14 DAY TRIAL // Even though the zombie games genre still has a lot of fans, it looks like publishers are less and less interested in bringing them to the masses.
There was a time when every major developer would have some kind of zombie game under development, but most of them proved to be atrocious to play.
Survival games on the other hand continue to be among publishers’ preferences this year as well. Alien: Isolation is just one of the titles expected to be released this fall, but there are many other from smaller developers that are already major hits on Steam.
The only thing that zombie games fans can be happy about is Dead Island. Deep Silver has just announced a sequel to the long-time zombie game and did it in style during Sony’s E3 press conference.
Dead Island 2 seems to be the only zombie game that has really made a difference for this genre. Of course, we have Dead Rising 3 coming to PC this summer, but the game has already been launched on Xbox One for quite a while, so it’s not really new.
Dying Light developers seem to have some problems with their game, as the title has been delayed for 2015, while fans of the Resident Evil series are still wondering if Capcom is even present at E3 2014 expo.
No other franchises in this particular genre have received any sequels at this year’s E3, which is probably one of the reasons that Dead Island 2 has drawn most of the media’s attention, aside from the extremely cool debut trailer.
The thing is that we already have lots of zombie games that have been launched this year and most of them are extremely popular among PC gamers. This means that for the time being, there’s little room for another zombie title, unless it’s one of the major franchises getting a sequel or a completely new IP from an important publisher.
Indie developers are more likely to succeed due to the fact that they will be able to gain enough money to cover their costs in a very short time if their game is of this genre and gets released on Steam.
It doesn’t even need to be finished, but only to propose interesting mechanics that would be implemented in the future via regular updates.
For a major developer, this will not cut it, as the game would need to be finished first and triple A games cost a lot more. For the moment, the thirst for zombie games seems to be more than satisfied by smaller titles like DayZ, The Forest, 7 Days to Die, Nether or State of Decay.
This seems to be a bad time to bring another zombie game to the market unless it’s from a very popular series, which would be instabuy for most fans of the genre.
It’s no surprise that zombie games are no-show at E3 2014, but there should be at least some signs that major developers and publishers are at least working to bring more of these next year.
The zombie games genre is not close to extinction; on the contrary, there are too many indie titles that make it impossible for major publishers and developers to bring their own creations on the market.
The competition is fiercer than ever, but it looks like, with a few exceptions, indie developers have already won the fight regardless of the quality of their titles.
What do you think about the zombie games genre? Is there a chance that we will get another Left 4 Dead or Resident Evil this year or the next? What about new IPs? Share your thoughts with us in the comments.