As we have already seen, this enduring appeal may be connected with zombies’ versatility as a foe. In response to this question, interviewees were cautiously optimistic that the undead antagonist would never truly die. Might zombies’ ludic appeal eventually begin to wane?

The question arises, then, as to why game designers continue to appropriate the undead in their games, despite the potentially problematic or increasingly well-worn nature of such adversaries. Furthermore, following decades of battling the relentless digital undead, there may be a certain sense of zombie fatigue that hangs over games which continue to rely upon this trope, not unlike the fetid stench of the antagonists’ rotting flesh. Released just six months after the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr., Romero sought to cast non-white actors in significant roles and went so far as to depict the lynching and murder of a key black character at the film’s conclusion. Romero’s original zombie movie, Night of the Living Dead (The Walter Reade Organization, 1968).

This is an ironic turn in zombies’ popular culture history, perhaps, given the satirical intentions of George A. Resident Evil 5 (Capcom, 2009) faced accusations of racism in its depiction of African zombies (Brock, 2011 Pham, 2009 Goldstein, 2009), suggesting that the undead are not quite ‘other’ enough to alleviate moral and social concerns. However, the undead – not least because of their resemblance to the living – remain somewhat problematic as disposable, morally-acceptable cannon (or chainsaw) fodder. 1), might be considered ideal targets for indiscriminate on-screen execution. As Backe & Aarseth (2013) suggest, enemies that lack any shred of human consciousness, that represent an “alien, post-human Other” (p. As Dill (2013, p.5) notes, zombie games are an example of where sub-par AI may suffice because “the characters are deliberately made to be a little bit stupid or wonky, so that their strangeness will be more acceptable.” It is also assumed that something of zombies’ appeal lies in their ‘otherness’. For example, zombies’ impaired mental and physical function means that they are readily re-created using even limited in-game artificial intelligence (AI). Perennial sales behemoth, Call of Duty, has featured a zombie-based mode in instalments released since World at War (Activision, 2008), while the indie scene is similarly infested, with titles including DayZ (Bohemia Interactive, 2013), Zombie Night Terror (Gambitious Digital Entertainment, 2016) and Project Zomboid (The Indie Stone, 2013).Īssumptions are made about the continued popularity of zombies as video game antagonists, many of which are framed in terms of design-driven or technological concerns. Zombies – or zombie-like entities – are a ubiquitous enemy in modern video games, from the infected victims featured in Left 4 Dead (Valve Corporation, 2008) and The Last of Us (Sony Computer Entertainment, 2013), to the more traditional zombies that plague the residents of Raccoon City in the original Resident Evil (Capcom, 1996). In this excerpt, however, the question of the undead’s enduring appeal as video game antagonists is explored. The chapter discusses these themes in turn, before considering some of the less significant, but still notable, themes that emerged. Three dominant themes emerged from the data: storytelling, gameplay, and utility. Interviews were conducted with twenty game designers who have worked on high-profile zombie titles, both indie and triple-A, and content analysis performed on the resulting material. In the chapter, assumptions about the ludic appeal of the undead are discarded and a fresh qualitative approach taken to determine why game designers continue to create games centred on zombie antagonists. The following post is an excerpt from Zombies, again? A qualitative analysis of the zombie antagonist’s appeal in game design, a chapter that appears in The Playful Undead and Video Games: Critical Analyses of Zombies and Gameplay, edited by Stephen J.

Zombie night terror gameplay 1st level