Time For New Blood
So let’s say in the extremely rare chance we do away with zombies for a few years, what then? If you’re looking for classic monsters, werewolves and vampires haven’t really been shown a lot of love lately. While games like The Order 1886 attempted to bring Lycans to the forefront as our prime foes, they were too few and far between in the entirety of the campaign. Vampires have had even less of a presence, despite being some of the most interesting and dynamic monsters ever conjured up. Sure, they appear in games such as The Witcher 3 and any Elder Scrolls title, but we rarely get to explore the world these creatures inhabit. Both of these gothic baddies could really offer up some unique and terrifying moments we have yet to ever experience.
However, there is a way to have our cake and eat it too. See, our representation of ghouls is usually the western one that George Romero inspired thanks to Night of the Living Dead, but there are so many different variations of what we know as zombies. From the Chinese jiangshi to the mind-controlled people of Hati, there are a plethora of zombies we haven’t explored. Yes, the western zombie is by far the most well-known, but it would be interesting so see something new. Horror games are growing increasingly stale as we strip mine the last nuggets of ideas yet to be explored within western horror. Perhaps it’s time to turn our eyes elsewhere for scares.
Obviously, the chance of zombies going is pretty low, but it would be interesting to see a game industry without them for a little bit. Everyone loves killing zombies, it’s basically become a staple within the medium itself and there’s nothing wrong with that. It just seems like they hog all of the spotlight, acting as a knee jerk reaction for a game that just needs to fill the screen with a bunch of foes for the player to kill. Perhaps it’s time we send zombies on a much-needed vacation.
