Later this month, Ubisoft has plans to re-release the Wii U launch title ZombiU on the Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and PC under the title Zombi.
We live in a world where successful titles are being brought back for new consoles every other day. Usually though, these games were massive success stories, and the desire to see them in as much fidelity as possible is high. Zombi, on the other hand does not fit this billing.
ZombiU is an odd case. Initially released among the Wii U’s initial lineup, the game performed well critically (though it is worth noting it was panned by some outlets), and it presently sits at a decent 77 out of 100 on Metacritic. That being said, it’s not exactly obvious why Ubisoft would be bringing back the title now. If it flopped on release, why would there suddenly be an interest now, nearly three years after the fact?
An important factor to keep in mind when thinking about the success of ZombiU is that it only saw launch on the Wii U. Presently, Nintendo’s little underdog is having a bit of an upsurge in popularity. Titles like Super Smash Bros. Wii U and Splatoon have pulled the console out of the mud and into people’s homes. This of course, has not always been the case. In fact, when it debuted back in November of 2012, it was held down substantially, and its install base was laughable.
Wii U’s poor performance in the early days of its life fell on mostly marketing factors. Everyone can easily remember how much of a success its predecessor was. There was a time when the Wii was an absolute nightmare to find on a store shelf. You could scamper around town all you wanted, and every store would ask you to put your name on a list. This tidal wave of popularity was thanks to Nintendo’s initiative to bring more people to gaming. The ‘casual’ audience accepted the Wii with open arms thanks to its low barrier of entry and its unique (at the time) control scheme.
When the Wii U was being prepped for sale, it can be speculated that a lot of the casual audience had already had their fill of Nintendo’s quirky little console. And thanks to their peculiar choice in naming the Wii U, a lot of people actually thought that the U was just an extension for the console they already had — an add-on that they really didn’t need, nor want. This confusion caused by Nintendo’s marketing, and a lack of interest from the more ‘core’ gaming audience, led to poor sales. Any launch title was sure to suffer under these circumstances.
ZombiU was of course one of the titles to suffer this fate. Throw in the reality that ZombiU launched in the same year as a zombie themed titan like Telltale Games The Walking Dead, or as the massively popular DayZ, and you come to the conclusion that the mix was never favorable. The fact of the matter is that ZombiU was running a rigged race. It was so bad, that Ubisoft actually killed a planned sequel because it just wasn’t raking in the profits in the way that they had hoped.
Though, as stated above, ZombiU actually scored adequately across the board. It’s easy to make an argument that it may have prospered if it had been available to a wider array of consumers.
Zombi is a resurrection, and hopefully an improvement over the original
Zombi takes place in a now zombie infested London. You play as a random survivor in the city, and your primary task is survival. It’s a simple formula sure, and one that has of course been explored by games long before. Ubisoft Montpellier puts their own spin on the survival experience by keeping the world persistent, but the deaths permanent.
Whenever you make a slip up in Zombi, instead of spawning at a checkpoint, or having to start over from the very beginning, you instead take on a role as a different survivor. Which of course, gives you both insight from the previous encounter, but presents a difficult decision on your lap. Knowing exactly what caused your death, you have to return to the scene and retrieve your previous incarnation’s bag of supplies. This means having to face whatever caused your death to begin with, as well as the reanimated version of your previous body.
While you stalk about the now hazardous streets of London, doing your best to survive the ravenous hordes, the game makes an effort to weave a story into the proceedings. Attempting to take a different approach, Zombi mixes a few parts historic and a few parts biblical to try and mix up the typical zombie genre nonsense. Not many reviewers were entirely sold on the concept, but it holds its own on a steady platform regardless.
Though what really struck reviewers the first time through was just how potent the act of surviving truly is. Supplies are limited, and this puts players at a massive disadvantage. Often wielding nothing more than a cricket bat and a few spare bullets at one time makes caution the player’s best friend, and every encounter can potentially set you back. A few reviewers even called the title a true return of the survival horror genre to the console space. That itself is no small statement, classics like Resident Evil and Silent Hill have forged the genre into one of the most popular in the entire gaming industry.
Zombi is the resurrection of a title that did not quite receive a fair shake. It launched on a console that was poorly marketed, during a period of time where zombie games were as symbolically common as their undead namesakes. At the time, it was considered a solid title that had some people believing it to be great.
With Ubisoft making some additions and revisions to the original title for this relaunch, and the more expansive audiences of the Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and PC now at its disposable, it’s certainly possible that Zombi will be the success that they were hoping for the first time around. We’ll find out if the second respawn is all this first person zombie title really needs in a few days when it launches on August 18th.
