Why Zombies Work

[TiefBlau]

I've seen a lot of theories for why zombies are so popular in video games, and it stems from "fear of your loved ones turning against you" to "deeply rooted hatred for other people", and they might be right, but I think there's a much, much simpler explanation:

Zombies provide a socially acceptable way to kill lots and lots of people. Literally hordes of them. Typically, it doesn't matter if they're enemy soldiers or Nazis or anything. Starting such a huge massacre with a chainsaw and molotov cocktails would get you media backlash from just about every direction. And when you turn them into aliens, it just doesn't have the same visceral fun to it.

But all you have to do is make them bleed a little and grumble a lot and all of a sudden it's perfectly acceptable to kill enough people to fill Staples center with blood and severed limbs.

Zombies started out as just a form of horror, but nowadays it's very much evident that most zombies aren't all that scary. Some of it, like Plants vs. Zombies do it as a parody of typical zombie movies, but most games, like Left4Dead, really demonstrate this kind of appeal.

Again, this isn't the only explanation. The concept of survival in an apocalypse, the feeling of distrust for one another, they're all massive pros for the genre. But this one is unique to zombie fiction, so I think it's worthy of note.

 

[OptimisticPessimist]

People hate people. People are afraid of death. Thus, by extension people hate and fear dead people. Thus poeple want to lash out at dead people. And that's pretty much it.

 

[Toar]

They are an easily made enemy. You could replace the zombies in a game with Pandas and it would still be a zombie game. They are just easy to make because you turn a person green and they are a zombie.

 

[Redlin5_v1legacy]

Zombies are so instantly recognized as evil that we relish the chance to destroy them. In this way they are kind of like the Nazis except have the added bonus of being undead. That multiplies the creepy/scary factor they can have and we all know we love to kill things that disturb us. Make the zombies incredibly gory and bam, instant gratification when the shotgun is unloaded.

 

[-Drifter-]

Zombies don't really work for me, mainly because they're just very boring enemies.

 

[badgersprite]

Zombies work in games because you're not actually killing anyone, or doing anything other than surviving. There's no moral gray area. Whoever that zombie used to be isn't in there anymore, and they would probably rather die than continue to be a zombie, and the zombies themselves have no drive other than to eat your face.

So, in other words, you have a scenario where your protagonist is completely and utterly justified in everything because they're fighting off a cannibalistic horde with no thought processes, no consciousness, and no desire beyond eating humans. Anything the characters do is completely unquestionably understandable if not outright justified, because they're outnumbered and trying to survive.

Which means, very simply, that you never have to waste time establishing your protagonist, why they're good guys, why the bad guys are bad, why you're fighting, blah blah blah boring exposition that nobody likes. Zombies work in games because they enable you to jump straight into the action without any ambiguity, because the plot is self-explanatory to anyone who knows what a zombie is. "Those things bad. Stay alive."

 

[manythings]

I think cracked.com basically had a whole article about this. It was pretty interesting the way it was broken down into the components and examined.

 

[Twilight_guy]

Zombies represent he fear of the group. You'll notice that in zombie media the heroes are isolated and alone while the zombies are in good company. Zombies act as a collective while the heroes often have friction and individual personality. Geeks like zombies because they already fear and dislike the group. Many geeks are socially ostracized and exiled from the group and therefor that fear of the group inherent to zombies resonates in them. Geeks like zombies because they're social losers. Sad but true.

 

[Kopikatsu]

-Snip-

Yeah, Badger pretty much hit the nail on the head.

Ironically, George Romero's zombies were supposed to represent consumers, what with it being a critique on large corporations and consumerism and all...Seems like everyone pushed that aside in lieu of 'OHMAHGAWDZOMBIESHOOTITINTHEFACESWEETMOTHEROFJESUSYES'

...Not that I'm complaining. I love my mindless zombie murderfests. They're fun.

For some extra credit irony, Dead Rising is one of the few games that keeps with Romero's...thing...

Gah, I'm too tired to come up with smart-sounding words. PRETEND THAT I'M SAYING SOMETHING PROFOUND!

 

[Ninjat_126]

Zombie costumes are easy to make, and zombie AI is easy to code.

I like the horror aspect of zombie fiction, the constant threat of horrible death and the isolation.

 

[FalloutJack]

They work for me because I'm from Pittsburgh.