Review: Zombie Army 4: Dead War

The Shambling Deceased.

Title: Zombie Army 4: Dead War
Platform: PC Epic Store, Xbox One, and PlayStation 4 (reviewed)
Developer: Rebellion Developments
Publisher: Rebellion Developments
Release date: February 4th
Tl;dr: Have a blast alone or with friends to take down the zombie invasion Hitler started during World War 2.
Price: Â£40/$50
Family Focus?: Click here for more information

I’ve never played a Zombie Army game before not even like a friends house or anything, even though I’ve considered multiple times to grab Zombie Army Trilogy on PS4 but never have because of none of my friends owning it. I always thought these games wouldn’t be fun unless you had a few mates to tag along with you on your zombie-slaying adventures. I can tell you, I was dead wrong because this game has had me hooked on the single-player campaign.

Zombie Army 4: Dead War is an up to 4-player co-op shooter where you face off against hordes of the undead reanimated during the Second World War by Adolf Hitler himself. You and your friends are a ragtag team of random volunteer soldiers who raise up against the horde of undead to return Hitler’s undead army back to where they belong.

As mentioned previously, you can play the campaign by yourself or with a friend or two or maybe even make new friends with the games matchmaking system. Either way, you can have a bunch of fun taking down the undead as your rack scores with combo multipliers whilst dispatching the shuffling rotters in various and creative ways like getting up close and personal with a shotgun or from afar with a trusty sniper rifle or maybe you want to lay down some traps like mines or electric tripwires. Zombie Army 4 lets you do all of that and more with a variety of weapons, perks and abilities in your arsenal.

Thankfully, before coming to write my review, a friend of mine managed to snag an early copy from an online game retailer so I could try out the co-op as the other people online were much further ahead than me and I hate spoilers. However, we managed to fit in a few chapters and the game runs smoothly online without any problems as we were able to play without any hitches.

Aside from the campaign, you have horde mode where you need to survive multiple waves of the dead in order to escape or push your luck past the required waves and keep going until you either die or can’t go on any more and need to get outta there! You start horde mode with just a sidearm which if you survive six waves only using that sidearm you nab yourself a trophy/achievement or just go straight in a grab yourself some weapons that are kicking around with more dropped in later via a supply drop. As the waves go on the game drops in harder and more powerful undead from the campaign and once again you can tackle this on your own or with co-op partners.

Zombie Army 4 has the slow-mo bullet animations found in the Sniper Elite games which follows the bullet as burrows its way through the skull of the rotten blighter potentially causing its cranium to pop like a New Years Eve firework at midnight or maybe you want to burst his testicles like a water balloon, well you can! The sound design for the game is incredible too, as the previously above-mentioned bullets cruising through skulls makes some of the most satisfying sounds in videogames and whilst paused you can hear some creepy as heck sounds echoing throughout the speakers of your headphones or TV.

Overall, Zombie Army 4: Dead War is a thoroughly incredible game which will provide you with hours of fun with friends or even by your lonesome. My only gripe with the game, which will hopefully be fixed in an upcoming patch, is the game sometimes doesn’t register your player level progress when progressing to the next stage… For example, I, once leveled up to level 37 however once the next stage loaded up I was level 35 with the experience meter maxed out.

The Good

A steady online co-op experience.
Watching a bullet tear through a Nazi zombies head or nuts is truly satisfying and words can’t do it justice.
A lengthy and enjoyable campaign with lots of environmental variety

The Bad

Your player level progress doesn’t track properly at times.

Family Focus

Zombie Army 4: Dead War is rated PEGI 18 and M for Mature by the ESRB. Definitely not suited for children in the slightest from the zombies to intense gore to the slow-mo bullet-time nut shots and cranium explosions, I highly suggest you keep little Jimmy away from this one.