Mail Room: Dead Reign

 

I don't even like zombie games.

Okay, why not?

This is actually pretty cool. Stop it, Palladium, you are making a lot of cool non-Rifts stuff that got easily overlooked compared to everything else out there. This was a 2008 game that seemed to ride the popularity of zombie TV shows and movies, and now that the zombie craze is dying out like the last few walkers ambling about in search of flesh - how does it hold up?

Actually, surprisingly well.

For one, the zombies here are unique. They are this strange life-force sensing supernatural sort of zombie that feeds off of life or psychic energy. The bite does not transmit the zombie condition, someone has to be killed by a zombie to turn. It is more a curse and not a plague.

They are not this endless walking horde of lemmings like we see in a lot of zombie fiction. They need to feed, so they won't be out wasting their life force ambling around on freeways in a massive pack like some "game of life" simulation. There could be hibernating zombies anywhere, even out in the middle of nowhere, so you need to be careful, but the lore behind them enforces this "risk versus reward" behavior when it comes to survival.

A settlement could exist for years in the middle of nowhere and never be bothered by zombies, but when critical supplies are needed from a nearby dormant town or city, this is when "going in" stirs up huge trouble. This trouble could be stirred up by others in the area doing the same. A settlement might just kill a net-to-the-area group of human scavengers trying to loot a town - because they can't risk them waking up a lot of trouble.

This is not The Walking Dead where hordes of Deus-ex-Machina zombies can stumble into an ongoing story just because the writers get bored and need to kill a few characters. This is a strong cause-and-effect zombie universe that layers on a lot of risk and raising-of-the-stakes tension just to grab that shiny satellite dish the colony desperately needs. I like this simulation element to the looting that puts a cost on resources.

And because of greed, it all falls apart.

You could play a game that more relies on survival, Old West-style tropes of good versus evil, settlement management, roleplaying, and raiders on the town's supplies from bandits and minimize the zombies - in a zombie game, yes. You could hate zombie games and fiction and still have a fun time roleplaying and surviving in this world.

Or you could play this as an action movie with hordes of zombies everywhere.

Or you could play this as a one-shot horror game with a cast of characters trapped in a unique location.

Or you could play a "first-night" game.

Or you could play this more like modern zombie fiction, they give the option for "bite transmission" if that is your thing.

Or mix it with another Palladium game and the options are infinite...

There is also this very strong George Romero feeling to the zombies, more of a classic 60s-80s vibe to them than our modern prosthetic and VFX amblers. A subtext of dark magic, divine punishment, and a cursed world permeates this entire game world and that feels cool. I could play a one-shot like the classic Night of the Living Dead movie with a small cast, or even the characters from the movie, and have a great time.

This game is not one-dimensional like I expected, and that surprised me.

More on this soon, but recommended if you are like me and hate zombie games but just secretly wanted a zombie game that works on so many levels - like this one.