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0 I’ve played a tonne of zombie video games over the years, from open-world titles to playing as a zombie itself! However, I don’t think I’ve ever come across anything like Zombie Cure Lab. A base building colony sim game that allows you to recruit zombies? Sounds interesting!
Developed by Thera Bytes and published by Aerosoft, Zombie Cure Lab was originally released on Steam in Early Access in December 2022. Now, over two and a half years later, we have the full release on consoles, with this review focusing on the PlayStation 5 version. But, how well does it translate to consoles?
Playing an UNO Reverse Card on the Zombie Virus
When the world is overrun by zombies, all hope seems lost. Thankfully, it isn’t all doom and gloom, as those smarty-pants scientists have concocted a cure that reverses zombification! Your main objective, then, is to build a cutting-edge lab in order to cure the infected and bring humanity back from the brink of extinction. No pressure then!
Gameplay
As far as base builders go, Zombie Cure Lab is similar to others in the genre at its surface level. You’ll slowly build up a base, increase its defences, and unlock new research to further improve your lab. There’s much more to the game than that, though! You’ll also have to fend off waves of zombies, although your objective here isn’t to kill them; it’s to cure them! Luckily, the game has some tutorial levels to help teach you everything you’ll need to know to ensure your survival. They can be very text-heavy and rather overwhelming, but the game has far too much going on to be able to just jump right in without playing them first.
So, the basic gameplay loop is construction, resource management, and defence. For construction, you’ll need to set up buildings for specific tasks or needs, such as bedrooms, kitchens, and resource-gathering sites. Assigning workers to tasks is as simple as increasing or decreasing the amount allocated to that specific building. Once given jobs, the workers will automatically go about their day, and will rest or eat as required.
Resource management is crucial throughout all aspects of Zombie Cure Lab. Without things such as wood and metal, you won’t be able to build or research anything! Eventually, though, night will fall, and zombies will be out looking for a snack (i.e. your lab population). As mentioned earlier, you won’t be aiming for the head and taking them out; rather you’ll use freeze weapons to capture them!
Humbies & Headaches
Captured zombies are then treated in the lab and are “reborn” as Humbies! These zombie-human hybrids will join your workforce and are even more useful than the humans already settled in your base. There’s a catch, though. Whilst everyone has needs that must be tended to, failing to do so with the Humbies will result in them going out of control. The only thing worse than a zombie outbreak is a zombie outbreak inside your walls!
There are some issues in the gameplay, though. For one, I often found myself with nothing to do whilst waiting for research to complete or buildings to be upgraded. It felt like an idler game at times, with even the 3x speed not making things go fast enough. Then, there’s the complete opposite, where several text boxes appear at once, causing quite a bit of panic!
Unfortunately, this is one of those games that plays better using a mouse and keyboard. Although every menu is mapped to the DualSense controller, it was frequently rather fiddly to navigate to specific ones. With such a cluttered user interface, not having finer control can make the game feel a little cumbersome. I also found that some button inputs didn’t register, and I’d have to repeatedly press the cancel button in order for them to work.
Graphics & Audio
For a zombie apocalypse, Zombie Cure Lab sure looks charming! The low-poly, cartoonish art style certainly makes this world feel less threatening. Combined with the bright colour palette and humorous character interactions, this isn’t the most graphically detailed game out there, but it sure is fun to watch it in action.
That said, some in-game menus are very pixelated, with poor-quality images that make whatever object it’s meant to be very difficult to discern. This is most noticeable on the main map screen, and drags down the overall presentation. Screen tearing also becomes a problem the more you zoom out, but there was never any noticeable slowdown or crashes, thankfully!
As for audio, there isn’t really all that much to it. There are a few generic music tracks that loop, although oftentimes they won’t play at all. The ambient audio is serviceable, and the little grumbles and natters of the characters as they toil away are amusing! I’ve always felt audio is never a strong point for many games in this genre, and unfortunately, Zombie Cure Lab continues that trend.
Longevity
The flow of the game remains the same throughout each of the starting locations. You’ll eventually have everything researched and will want to move on to another area to start again. There’s a lot to get through, though, with over 200 research options and the constant threat of the undead; each playthrough will take a good few hours. Playing on harder difficulties will also ramp up the challenge, and you’ll need to fully utilise mechanics such as assigning jobs to ensure your survival.
Final Thoughts
Zombie Cure Lab is a relatively enjoyable title, but with some issues. Going from having nothing to do one minute to being inundated with alerts and text pop-ups the next makes gameplay feel disjointed. That said, there are some well-thought-out, deep mechanics that fans of the genre will relish. Although the PlayStation 5 version is playable, this is perhaps best suited for PC gamers.
Taking all of that into account, Zombie Cure Lab gets the Thumb Culture Silver Award.
Disclaimer: A code was received in order to write this review.
Want to swap zombies for bus timetables, or laboratories for depots? Then check out our review of City Bus Manager!
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