Zombie Army 4: Dead War – Review (PC)

Zombie Army may have started as a spinoff to the popular Sniper Elite series, but over the years the franchise has elevated to a place where the games can stand on their own. As a direct follow-up to the Zombie Army Trilogy, Zombie Army 4: Dead War picks up where the other games left off. Hitler has been banished to the underworld and yet his army still roams the earth thirsty for blood. Fortunately, The Resistance is still around – dead set on sending each and every zombie to hell with Hitler. As far as stories go, that’s basically the thread that carries you from the start to the end of the twenty-hour campaign. But, let’s be honest, we aren’t here for a deep story telling experience. Zombie Army is all about some kick ass grotesque zombie killing and Dead War does not disappoint.

You and three friends can team up to send these zombie hordes to hell. Two of the characters from the original trilogy return, Karl and Boris, while Jun and Shola are the fresh volunteers who enlist to continue the fight against the Nazi experiments gone wrong. Each character plays differently. While some are more gun happy, specializing in sniping and gunplay, characters like Boris prefer to be on the ground where the action is. You’ll want to play around with all the characters in order to find a playstyle that fits you best. At the end of every chapter when you enter the safe room, you’ll have the ability to swap out anything your heart desires including your character. This gives you the ability to play around and find your favorite loadout as the game goes on without having to start from scratch.

The levels are broken down into 4 missions. Each mission ramps up the difficulty and follows a pretty identical path as the game progresses. The first two are your standard ”get from Point A to Point B and accomplish some objectives along the way’ material. The final two are more horde-like missions that involve feeding a blood fountain by killing zombies within a certain area and finally blowing some shit up and taking out those zombie bastards while you wait for the charge to blow. Let’s be clear about one thing, these are the slowest charges known to man and you will be fighting for your life for quite some time until you can finally progress and flee the area to safety.

At the end of the day, the heart of Zombie Army is the weapons. You can take a primary and a secondary weapon with you as well as a handgun. As you progress through the game and level up, you’ll be able to upgrade and modify your weapons any way that you want. When you earn an upgrade point, be sure to take your time and see what all the available upgrades do in order to find the one you really want. For example, the M1 Garand can be upgraded to include an incendiary shot periodically. Upgrading that slot can increase the power of the blast. You can also increase the magazine and enhance the scope so that every critical shot will increase your health. Every weapon can be upgraded in their own way, so choose wisely. You can also earn skins and charms that are used to decorate your guns and make them even more personal to you and your style.

You’ll also unlock item mods and perks that you can switch in and out every time a mission ends and you’re back in a safe room.

Killing zombies may not be an original idea at this point, but my goodness is it fun here. Modifying a shotgun to send an electrical current out that will wipe out a group of zombies or shooting and incendiary round into a zombie’s head and watching them catch fire feels so rewarding. Stringing together kills will allow you to use each weapons special that slows down time, allowing you to really line up the perfect shot. Where else can you take aim and shoot a zombie right in his manhood and watch an x-ray kill cam show the bullet penetrate the body and do copious amounts of disgusting, albeit really cool, damage to the carcass as it combusts from the inside out? The answer is nowhere. You can’t do that anywhere else.

There is a ton of content here. Aside from the campaign you’ll find a standalone horde mode, weekly events, and a ton of collectibles to discover and enjoy. Zombie Army 4: Dead War is jam-packed full of secrets and hidden items and the best recommendation that we can make is to literally shoot anything you see. Find a hand walking a tight rope? Shoot it. If you see a weird little doll or a bunch of paper faces placed over targets. Shoot them. Shoot them all and you’ll discover all sorts of wild things.

One thing is certain about this game, you will have fun. After all, isn’t that what video games are supposed to be?

Check out our Review Guide to see what we criteria we use to score games.

*Zombie Army 4: Dead War was given to the reviewer by the publishing company but this fact did not alter the reviewer’s opinion*