NYCC 2019: Zombie Army 4 Hands-on

I’m not sure if the reason Zombie Army 4: Dead War was shown off at New York Comic Con was that it’s October aka Spooktober, or if that was just pure coincidence. I didn’t think to ask at the time, but whatever the reason, I am here for it. Zombie Army 4: Dead War is the sequel to 2015’s Zombie Army Trilogy, a spin-off of the Sniper Elite series, and a popular brand in its own right. Full disclosure, this demo was my first interaction with the Zombie Army series or Sniper Elite, and after hearing that the most I’d ever played of a shooter was about half an hour of Left 4 Dead, my lovely game demonstrator put the game on auto-heal mode.

Imagine World War 2 took place in an alternate universe, and instead of committing suicide at the end when he knew his cards were up, Adolf Hitler instead decided to dig up his version of the Necronomicon and conjure an army of undead Nazis from the grave to keep on fighting the bad fight. A zombie army, if you will.

So, when I jumped into the game, I wasn’t quite sure what to expect. Playing as Shola, an engineer, I was immediately drawn in to how detailed and gritty the world was. It doesn’t just look like a post-apocalyptic hideout where world-weary survivors have been facing off against Nazi zombies that just. won’t. die. It feels like that too. The soundtrack and visuals both complement each other well to bring this setting to life.

For the actual combat, as previously mentioned, I was set on auto-heal. Otherwise, I would’ve died about three seconds into the demo. Let me tell you, when there is a train full of murder zombies crashing through the walls of your hideout, it is not a good idea to stick around and exchange business cards. I’m not sure I can really explain how terrifying this horde of zombies was, but it reminded me of a previous musou game I previewed earlier in the weekend. Absolutely an absurd number of zombies.

The gun choices were good, though I was having trouble switching mid-battle when I kept running out of ammo. Having ammo stashes scattered around was great, but I was too much of a nervous shooter to be able to conserve my ammo for any of my weapons until I could find a new stash. Grenades and melee weapons were also available, and I would have liked to have seen more of the melee combat, though I know that’s not the focus of the game.

Overall, Zombie Army 4 was fun. Was it the type of game I’d go out and buy? No, probably not, because I was absolute rubbish at it, but if you’re looking for a solid shooter with lots of enemies and some zombies to take out your frustration on, this might be your cup of tea.

Are you excited to play Zombie Army 4: Dead War? Have you played the previous Zombie Army Trilogy? Or are you just interested in shooting a bunch of Nazis? Let us know in the comments below!