Hey fellow Escapists, I'm just posting this pretty big rant so I can get some feedback on my ideas, so after reading, tell me what you think.
DANGER!!! WALL OF TEXT!!
[Rant starting in 3. . . 2 . . . 1]
So I 've often thought of how much an openworld zombie game would rock tits, as many of you have, so I'm writing this rant to outline some of the features I'd want within an open-world zombie survival game.
First off, I just wanna say I'd prefer it in third person. Now a lot of people get turned off by this straight away, especially after seeing how well Left 4 Dead made zombie survival into a successful FPS. Hear me out though, I have a few reasons for third-person.
First off, it's a pain in the ass not being able to see all around you, especially in relation to cover, buildings and platforming based stuff and since some form of building climbing would be integral for this game, 3rd person is the way to go. I also love being able to see my character in relation to his/her costume and weaponry on him/her.
The character themselves would surprisingly not be full-custom characters that a lot of people would want in games like these. I'd say being able to pick from about four guys and fours girls, with different dialogue, movement styles and abilities to aid them in their zombieland adventures. For example, there would be one medic male and one medic female, who both are much more adept at healing survivors and themselves than the other characters as well as being able to improvise medical items out of junk macguyver style and is always equipped with one medkit to start, wheras there would also be the more athletic character, who can run slightly faster and jump slightly higher than the others, as well as swing melee weapons harder, a swindler character, who is better at reasoning with other characters and is better at picking locks to gun cabinets/houses/cars than the others. Finally there would be a law enforcement character, who naturally commands more presence over NPCs and is a more natural leader, allowing him/her to lead and command people more effectively, not to mention they have police keys to all the police stations around the world.
So now thats out of the way, I'd like to talk about the game engine. I personally would like to go for the Red Dead/GTA4 game engine, with more responsive animations and some tweaks here and there to make it more accessable to all players, namely by removing the FUCKING OBLIGATION OF TAPPING A BUTTON TO RUN. I know everyone hates that and I hate that, so that'd be right out the fucking window to start with. The established world map would be a mixture of countryside, riral and suburban area, with one part at the edge of the map with some taller buildings to snipe/loot/hold out on, right beside a marina/docks. Out further from there there'd be suburban areas, with lots of backyards, houses and streets to get lost in and around. more likely than not, most houses would be enterable and searchable for the usual stuff; ammo, weapons, medical supplies, food, etc. Not to mention a basic barricading ability of pushing stuff in front of doors and windows and multiple escape routes for each building.
The undead would be no pushovers in this game either. Whilst they are easy enough to put down, with a well placed bullet to the skull or to the leg (taking them down literally), they won't give up so easily. Basing the damage-modelling around real-life means the zombies would react realistically, crossed with just enough of the horror element that you get when you put three FMJs into a zombie's chest and he stumbles and keeps walking. Having the ability to place shots accurately and stretegically is the key to survival in this game, as a broken leg isn't a figure of speech, it's a fucking broken leg. Zombies will run, shamble, stumble, hoarde and crawl after you, even after the better half of their legs have been blown away and all they drag behind them are bloodied stumps. These are real zombies and they are really fucking scary.
The key components of the game would be as follows;
Exploration: Searching all the houses you dare to enter, since a fair amount of houses have either gun cabinents, non-perishables or medical supplies.
Survival: The key to the above game point is survival. having to weigh up the extreme dangers of being ravaged by the undead with the rewards of better weaponry or possibly food.
Combat: Being in a world of the undead is all well and good, but how well can you fight? fighting other people in this game is just as much of a necessity as fighting off the undead. Being able to outgun them is critical to your life.
Multiplayer: This is a big one. Getting the servers as steady as possible and getting as little lag as possible is critical to success here, as four player open-world gameplay is a big factor to the whole world. I chose 4 players because too many more and the ping would definitely suffer as a result. In multiplayer you could team up with friends, or go you seperate ways, or even hunt each other down to take their stuff. It would have to work a bit differently to most online games, similare to Red Dead in the sense that you have levels to progress to unlock more weaponry, but there would be two modes. First off I'dlike to clear up that there would be two-player splitscreen or 4 player online, but the two modes would work quite differently. The first, a more arcadey mode, would be Free Roam, where as you level up from fighting zombies, raiding important locations and completeing challenges you earn ranks, clothing and weaponry, more on guns later tho. In Free Roam, you can only have two ranged weapons and a melee, plus your sidearm. if you wanted to switch out your loadout, you'd have to go to a Red Dead style outfitter where you can change your clothing and guns.
The second mode of multiplayer, is survival. you start with only a starting weapon (which is determined by your class) and a handful of ammo and supplies. in this game, you're placed somewhere in the map and are given little indication as to where the other players are and you go about your business trying to stay alive as long as you can.
Weapons are a big part of any zombie game, so having the right selection of weapons is essential to victory. I would like at least 30 to 40 weapons in the game, plus at least a few melee weapons including baseball bats, wooden planks, fire axes and an elusive katana.
Most weapons would be fairly evenly matched, usually coming down to player preference as opposed to which is the better gun, meaning a lot of the lines dividing better weapons are blurred.
Surprisingly, most weapons would be civillian grade in the game, meaning most weapons would be regular shotguns, rifles or handguns like Winchester repeaters, double-barrel shotguns or Glock 17s. Only at places like police stations or rarely in a gun cabinet would you find a military grade weapon like an M4, M14 or a G36C. Most weapons are also fairly accurate and pack a punch and good, solid sound effects, since that's almost entirely want makes a gun fun to shoot in a game. You could have the slowest bolt-action rifle in the game, but you would almost always use it if it delivered a satisfying kapow to the target.
Another point of weapons in customization, as most guns can be outfitted with laser-sights, flashlights, a multitude of scopes and prehipherals including bipods and (for military hardware) grenade launchers or shotgun-mounts.
The final key factor is the difficulty. I imagined three difficulty modes to the game to play the story with (yes there would be a story, I'm just not a writer).
Casual: A lot of the elements of survival would be removed, such as high damage from zombies/enemies, an eating mechanic and an ever so slightly downplayed hoarde, meaning slightly fewer zombies wherever you go, not to mention the addition of regenerating health. You'd still need to find first-aid to stop any zombie infection you got from your close calls with the undead, but the time you need to get them in is significantly increased.
Regular: A mode for proper players who want toi test their mettle but also have really good fun at the same time. you would have all the features listed above in the game as well as increased zombie damage, the need for food each day or so and semi-regerating health, meaning it'll heal to a certain point but to get back full you'll need a medical attention. infection time for zombie bites is also lessened to about three days, as opposed to Casual Mode's five days.
Hardcore: For for people who truly want to test their mettle, this game requires you to be ever vigilant, as one zombie could end you if not dealt with properly. Thankfully, zombies go down rather easily in all game modes, but in this one it is reccommended that you shoot them in the head, as they will persist more readily and ferociously then in other modes. You don't heal from damage and will die within a day without medical attention and will die from zombie infection within two days without a medkit. Ammo is also more scarce, requiring you to preserve.
Lol if you read this far you really need a fucking medal or something. Tell me what you think and wat features you would like to see in your zombie game.
DANGER!!! WALL OF TEXT!!
[Rant starting in 3. . . 2 . . . 1]
So I 've often thought of how much an openworld zombie game would rock tits, as many of you have, so I'm writing this rant to outline some of the features I'd want within an open-world zombie survival game.
First off, I just wanna say I'd prefer it in third person. Now a lot of people get turned off by this straight away, especially after seeing how well Left 4 Dead made zombie survival into a successful FPS. Hear me out though, I have a few reasons for third-person.
First off, it's a pain in the ass not being able to see all around you, especially in relation to cover, buildings and platforming based stuff and since some form of building climbing would be integral for this game, 3rd person is the way to go. I also love being able to see my character in relation to his/her costume and weaponry on him/her.
The character themselves would surprisingly not be full-custom characters that a lot of people would want in games like these. I'd say being able to pick from about four guys and fours girls, with different dialogue, movement styles and abilities to aid them in their zombieland adventures. For example, there would be one medic male and one medic female, who both are much more adept at healing survivors and themselves than the other characters as well as being able to improvise medical items out of junk macguyver style and is always equipped with one medkit to start, wheras there would also be the more athletic character, who can run slightly faster and jump slightly higher than the others, as well as swing melee weapons harder, a swindler character, who is better at reasoning with other characters and is better at picking locks to gun cabinets/houses/cars than the others. Finally there would be a law enforcement character, who naturally commands more presence over NPCs and is a more natural leader, allowing him/her to lead and command people more effectively, not to mention they have police keys to all the police stations around the world.
So now thats out of the way, I'd like to talk about the game engine. I personally would like to go for the Red Dead/GTA4 game engine, with more responsive animations and some tweaks here and there to make it more accessable to all players, namely by removing the FUCKING OBLIGATION OF TAPPING A BUTTON TO RUN. I know everyone hates that and I hate that, so that'd be right out the fucking window to start with. The established world map would be a mixture of countryside, riral and suburban area, with one part at the edge of the map with some taller buildings to snipe/loot/hold out on, right beside a marina/docks. Out further from there there'd be suburban areas, with lots of backyards, houses and streets to get lost in and around. more likely than not, most houses would be enterable and searchable for the usual stuff; ammo, weapons, medical supplies, food, etc. Not to mention a basic barricading ability of pushing stuff in front of doors and windows and multiple escape routes for each building.
The undead would be no pushovers in this game either. Whilst they are easy enough to put down, with a well placed bullet to the skull or to the leg (taking them down literally), they won't give up so easily. Basing the damage-modelling around real-life means the zombies would react realistically, crossed with just enough of the horror element that you get when you put three FMJs into a zombie's chest and he stumbles and keeps walking. Having the ability to place shots accurately and stretegically is the key to survival in this game, as a broken leg isn't a figure of speech, it's a fucking broken leg. Zombies will run, shamble, stumble, hoarde and crawl after you, even after the better half of their legs have been blown away and all they drag behind them are bloodied stumps. These are real zombies and they are really fucking scary.
The key components of the game would be as follows;
Exploration: Searching all the houses you dare to enter, since a fair amount of houses have either gun cabinents, non-perishables or medical supplies.
Survival: The key to the above game point is survival. having to weigh up the extreme dangers of being ravaged by the undead with the rewards of better weaponry or possibly food.
Combat: Being in a world of the undead is all well and good, but how well can you fight? fighting other people in this game is just as much of a necessity as fighting off the undead. Being able to outgun them is critical to your life.
Multiplayer: This is a big one. Getting the servers as steady as possible and getting as little lag as possible is critical to success here, as four player open-world gameplay is a big factor to the whole world. I chose 4 players because too many more and the ping would definitely suffer as a result. In multiplayer you could team up with friends, or go you seperate ways, or even hunt each other down to take their stuff. It would have to work a bit differently to most online games, similare to Red Dead in the sense that you have levels to progress to unlock more weaponry, but there would be two modes. First off I'dlike to clear up that there would be two-player splitscreen or 4 player online, but the two modes would work quite differently. The first, a more arcadey mode, would be Free Roam, where as you level up from fighting zombies, raiding important locations and completeing challenges you earn ranks, clothing and weaponry, more on guns later tho. In Free Roam, you can only have two ranged weapons and a melee, plus your sidearm. if you wanted to switch out your loadout, you'd have to go to a Red Dead style outfitter where you can change your clothing and guns.
The second mode of multiplayer, is survival. you start with only a starting weapon (which is determined by your class) and a handful of ammo and supplies. in this game, you're placed somewhere in the map and are given little indication as to where the other players are and you go about your business trying to stay alive as long as you can.
Weapons are a big part of any zombie game, so having the right selection of weapons is essential to victory. I would like at least 30 to 40 weapons in the game, plus at least a few melee weapons including baseball bats, wooden planks, fire axes and an elusive katana.
Most weapons would be fairly evenly matched, usually coming down to player preference as opposed to which is the better gun, meaning a lot of the lines dividing better weapons are blurred.
Surprisingly, most weapons would be civillian grade in the game, meaning most weapons would be regular shotguns, rifles or handguns like Winchester repeaters, double-barrel shotguns or Glock 17s. Only at places like police stations or rarely in a gun cabinet would you find a military grade weapon like an M4, M14 or a G36C. Most weapons are also fairly accurate and pack a punch and good, solid sound effects, since that's almost entirely want makes a gun fun to shoot in a game. You could have the slowest bolt-action rifle in the game, but you would almost always use it if it delivered a satisfying kapow to the target.
Another point of weapons in customization, as most guns can be outfitted with laser-sights, flashlights, a multitude of scopes and prehipherals including bipods and (for military hardware) grenade launchers or shotgun-mounts.
The final key factor is the difficulty. I imagined three difficulty modes to the game to play the story with (yes there would be a story, I'm just not a writer).
Casual: A lot of the elements of survival would be removed, such as high damage from zombies/enemies, an eating mechanic and an ever so slightly downplayed hoarde, meaning slightly fewer zombies wherever you go, not to mention the addition of regenerating health. You'd still need to find first-aid to stop any zombie infection you got from your close calls with the undead, but the time you need to get them in is significantly increased.
Regular: A mode for proper players who want toi test their mettle but also have really good fun at the same time. you would have all the features listed above in the game as well as increased zombie damage, the need for food each day or so and semi-regerating health, meaning it'll heal to a certain point but to get back full you'll need a medical attention. infection time for zombie bites is also lessened to about three days, as opposed to Casual Mode's five days.
Hardcore: For for people who truly want to test their mettle, this game requires you to be ever vigilant, as one zombie could end you if not dealt with properly. Thankfully, zombies go down rather easily in all game modes, but in this one it is reccommended that you shoot them in the head, as they will persist more readily and ferociously then in other modes. You don't heal from damage and will die within a day without medical attention and will die from zombie infection within two days without a medkit. Ammo is also more scarce, requiring you to preserve.
Lol if you read this far you really need a fucking medal or something. Tell me what you think and wat features you would like to see in your zombie game.
