Nothing New
Let’s face it – zombies haven’t offered anything really new in years. While they can be a good support monster for a game with a larger roster of unique enemies, they hardly have been able to stand on their own two feet in years. With the exception of a game like Dying Light, almost all zombies fall into the same design and archetypes we’ve seen time and time again. There’s always the bloated ones, the big bullet sponge ones, the ranged ones, and the especially fast ones that are meant to chase you down. We’ve seen these special variants pop up quite a lot lately, and while I understand the need for a zombie game to have different types, they always end up falling under these categories.
It doesn’t help that the zombie as a base foe are rarely as threatening as they are depicted in any other medium. Of course, there are exceptions to this, but in the broader scope of gaming, zombies aren’t a threatening foe in almost any way. This falls into the fact that there is really only so much you can do with a traditional ghoul. At least, at first glance. The basic ideas around the zombie leave a lot of room to experiment with and design their features around. The Clickers in The Last of Us are a great example of this with the introduction a more plant-based appearance and acts. Sadly, the rest of the monsters really don’t capitalize on the foliage angle, with this one monster being the sole exception to the rule.
With dozens upon dozens of big Triple A titles releasing every year, swapping out our perception of what a zombie is could really help a game stand out among the rest of them. Though it would be nice if zombies were actually more than just another mob of creatures standing in our way.
