Back in 2012 when Nintendo was still in their post-Wii euphoria, 3rd party Nintendo titles still elicited hope in loyal fans. Among those titles was Ubisoft’s third person survival horror zombie extravaganza, ZombiU. Ubi took a gamble when they decided to bring a grim and bloodied horror game to Nintendo’s very family friendly console; a gamble that ended up providing poor sales for ZombiU.
Even though ZombiU wasn’t the success that Ubi envisioned, although it was critically acclaimed, fans still flocked to the game like birds chasing the left behind corpses of the zombie apocalypse. So, what should be done when you have what could be a successful game that was released at the wrong time and on the wrong console? Easy.
Re-release it with improved graphics for every console and PC.
In a statement on the Ubi blog, Mikel Raparaz wrote ” ZombiU reawakened our fear of reanimated corpses, forcing us to skulk through shadows and fight desperate close-up battles against tough undead cannibals. On August 18, the game is dropping the ‘U’ from its name and shambling back into the spotlight with a number of updates as it debuts on PlayStation 4, Xbox One and PC”. Just like ZombiU, Zombi tasks players with surviving, not as a zombie smashing super soldier but as a resourceful scavenger on the fringe of the apocalypse.
Once again, dying will not permanently end your game — instead, you will need to find your shuffling corpse among the hoard, kill your prior self, and take back your goods. This all seems rather existentially disturbing. Yet, how can Zombi be as exhilarating without the main tool used for producing scares in ZombiU, the separate game pad. Raparaz explains,
” ‘We knew from the beginning that maintaining the tension and feel of the original was one of the main challenges, as the way ZombiU was presented on Wii U cannot be reproduced,’ says Hélène Henry, Zombi’s producer. While the minimap (which formerly required players to glance down at the Wii U gamepad) has been moved onto the main screen, ‘We maintain a minimal HUD as much as possible,’ Henry says”.
The claustrophobic sense that pervaded ZombiU won’t be easily replicate. While this was an inevitable shame when moving to one screen, gamers can be comforted with the fact that they will now be able to snap and smash zombie skulls with not only the cricket bat from ZombiU but also with a nail covered bat and a shovel.
Without the screen cramming claustrophobia of ZombiU, Zombi will have an obvious challenge in trying to translate what made its predecessor so frightening and unique.
Are you looking forward to running scared from the aforementioned zombie menace in the near future? Let us know in the comments below.
