Developer NewGen has decided that the thing zombie games need is more PvP, and their new game Zombie Within feels like a proof of concept. I had a chance to play through this strange game, and there is something here but let’s look a little deeper.
The concept behind Zombie Within is pretty simple, but there is a certain mastery to it. Players take on the role of either the humans or the imposter zombies. The humans will have to hunt down the imposters and kill them before they can wipe out the NPCs on the map. Meanwhile, the imposters will need to sabotage certain pipes and valves to spread toxins and hide in plain sight from the hunters.
The idea is tempting, but with these kinds of games, there always needs to be a sense of fairness, and that is down to the skills available to each class. On the human side, you have the hunter, who can kill a zombie in one shot and lay traps. There is also the Engineer who can fix broken pipes and scan the area to see if they can find the imposter. Playing as humans is an odd experience: you are limited in what you can do and spend most of your time running around the map and reacting to things. Therein lies the problem with this part of the game: it’s all reactionary, and it can be very frustrating.
Playing as the zombie imposter, meanwhile, certainly gets one’s pulse up. Players will essentially take the form of an NPC and must move around the map. The imposter doesn’t have any abilities to start with and instead unlocks the ability to turn into a zombie after having scored enough points. The imposter gameplay is fun at first, but it takes a while to get going, and there is no guarantee breaking a valve will kill anyone.
The zombie’s aim is to kill the 10 NPCs and each round can have up to six players, although I only managed to find games with three. Honestly, I think the six-player games might be better as three becomes quite tedious. The issue is that there really isn’t that much to do during the match. If you’re an imposter you just need to walk around slowly and break the odd valves, while the humans have to run back and forth.
Going forward, the game needs a few things to really make it stand out, ideally, more for the players to do during the match to help separate the monotony a bit. The imposters also need some other classes to match the humans, as they currently have no real variation in their gameplay loop. Otherwise, there is something here, and the graphics for Zombie Within mean that it’s at least entertaining to look at, even if the world feels a bit lifeless. Overall, it is a great start, but it feels like something is missing at the moment, hopefully, they find that X factor to bring in the players.
