Zombie MMO

*Originally published on 10/16/09



There have been quite a few zombie games in recent years. You had the Resident Evil games earlier, but with the success of both Left 4 Dead and Dead Rising, zombie games are becoming more and more popular. This is hardly a bad thing, these games provide "training" in a sense so that we have a general idea of what works and what doesn't when the zombie horde does come.

With the success of zombie games as well as the success of MMO's, it only makes sense to make an MMO that takes place in the zombie infected post-apocalyptic world. There's been talk of a Fallout MMO, which would be freakin' cool if you ask me, but I'm thinking something along the lines of the two aforementioned zombie games, only on a wider scale.

The problem with Left 4 Dead was the fact that you were limited to four people. An MMO would allow you to form whole factions of people with no limit. You could pick up wanderers or try to seize whatever goods they may have to further your own advancement.

Of course there would be hordes upon hordes of undead NPC's to battle along the way. Much like I suggested in the Green Lantern MMO article, a player dying would turn you into a zombie instead of just resurrecting. This would mirror real life situations where, if you get bitten by a zombie, you would turn and either attack your friends or get killed for good.

Like the Fallout games, it would have a vast sandbox style of game play. They could go in-depth and use real world geography to establish settings.

As one would expect in a zombie uprising, supplies would be limited so you would have to use them sparingly. Bullets, food, and water would all be valuable commodities that you would have to manage wisely if you want to survive.

I can't think of a better way to prepare people for the possibility of a zombie apocalypse. With the technology available, you could allow people to experience life after the catastrophe without actually having to trigger such a scenario. People would be able to learn the ropes of survival after the collapse of society. We can hope that this also teaches people that zombies are best taken out by head shots, so that no one has to go through the hassle of trying to figure it out as the zombie lumbers towards you.

The question that comes up would be which zombie to use? The fast "rage" zombies that have become popular in recent movies and games, or the slow lumbering zombies that we saw in the Romero movies as well as Dead Rising?

I say, why not both? The dead who rise from the grave can be the slow lumbering variety while living people who get bitten can turn into "rage" zombies. This is also most effective as people will have to prepare and be ready for either scenario. It will also add a bit more variety to the game play.

MMO's have given us the potential for some truly epic games. I still think that Green Lantern would make for an awesome MMO, and this is another one that I would love to see come to life..in a manner of speaking.