Thank You Saber Interactive for providing us with a review code!

Zombies are pretty cool, even if at this point they have been greatly overused. Although more recent zombie media have started to focus more on the characters and their drama, World War Z (at least the game) strikes a balance between the undead and the not dead.

The game takes inspiration from both the 2006 novel and the 2013 movie but isn’t heavily based on either property. It starts off rather simple with not even an intro cinematic. It throws you right into the menu where you can select between the campaign, multiplayer, gallery collection, and settings. WWZ 2019 is fairly light on the story and most of the lore can be outright ignored. The experience focuses greatly on the gameplay as it expects you to jump right in.

You can choose between four main levels in New York, Jerusalem, Moscow, and Tokyo. Although three of the mentioned areas are fairly common set pieces for zombie films, Jerusalem is an interesting change of pace. The cool thing about WWZ is that you can choose any of these levels in any order. If you want to start with Tokyo first even though it's the last level listed, then you go on ahead. The environments are all worn-down and torn apart from the zombie outbreak. Drab and dreary visuals fitting for any apocalyptic media with plenty of set pieces ranging from subways and stadiums to huge palaces.

There are seven classes to choose from ranging from the Gunslinger and Hellraiser, to the Medic and Dronemaster. Each has their unique starting weapons, perks, and equipment. Although every class can use every weapon in the game, some excel in specific weapons. Characters level up with completion (or failure) of any level and every level unlocks more perks. Weapons also can be leveled up as well from simply using them in battle. Every weapon with the exception of special Heavy Weapons can earn experience points to improve the stats.

There is a lot of progression to be made when it comes to characters and weapons so there are plenty of reasons to replay levels, but my problem is that weapon upgrades and perks must also be bought even after meeting the XP requirements with in-game currency so it feels like unnecessary padding. Currency is influenced by difficulty, and WWZ is one of those games where playing on a difficulty beyond normal while starting off is not recommended. So progression can get pretty slow at times, especially when you want to start leveling up a new character as you’re more or less forced to either get carried by human teammates on higher difficulties or slog through the lower difficulties for a while. If you want to pay an extra $20, there’s a DLC pack that gives you special weapons that are substantially stronger than the starting weapons. Although they aren’t as strong as a fully upgraded weapon, paying for a power boost that has been available since day 1 always rubs me the wrong way.

WWZ for its gameplay takes influence from the Left 4 Dead series (except in a third-person view) where cooperative play is a focus. Characters assist each other in various tasks and will help each other up when incapacitated. Friendly fire must be accounted for and higher difficulties increase the severity of shooting your teammates. There are also special zombies that have unique abilities to mix things up such as the Bull who is an armored zombie that will grab and slam anyone into the ground repeatedly, or the Gasbag that explodes into a toxic mist when killed. Like Left 4 Dead, there is also a Director AI that changes things up depending on how you’re progressing such as switching weapon spawns and enemy placement.

When it comes to shooting, the sound effects for guns are fairly weak but the shooting itself is snappy and has an arcade-like feel. The weapons aren’t completely unique, but they all have subtle differences that they end up being useful for any situation. The loop is fairly simple. You progress through a linear pathway, collect some weapons while shooting zombies on the way, and then prepare for the swarm. The standout feature for WWZ is the swarm where hundreds, if not thousands of zombies start moving on your position. It’s not something that happens often in other games as they’ll typically keep it down to dozens of zombies at any given time due to hardware limitations. The zombie horde is exciting to experience as you’ll see them climbing walls and fences, and even pile up in certain areas to climb on top of each other to reach you.

Now since this is the Switch version, there is the question of how much WWZ on the Switch had to tone down. In a surprising outcome, it didn’t tone down all that much. Of course, the graphics are significantly reduced to the point where it looks more like a mid-life 360/PS3 game due to a lighting and shadow decrease. For the most part, the Switch version runs at a “stable” 30FPS in both docked and handheld modes but can squeeze out a few more frames if you turn off anti-aliasing. It does have moments where it chugs such as the zombie hordes and certain explosions. To make up for it, the Switch version has gyro aiming. Other than that, it keeps everything that the base game has. There is also free DLC known as the PvPvZ pack that adds multiplayer modes such as team deathmatch and king of the hill. You fight other players while fending off zombies too. Unfortunately, I was unable to find a PvP match during my time of playing. There are people still playing the PvE portion, even if it does take some time to find a match. In a weird choice, the Switch version also contains none of the features that the major update World War Z: Aftermath contains for the other consoles despite coming out two months after the update.

Moral warnings are mostly the same as any gritty piece of zombie media. There is plenty of blood and gore to be had, with zombie limbs and heads being blown apart fairly easily. With the multiplayer DLC, there is the option to shoot and kill living people as well. Language is present with every swear in the book uttered at least once with the most common words being “f**k” and “sh*t. God and Jesus’ names are used in vain numerous times (mostly in the New York chapter), sometimes twice in the same sentence.

World War Z doesn’t do anything to innovate on the zombie genre. It just focuses on fast-paced arcade-like fun and manages to do that. As a single-player experience, I wouldn’t recommend it due to the limited functions of the AI. If depictions of zombies, graphic violence, and constant language aren’t your thing, this title will do nothing of the sort to change your mind. But if you have a good group of friends to play with, it won’t be hard to convince them to pick up this budget title for some quick enjoyment.