You play Kyle Crane, a military operative working for an organisation called the Global Relief Effort (or GRE) which, despite the name, seems to have some faintly sinister agenda – even though it is still sending in supplies of Antizin, which slows the development of the virus. You still don’t want to deal with too many at once though Photograph: Warner Bros For developer Techland, the game is effectively a remake of its 2011 title Dead Island – and for the most part it succeeds in realising the potential of that flawed release.ĭuring the day, the zombies are sluggish and relatively weak. Essentially, designed as a sort of zombified Far Cry, it marries open-world exploration with a decent storyline, involving a zombifying viral outbreak in a Middle-Eastern city locked down by quarantine, the survivors left to fend for themselves. That is not a criticism that could be levelled at Dying Light. So far, however, most zombie video games have generally lagged behind this prevailing curve by sticking steadfastly to blood-splattered B-movie horror.
In recent years, films and TV programmes like 28 Days Later and The Walking Dead have taken the undead apocalypse and used it to explore themes of contagion, paranoia and mass panic – things we see regurgitated every second of the day on 24 hour news channels.
Zombie fiction is also about finding ourselves isolated in a world that is both physically recognisable and utterly alien. The zombie myth has provided plenty of schlock-horror thrills over the past five decades, but there’s always been more to it than jump shocks and gore. Warner Bros PC/PS4/Xbox One £45 Pegi rating: 18