Top 5 Zombie Games That Re-Defined The Genre

Many of us have indulged in this ‘zombie apocalypse’ conversation from time to time. The genre is not confined to “load of brainless clones” anymore. It has spread across TV shows, movies and more importantly, games. It must be something special about infected risen dead, coming in a horde to senselessly kill you. I guess that’s why it probably makes zombies one of the best video game enemies ever. When it comes to zombie themed games, there are a lot of innovative creations out there to choose from.

In this list we take a look at some of those games that managed to take a place for itself on the long list of game genres. These are our top 5 favorite games which star the wonderful dead alive. By the end of this list, whether you want to mow down rotting walkers or terrifying infected, these games have you covered.

5. Call of Duty: Black Ops II Zombie Mode (PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, PC)

The Call Of Duty franchise has earned it’s fair share of praise and complaints over the past couple of years. The series, though still appreciated by the fans, have also been planned for several features and storytelling. Though one feature that awfully goes unnoticed sometimes is the Zombie mode, in almost every part of the franchise. Talking about not the most recent release of the series, Black Ops II, though relatively old, wasn’t the first Call of Duty game to have a zombie mode.

That claim to fame falls to World at War, Treyarch’s pacific island set shooter. And the Zombies co-op horde mode also appeared in the first Black Ops game.

But Black Ops II has the best zombie shooter of the series so far, with four separate modes. You can fight endless waves of zombies in the traditional four-player survival mode, battle it out four-on-four-on-zombies in the versus Grief mode, play custom games of Zombies, or play one-to-four player co-op in the huge plot-driven open world Tranzit mode.

4. Left 4 Dead 2 (PC, Xbox 360)

Valve is more known for its first person shooting games, Steam and praising our Lord and Savior GabeN, but here’s where they took a detour a developed a game where four players must face off in co-op against hordes of the Infected, who develop severe psychosis and exhibit zombie-like tendencies in a science-fiction environment.

The series is unique because of its cinematic pretensions — each campaign has a B-movie film poster and name and features a series of connected maps. The players must battle from safe room to safe room, against hordes of zombies, often holding areas for extended periods of time against waves of zombies, frantically reloading and hunting out ammo or weapons.

An AI director assesses the player’s performance, throwing zombies and super-zombies against them at moments designed to heighten the tension — as well as putting in nerve-wracking gaps. With modes like campaign, versus, survival and scavenge, players have a wide variety of choices and hours to immersive fun to look forward to.

3. Dying Light (PlayStation 4, Xbox One, PC)

Dying Light is not just another open-world zombie game set on an island loaded with customized melee weapons and four-player co-op. Well, it’s basically that and may remind you of Dead Rising, and to begin with they appear to be cut from the same cloth, offering directed, boring busy work for the first hour, but we assure you it’s not. It rather takes that cloth, stuffs it into a bottle, sets it on fire and hurls it from a great height into a pack of the undead.The game basis itself on the elements of parkour, weapon modifications and skills to avoid or conquer zombie occupied territory and turns itself into an explorative and emergent adventure.

You can scale every building and explore the surroundings for chemicals, chocolate and cigarettes and other survival tools. The streets, meanwhile, are filled with reanimated corpses. They range from your everyday shaking and shambling dead to bloated bodies filled with toxic sludge.

Worst, however, are the mandible monsters that’ll follow you along your usual escape routes, running and climbing faster than you possibly can.They may have been working with borrowed parts here and there, but the developer Techland crafted a formidable undead survival experience in Dying Light.

2. The Walking Dead (PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Xbox 360, PC)

It would be shameful not to include Telltale’s The Walking Dead as one of the best zombie games of all time. Rather than just endlessly chopping off heads or blowing undead brains to bits with a shotgun, like other zombie titles would have you do, this point-and-click adventure explores the survival side of the zombie apocalypse. The Walking Dead is set parallel to the events of the comic series and some of the TV series but features very little crossover. the focus is rightly placed on new characters and stories.

Instead of testing your headshot skills or K/D ratio, this game is highly dependent on your social decision-making skills. Those decisions are made through quick-time choices through your protagonist Lee with the other main characters. They can vary from being ‘fairly friendly and empathetic response to characters you like’ or to some decisions that ‘could save a certain person’s life or may result in another’s death’. The developing relationship between the two central characters in the game, Lee, and Clementine, is what carries the experience.

The zombies in the zombie apocalypse, of course, feature but the perfect blend of encounters with the undead coupled with the powerful narrative become a far more nerve-wracking experience. If you appreciate this kind of a mix, The Walking Dead is a must on the playlist.

1. The Last of Us — (PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4)

This game has been life changing experience for many of us including me. The sheer amount of emotions was enough for me to call this one of the best games ever created. Not only was The Last of Us awarded Game of the Year for 2013 by many critics — it was also the most intense, enthralling, and engrossing gaming experience involving zombie apocalypse. Developed by Naughty Dog and published by Sony Computer Entertainment, it takes you through a dangerous cross-country journey through the infected United States which has been completely overrun by plant life and the aforementioned zombies.

The game takes you on the journey towards asylum with Joel and Ellie, in this highly dilapidated, creepy environments, which set the perfect tone for the gameplay and that provides a heart-pounding suspense to almost unbearable levels. Being mostly a sensible stealth based game, it won’t be your typical go-in-guns-blazing zombie game. Nevertheless, the action-packed moments are fun and the dramatic scene is just as emotionally engaging and bone-crushing as every other survival/horror out there.

This game shows off the excellent hardware design of the PS3 and the developer’s hard work in the best way possible, passing the torch to its successor PS4 to make it even better than before. If you’re looking for the ultimate zombie survival experience, The Last of Us is by far the best you’re going to get.

How do you like our top 5 zombie games list? Agree or Disagree? Leave your comments down below.