14 DAY TRIAL // Guillaume Brunier, a producer working on ZombiU at Ubisoft, believes that some of the first reviews for the game were too harsh and that they did not reflect the realities of the title that was launched alongside the Wii U from Nintendo.
The developer says, as part of a bigger interview with Nintendo Life, that, “We were really disappointed with the early US reviews. We are aware of the strengths and weaknesses of the experience we created but we did not expect so harsh a feedback.”
“However as more and more journalists and gamers played the game, these opinions proved to be a minority. So right now we’re rather pleased with the overall reception of the game,” he adds.
Some have suggested that many reviews criticized ZombiU because the survival horror elements of the game were more important than the first-person shooter elements, something that the marketing that Ubisoft had put out for the game had failed to mention.
Braunier says that his team never hid the core gameplay elements of ZombiU and always explained that gamers will face a tough game world and will need to move carefully and conserve resource in order to survive and succeed.
After ZombiU was criticized in the United States, it also faced problems in Europe where Nintendo blocked the all-mature content from the eShop before 11 PM in order to comply with local laws.
Despite criticism, many reviewers and gamers see ZombiU as the only mature game from the launch line-up of the Wii U home console that manages to use the new touch screen GamePad controller in innovative ways.
The game asks players to take control of a survivor of a zombie apocalypse and explore the world, taking on the undead and fighting his own past characters when they fall in battle.
Ubisoft has indicated that it has plans for more games in the ZombiU line.