throw in a randomized world and online co-op, and you could lose serious hours here. As an early access project from a single dev, there’s a lot of cooking still to do here, but what’s already on the plate is tasty enough.
DeadOS
Instead of worrying about just one horrifying villlain, DeadOS throws an undead city at you. It’s a city-wide, fully customizable outbreak sim, letting you unleash anything from Romero shamblers to insta-spread infections. You can customize the city, and with an area capping at 900 blocks (and 25,000 humans), there’s no better way to watch the apocalypse on the grandest scale. You can even take control of an individual zombie or survivor at any point, following along with the action from a closer perspective.
They Don’t Sleep
What’s harder than surviving the hungry dead after the end of the world? Keeping your baby alive at the same time. They Don’t Sleep is a top-down survival game about killing the dead, scavenging supplies, and caring for your little one as well as yourself. With need-management-focused gameplay to match its brutal pixel violence, the Project Zomboid vibes are strong with this one. Alternating between comforting your child and popping headshots through my camp’s fortified fence is the kind of weird and wonderful experience you only find in underrated zombie games like this.
Endgame: Road to Salvation
Demons! Flamethrowers! Zombies raining from the sky! Dragons! Dragons? Dense psychological horror is great, but sometimes you need something louder. Endgame: Road to Salvation is in many ways an anti-subtle experience, the video game equivalent of a firework in a toilet. Don’t expect it to make sense. Just dive in.
It feels llike someone made a giant list titled “Things That Would Be Awesome,” and then just slapped all of them into one game. It’s janky and obnoxious in a dozen different ways, but it eclipses most blockbusters in terms of sheer spectacle. If you want an underrated zombie game with a way different vibe, Endgame: Road to Salvation is it.
Unturned
Plenty of fun horror games embrace the low-poly aesthetic, but Unturned is far more than a copycat or asset flip. Beneath these Roblox graphics lies a surprisingly well-realized zombie survival game. Hunt and grow crops? Sure. Pilot air, land, and sea vehicles? Absolutely. Ground-up support for modding and PvP? There’s that too. Unturned is solid solo but a far richer experience with other people. If “low-poly DayZ” sounds like a good way to spend All Hallows’ Eve, Unturned is well-worth a look.
