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Black Ops 7 new leaks: Rumors about zombies, campaigns and multiplayer mode

Zombie Gaming — Sun, 13 Apr 2025 00:36:55 +0000

Black Ops 7 new leaks: Rumors about zombies, campaigns and multiplayer mode

Edited by Yash Nitish Bajaj

Apr 13, 2025 01:35 AM IST

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A Redditor has allegedly ‘leaked’ new details about Call of Duty: Black Ops 7, and the revelations are a feast for fans and gamers

A Redditor has allegedly ‘leaked’ new details about Call of Duty: Black Ops 7, and the revelations are a feast for fans and gamers. Reddit user Bigbyy claimed that they were a part of a recent Call of Duty study group, and discussions were around the upcoming one-person shooter game’s modes, campaigns, and even zombies.

New rumors about Call of Duty Black Ops 7 have surfaced(X/Call of Duty)

Bigbyy claimed that Black Ops 7 is a sequel to Black Ops 2 and the original zombies crew is likely making a return. A study group, which is made to gauge interest and take feedback, discussed a 32vs32 player mode also. However, nothing is finalized. No details are confirmed yet.

Here is what the Redditor-playtester revealed

The story will focus on 2035 and will be a follow-up to the Black Ops 2 story. The story will also involve Woods and Mason.
Story mode will allow for up to 4 player co-op
The story will also include a big open world map titled “Avalon”
Omni movement will return and include wall running.
Zombies mode will have the original crew return as multiverse variations (Dempsey etc)
Zombies mode will have a Tranzit remake
Zombies will be round-based
Zombies mode will also have a difficulty toggle, a “wonder vehicle” and a more story-focused role as well
Zombies mode will feature the largest round-based map ever created (more details by Insider Gaming here)
Multiplayer will feature a 32vs32 player mode
Will feature some remakes of popular maps in a 2035 futuristic Japanese-style theme
Plan for everything to have a progression-level system, including grenades, killstreaks and perks
Plans for multiplayer progression to carry over from Black Ops 6

Upcoming Call of Duty Black Ops 7 leaks and Prototype sequel
byu/Bigbyy inGamingLeaksAndRumours

Reactions

Reacting to the alleged leak, one social media user wrote: “Black Ops 7 has potential to be really good!!!”

“The story will involve Woods and Mason, with potential for up to 4 player CO-OP — including ‘Avalon’ for big Open World Mission(s/?),” a second person added on X, platform formerly known as Twitter.

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The post Black Ops 7 new leaks: Rumors about zombies, campaigns and multiplayer mode first appeared on Zombie Gaming.

Into the Dead: Our Darkest Days Review – NoobFeed

Zombie Gaming — Sat, 12 Apr 2025 18:07:50 +0000

Into the Dead: Our Darkest Days is a thrilling 2.5D side-scrolling survival game by one of New Zealand’s leading game development studios, PikPok. They have numerous mobile game titles under their names, such as the Rival Stars series and Clusterduck. Into the Dead: Our Darkest Days is the third entry in the Into the Dead series. It takes a completely different approach to its gameplay compared to prior games in the series. Unlike previous titles in the series, which were first-person shooters, this game combines strategy and shelter management set in a 2.5D horror environment.

Published by PikPok and Boltray Games, Into the Dead: Our Darkest Days is set in 1980s Texas. In the game, the once-thriving Walton City has now fallen to a zombie outbreak, and the game casts you as the leader of a ragtag group of survivors fighting to stay alive. You’ll lead these survivors from safehouse to safehouse; you’ll scavenge for supplies, craft weapons, and engage in combat with the relentless hordes of the undead. The key to survival lies in careful planning, tight-knit cooperation, and, above all, constant movement. One wrong step, and it could be the end for your group or at least the end for one or two survivors.

Most of the gameplay is structured around scavenging locations for resources, crafting tools, and fighting off zombies while managing the well-being of your survivors with every turn of the phase. Each scavenging mission is crucial, as it brings you closer to unlocking escape plans, which is the ultimate goal of the game: escape the zombie-infested city. The current build of the game offers two distinct escape plans where you can pursue a successful ending.

At the beginning of the game, you can choose from five different survivor groups, each with its own strengths and weaknesses, although you only start off with two survivors. These survivors come with two positive traits and one negative trait. For example, Sebastian, one of the survivors, is a skilled gunsmith and marksman, but he also has the “Jaded” trait, which means his morale recovers at a slower rate compared to other survivors. While he can craft guns more efficiently and deal more damage with a ranged weapon, his emotional resilience is a bit weaker, requiring a little bit of extra attention to keep his spirits up.

Dianne, Sebastian’s partner, boasts the “Untiring” and “Optimist” traits. She loses rest more slowly than others and passively gains morale in every phase. However, Dianne suffers from the “Poor Craftsperson” trait, which makes her less effective at repairing barricades that are needed to keep the zombie hordes at bay. Each survivor’s unique combination of traits forces you to adapt their strategies and manage resources carefully, although it gets a bit easier with the dismantling station, as every decision could impact the success or failure of the group, especially if you bite off more than you can chew.

Survivors in Into the Dead: Our Darkest Days must micromanage three fundamental needs: hunger, rest, and morale. Hunger is their need for food, rest is necessary to prevent fatigue, and morale directly influences their willingness to fight and cooperate. As the game progresses and more survivors are discovered, managing these three necessities is an increasingly strategic task, a bit like learning to juggle for those not used to shelter management games. The game forces the player to balance scavenging, sleeping, and morale-boosting, so it is hard to keep everyone alive, and sometimes, you’ll have to make a sacrifice for the good of the group you’re keeping alive.

Each location in the game offers a chance of getting four types of resources: Base Resources, Weapons, Medical Supplies, and Food. These are vital for your survival, allowing you to heal injured survivors, craft new weapons, and maintain the health and well-being of your group. Injuries such as broken ribs need medical attention, while psychological traumas like nightmares and grief must also be addressed to prevent them from affecting the survivors’ performance.

Scavenging is a risky but highly necessary part of survival, as noise can attract unwanted attention from zombies, and if the survivors are caught off guard, they fall victim to the undead. Locations that have already been cleared of zombies will not respawn loot, so it’s essential to keep moving and find new places to scavenge before the zombies break through your shelter’s barriers. Each scavenging mission requires careful planning, as survivors must remain vigilant, avoid making noise, and ensure that they don’t get caught in direct line of sight with the zombies.

The game features two distinct phases: the Day Phase and the Night Phase. Each phase is divided into five segments, and you can perform limited actions during each Phase, such as dismantling items worth 5 segments or upgrading benches. Moving to the next phase or completing a scavenging mission requires hitting the confirm action bar, which allows the player to move on to the next phase or return to the safe house. Scavenging is only completed once the survivors return to the safehouse, meaning the clock is always ticking, and every action counts.

As you progress through Into the Dead: Our Darkest Days, you’ll need to upgrade and craft essential tools to aid in your survival. The game features five key facilities or benches that are crucial to your success: the Workbench, the Weapons Bench, the Medical Area, the Cooking Area, and the Communal Area.

The Workbench is your starting point, allowing you to craft basic tools and upgrade other facilities. The Weapons Bench unlocks the ability to craft stronger weapons, as the durability of most found weapons is limited. The Medical Area is essential for crafting healing items and medicine, which will be vital when treating injuries.

The Cooking Area allows you to prepare meals, and the quality of the meals can greatly affect how much hunger is alleviated. Finally, the Communal Area is used to restore morale, allowing survivors to recover from negative mental states. Unlike the other facilities, it doesn’t unlock new recipes, but it plays a vital role in maintaining the psychological health of the group.

Upgrades are also available for the Workbench, such as Portable Beds, which are essential for when your survivors need rest in less-than-ideal shelters. Barricades are another crucial upgrade, as they allow you to reinforce your safehouses and hold out longer against the relentless zombie attacks that occur every night. You’ll also need to get a Dismantling Station up and running. You’ll come across items throughout your time scavenging, which will help you produce extra-base resources after taking them apart.

The controls in Into the Dead: Our Darkest Days are pretty straightforward to learn, as they make the management and strategy the biggest learning curve. Of course, there is a learning curve to the game as you control the survivor who heads out to scavenge, and not all runs end in a happy ending, but that’s honestly what makes this game fun.

While the controls are simple and the mechanics are easy to grasp, the combat system won’t make this a one-and-done deal. With different starting survivors, you can try out new strategies that rely on both the positive and negative traits of your survivors. With the game being in early access, there is a lot they can add and expand upon to bring in new strategy curveballs.

The sound design in Into the Dead: Our Darkest Days is another standout feature. It creates an immersive atmosphere that perfectly fits the game’s dystopian horror vibe. The soundtrack doesn’t feel as if it gets repetitive, even after hours of gameplay. The voice acting, though minimal, is incredibly well-executed, adding depth and emotion to the characters’ struggles. The game’s sound design enhances the tense and harrowing atmosphere, making every encounter with the zombies feel intense and overall giving an “on the edge of your seat” feeling, especially in locations with a lot of Zombies around.

Visually, Into the Dead: Our Darkest Days is a feast for the eyes. The game’s 2.5D graphics are beautifully crafted, with an 80s horror aesthetic that is noticeable in every aspect of the game, from the character designs to the environments. The punk and new wave influences are evident, and PikPok adds its own unique twist to the art. The detailed backgrounds and atmospheric lighting combine to create a hauntingly beautiful world that keeps you on edge throughout your journey.

Overall, Into the Dead: Our Darkest Days offers a fun and engaging twist on the survival genre. With its strategic gameplay, immersive sound design, and stunning visuals, it delivers a thrilling and intense experience that will keep you on the edge of your seat. Whether you’re scavenging for supplies, upgrading your shelter, or fighting off waves of zombies, every decision you make is crucial to your survival. If you’re looking for a survival game that combines strategy, resource management, and intense action, Into the Dead: Our Darkest Days is a must-play.

The post Into the Dead: Our Darkest Days Review – NoobFeed first appeared on Zombie Gaming.

Into the Dead: Our Darkest Days Has Launched Into Early Access – Bleeding Cool

Zombie Gaming — Sat, 12 Apr 2025 17:15:18 +0000

Posted in: Games, Indie Games, Video Games | Tagged: Into the Dead: Our Darkest Days, PikPok

Escape or fight against the zombie hordes as Into the Dead: Our Darkest Days is now available to play in Early Access on Steam

Article Summary

Experience a side-scrolling zombie survival adventure in Texas, 1980 with Into the Dead: Our Darkest Days.
Discover the challenges survivors face in Walton City during a relentless zombie outbreak.
Build and improve shelters while escaping zombie hordes and scavenging limited resources.
Balance physical and psychological needs, and choose between stealth or combat to survive.

Indie game developer and publisher PikPok has launched Into the Dead: Our Darkest Days into Early Access on Steam. If you haven’t seen the game yet, this is a side-scrolling zombie survival title in which the zombie apocalypse is in full swing, and you only have two options: escape and survive. We have more details about the game here along with the launch trailer, as we now wait to see when the full version of the game will be released.

Credit: PikPok

Into the Dead: Our Darkest Days

Texas, 1980. Walton City is a sprawling, coastal metropolis in the grip of a scorching heatwave and crippling economic crisis. Everything changes when an unstoppable zombie outbreak reaches US shores. Walton City is soon overrun by hordes of the undead, the few remaining survivors cut off from any chance of outside help. Forced to band together, these everyday people must make their way to a rumored safe zone outside of the city and their only chance of survival.

Gather a group of ordinary people who have been left shaken by the sudden zombie outbreak that has devastated their city. Establish upgradable shelters to house your survivors and protect them from the zombie threat — but remember that no barriers can keep them out forever. Keep moving from refuge to refuge to stay one step ahead of the encroaching zombie hordes. As their numbers grow, parts of Walton City will become more difficult to scavenge, or completely uninhabitable. Balance the physical and psychological needs of the group, and try to maintain order when fear and paranoia set in. Creep through the remains of Walton City to scavenge precious resources, risking the life of each survivor as they encounter both zombie and human threats. Stealth is key — one loud noise could alert an overwhelming zombie cluster. Choose whether to engage in brutal combat or run from a fight.

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The post Into the Dead: Our Darkest Days Has Launched Into Early Access – Bleeding Cool first appeared on Zombie Gaming.

‘The Last of Us’ and the Power of Video Games – The Atlantic

Zombie Gaming — Sat, 12 Apr 2025 15:33:27 +0000

This article contains spoilers through Season 1 of The Last of Us.

In the final episode of Season 1 of The Last of Us, the most emotionally wrenching zombie-apocalypse TV show ever made, a loner named Joel stalks through a hospital, his face as emotionless as the Terminator’s, killing everyone in his way. He is trying to save a young woman named Ellie, who holds the secret to curing the zombie plague, but to make that antidote, she has to die, and Joel would rather let his species go extinct than lose her. I recently asked the actor who plays Joel, Pedro Pascal, how he found a way to justify his character’s rampage. He responded: “I understand why he did it, but I can’t justify it.”

He should have asked me. As I told myself every time I saved Ellie, if you truly love someone, killing for them is easy.

The Last of Us is based on a video game of the same name, and the second season of the series premieres this week. Before The Last of Us, I had never been a serious gamer, for the same reason I don’t do cocaine: I’m an ADHD-addled depressive with escape fantasies, and if I tried it, I might never come back. So, outside of Mario Kart races with my kids, I abstained. But on one of the uncountable empty days of the early coronavirus pandemic, I put down $300 to buy a Playstation 4, which came prepackaged with The Last of Us. The game booted up and showed me an open window, its curtain blowing in a light breeze. I was told to “Press Any Button.” I did.

A young girl named Sarah sits in an empty room. Her father, Joel, enters. She gives him a watch as a birthday present. He likes it. She falls asleep, and he gently tucks her into bed. What was this—an interactive simulation of a Hallmark movie?

Sarah wakes up later that night, alone. She gets out of bed and then … stands there, not moving. I realized this was on me. I pressed the joystick in my hand. She moved. She, or I, or we, went downstairs to look for her, or our, father.

Then the first sirens blared outside. News reports flashed on the TV. Joel ran in, panicked. A neighbor crashed through the sliding door, crazed, howling like an animal. Joel killed him. This was more like it. Next we were in a truck, trying to get someplace safe, and the truck crashed, and now I was Joel, fleeing with Sarah in my arms as a horde of bloodthirsty people tried to bite us and a soldier shot Sarah and she died in Joel’s arms or my arms and the screen went black and I realized that this was not Mario Kart.

Over the next days and weeks I would labor until my obligations to work and family were done and I could turn on the console and turn off the lights and be Joel again. By now he was a smuggler, traveling with a girl called Ellie across a bleak landscape filled with monsters that were once people and monsters who were still people, doing everything he could to keep her alive.

After I had finally saved Ellie, and doomed humanity while doing it, I found myself back in my own world, watching the credits roll and feeling exhilaration and regret, each as vivid to me as I had ever experienced in my real life.

I couldn’t remember when I had been so affected by a work of art. Or when I had ever thought that a video game could be a work of art.

Neil Druckmann was born in Israel in 1978, and, like most ’80s kids, he became fascinated with comic books and video games, which helped him learn his idiomatic but still accented English. When his family relocated to Miami, he attended college for a criminal-science degree but found himself drawn to the gaming industry, eventually getting a master’s degree in entertainment technology at Carnegie Mellon. In 2004, he joined the Naughty Dog game studio as an intern, and quickly rose in the company, designing and programming games, including its Uncharted series of Indiana Jones–like adventures. And during all that time, he was piecing together a story—or in the clinical language of modern media, an “IP,” or intellectual property—of his own.

His inspirations were an obscure but beloved Japanese game called Ico, from the early 2000s, in which the hero leads an imprisoned princess by the hand out of a huge castle; Frank Miller’s comic book Sin City, featuring a violence-scarred cop who protects a little girl; and the universe of zombie stories, most importantly George Romero’s Living Dead movies. The game would be graphically sophisticated and expertly designed by Naughty Dog’s team of artists and engineers. But the real innovation was its core subject matter, something that may have been entirely new to the industry:

“The game,” he says, “is about the unconditional love a parent has for a child.”

Druckmann is, along with Craig Mazin, the co-creator, executive producer, and writer of the HBO adaptation. (I hosted a podcast with Mazin in 2019 about his HBO miniseries Chernobyl.) I spoke with them both during post production for Season 2 of The Last of Us. The show is Druckmann’s first foray into traditional filmmaking, and I asked him about the difference between creating a story as a game to play and as a TV show to simply watch. He told me that from the very earliest conceptions of the game, he had been sketching out the “mechanics” of Joel and Ellie’s relationship.

Was that another term for what a screenwriter might call story beats or plot points?

“No,” he said, speaking patiently, as he would to someone who hadn’t learned English from video games. “I mean interactive mechanics: How do we put certain interactive elements on the stick?” (Meaning, literally, in the hands of the player, holding his joystick controller.) “How do we use that dimension? People that actually have kids know immediately: You would do anything for this other person. How do we make the player feel that?”

He pointed to a moment midway through the game when Joel and Ellie are exploring an abandoned hotel, and Joel falls down an elevator shaft, and then has to fight his way from the basement back to Ellie. It’s the first time in the game that the two are separated. “You feel Ellie not being around you,” Druckmann said. “And you miss her.”

I remember that moment vividly, the vertiginous feeling of not just falling but falling away from Ellie, whom by then I had saved from death many times, and I felt panic and anxiety because she was alone in a world filled with predators … and I had to get back to her.

I have never been angrier, or more impressed, at being so profoundly and successfully manipulated.

Many video-game adaptations in TV and film have been profitable; few have been critically acclaimed; a couple, like 1993’s Super Mario Bros., with Bob Hoskins and John Leguizamo as the titular plumbers, have been epoch-defining disasters. The pitfalls are many, the most obvious being that a game’s appeal is that it’s something you play. Can anything a writer or director comes up with be more fun than slaying the dragon (or zombies, or aliens) yourself? But at the center of the problem is the protagonist, a human-shaped frame intentionally left empty so that you, the player, can fill it.

“For example, when they adapted Halo, they had a complication,” Mazin told me, talking about the popular first-person-shooter game. “They had a hero whose face you never saw and whose voice you never heard. Then you’ve got to invent somebody, and you’ve got to think, What is his face and what does he sound like and what does he want and what does he say?” Halo ran for two seasons on Paramount Plus before being canceled.

The Last of Us posed the reverse challenge: one of abundance. Joel and Ellie aren’t faceless and voiceless human suits for the player to wear, but fully fleshed out, living people played via motion capture by the actors Troy Baker and Ashley Johnson. As players first inhabit Joel, then Ellie, then Joel again, they follow a linear trajectory, designed to create meaning not only on the screen, but also in them. The interaction goes both ways, as the players steer the game and the game steers them.The result is an experience of fear, anxiety, relief, rage, and finally, Druckmann’s carefully engineered final state: unconditional if murderous love.

But the viewers of a TV show can’t fall down a shaft and be separated from a character just so they will miss her, let alone hold the character’s choices in their own hands. All a TV show can do is show other people making those choices, and hope the audience follows along. It’s the difference between describing what gravity feels like and throwing somebody off a cliff.

For the show, Mazin and Druckmann faithfully re-created many famous scenes and much of the dialogue from the game—sometimes down to costumes, set design, and camera angles. They didn’t do this, they assured me, to please fans of the game who might be upset at the omission, for example, of the moment when Joel and Ellie find a herd of wild giraffes descended from zoo animals in Salt Lake City. They re-created that scene because, as the saying goes, if something ain’t broke, rent an actual giraffe. “We don’t sit there and go, ‘Ah, shit, this is something that is a waste of time, but the fans would love it,’” Mazin said. “If there’s fan service, the fan is me.”

They also expanded the story laterally. Because they are no longer avatars for the viewer, the principal characters can be less admirable. As played by Bella Ramsey, Ellie seems older than the waifish game character, with a reckless temper and a willingness to deceive. Pascal’s Joel is more emotionally reserved and wary than Troy Baker’s, and at the same time, more callous and seething with anger. In the show, someone says that Joel is the only thing in the desolate waste that scares another smuggler … and you believe it.

In the game, Druckmann told me, he insisted that the player would see only what the protagonist sees, so they’d have the same reaction to whatever lurked around the next corner. The TV show, though, delves into other storylines, most famously in the episode “Long, Long Time.” Early on in the game, Joel and Ellie pick up supplies and a vehicle from Bill, a loner in a fortified small town. Bill mentions that his “partner,” Frank, has left. From that scrap of backstory, the show spins out a love story between the deeply closeted survivalist Bill (Nick Offerman, who won an Emmy for the role), and Frank (Murray Bartlett).To pause the zombie fighting and dwell on a long-term romance was a remarkable gamble. If the elevator-shaft sequence in the game is impossible to replicate on TV, this episode’s slow conjuring of grace in the midst of ruin would be impossible in a game.

Another difference is a significant reduction of the body count. I asked Druckmann and Mazin about all the violence in the game, and they almost laughed, as if I was asking a soccer coach why his players don’t just throw the ball. That’s how games are played. “The violence is problem-solving,” Mazin said. “That’s the play. That’s the fun part.”

But in real life, anyone who killed as many people as Joel and eventually Ellie do in the game would be reduced to a traumatized, gibbering husk. “In the show, we actually talked about how to make every single act of violence matter,” Mazin went on. “Every single one changes not only the person doing it, but the relationship between Joel and Ellie.”

Mazin and Druckmann aren’t always successful. One episode’s climactic set piece re-creates a sequence in the game in which Joel, perched with a sniper rifle above a mass melee, picks off assailants as they threaten Ellie. It’s one of the very few moments when the show’s video-game roots show: No sane person would fire that many rounds so close to somebody he cared for unless he knew that if he hit her, time would reset and he could try again.

But there are many instances in which, as Mazin says, the violence ratchets the relationships into a new state. For example: a brutal fight in which someone is about to kill Joel before Ellie shoots him with a gun she’s secreted away. The man howls in agony, sobbing and begging for his life until Joel stabs him to death. From that moment, Ellie is no longer “cargo,” as Joel has called her; she has saved his life, and helped him take someone else’s, and the trauma yokes them together.

HBO is being tight-lipped about Season 2, but it is based on The Last of Us Part II, the sequel game, which was released in 2020. If it follows that story as closely as the first season followed the original game, we know some of what to expect. The first game was about unconditional love; the second was about something Druckmann says he learned about while growing up in the West Bank: tribal rage, the desire for vengeance, and how violence begets more violence.

The central, violent conflict is between Ellie and another young woman named Abby, something once unheard of in the male-dominated space of video gaming, and still rare in prestige TV.

Druckmann brought on Halley Gross, a writer for HBO’s Westworld, to help write the second game, and hired her again for the show. He told me that in addition to needing help organizing a script with far more characters and branching storylines, “I also knew that I wanted to tell the story of Ellie and Abby and put these two women through the ringer – physically and emotionally. I believed that I would approach the material with a higher level of confidence if I could do it with a female co-writer.”

As Season 2 jumps forward five years, we realize that Ellie is not just a character who’s had some exciting adventures and is about to have some more. After her bloody salvation, she is “locked in trauma,” Gross told me. “She cannot outrun this. She cannot outthink this.”

The Last of Us Part 2 was as revolutionary as the first game, but in new ways. If the first game was designed to make you feel love, the second asks the player to experience anger, hatred, and eventually even guilt, as their transgressions make Joel’s rampage at the end of Season 1 seem like an easy call.

I’ll be watching what happens next with excitement and dread. (Gamers know why). But—like others who spent many hours on the stick—I know I’ll feel some nostalgia for the time when I lived it all myself.

About the Author

Peter Sagal

Peter Sagal is the host of NPR’s Wait, Wait … Don’t Tell Me! His latest book is The Incomplete Book of Running.

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The post ‘The Last of Us’ and the Power of Video Games – The Atlantic first appeared on Zombie Gaming.

32 years later, forgotten shooter from Duke Nukem dev is getting a full remaster

Zombie Gaming — Sat, 12 Apr 2025 14:56:45 +0000

Cyberpunk 2077, Red Dead Redemption 2, The Last of Us – you can keep ‘em. For me, videogame aesthetics peaked in the ‘90s; instead of photorealism and verisimilitude, games had a visual style that was completely their own. I’m thinking of Wolfenstein 3D, the original Half-Life, and Rise of the Triad; games that looked like games. Originally released in 1993 by Duke Nukem and RoTT maker Apogee, Biomenace leapt off the screen. A monster-blasting adventure starring CIA agent Snake Logan (now, that’s a name), with its bright colors, slick animations, and goopy gore effects, it was a shooter with serious flair. And now, after 32 years of relative obscurity, Biomenance is coming back via a total remaster.

The mustachioed, perm-rocking Logan is on a mission to Metro City, now overrun by hundreds of slimy abominations set loose by the evil Dr. Mangle. A pseudo zombie game complete with puzzles, boss fights, and secret levels, the original Biomenace is largely the work of solo developer James Norwood, using the Keen Dream engine licensed from Doom creator id Software.

Biomenace Remastered includes enhanced visuals, a modernized HUD and UI, controller support, mid-level saves, rebalanced difficulty settings, Steam achievements, and an entirely new episode. It comes from Rigel Gameworks, overseen by developer ‘Lethal Guitar.’

“In early 2024, I started a Biomenace decompilation project, with the intention of creating a fan-made, enhanced modern engine for the game called SnakeEngine,” the developer says. “When I got to a point where the game was playable, I shared it with my friend Bart. After a short while, we decided to try and pitch it to Apogee as an official remaster.

“I spent some time adding various enhancements…and then Bart arranged a meeting with Apogee. They liked what we showed them, but decided against taking it on. Instead, they referred us to James Norwood himself, who actually holds all the rights to the game and IP. If we were to get his approval, we could still make the game, but we’d have to fund and publish it ourselves.

“So with all of that in mind, we decided to give it a try. We got in touch with James Norwood, and after some time, we came to an agreement – we would be making Biomenace Remastered as a commercial game.”

There’s no specific release date yet, but Biomenace Remastered is due to be launched before the end of 2025. You can already wishlist it right here.

Alternatively, try some of the other best old games, or maybe the best action-adventure games on PC.

You can follow us on Google News for daily PC games news, reviews, and guides. We’ve also got a vibrant community Discord server, where you can chat about this story with members of the team and fellow readers.

The post 32 years later, forgotten shooter from Duke Nukem dev is getting a full remaster first appeared on Zombie Gaming.

What we’ve been playing – zombies in the snow, cursed mobile games, and family fun

Zombie Gaming — Sat, 12 Apr 2025 13:31:52 +0000

12th April

Hello and welcome back to our regular feature where we write a little bit about some of the games we’ve been playing. This week, Bertie takes the plunge in The Last of Us Part 2 and enjoys a mobile game that isn’t Slice & Dice, and Tom Orry is outsmarted by his son.

What have you been playing?

Catch up with the older editions of this column in our What We’ve Been Playing archive.

The Last of Us Part 2 Remastered, PC

Watch on YouTube

Look, don’t judge me but I’d never played The Last of Us Part 2. But I’m one of these people who loved the TV series and so, in preparation for the second series, and in celebration of The Last of Us Part 2 Remastered arriving on PC, I decided to give it a go. And my word! The style of this game is breathtaking. It’s actually quite a lot like a TV show; the way it takes its time to set a scene, the way it allows you space to soak an atmosphere up.

But there’s something about playing the game that you can’t get from watching it. It’s a point that Citizen Sleeper creator Gareth Damian Martin made during an interview with me recently that really stuck in my head. They were talking about how some people overlook the importance that game mechanics have on an experience, saying things like “oh they should just be a TV show or a visual novel”, or words to that effect. But what those people miss are how much more is going on when you play a game.

In The Last of Us Part 2 early on, it’s those nervy walks through the snow as Ellie or Abby, when you know that the infected are near, and the frantic fights you have when they spring from the snow to get to you. Some people might label this as just necessary gameplay, but it’s also threat, and tension, and kind of invisible hand that pulls you closer into the world and the bleak reality of it. By playing the game you can say you’ve been there, to their world – can you say the same after watching the show?

-Bertie

Split Fiction, PS5 Pro

Our Split Fiction review.Watch on YouTube

It’s the Easter school holiday in the UK so I told my son he can stay up late a few days each week and play through Split Fiction with me. It is, as everyone has already said many times, very entertaining. I am finding some of the more generic platforming bits a little dull, but these are regularly broken up by some smartly designed co-op areas or thrilling set-pieces. I absolutely loved the wingsuits section, and the zone where you have to lob a bomb between the two of you is superb.

I thought it best I pointed out one moment that my son found hilarious, though (other than the dancing monkey). While traveling to a boss encounter in an ice world we came to an area that only small creatures could access. My son, who could turn into a fairy, flew straight in, but I was a large gorilla at the time so thought there must be another way through. 10 minutes later and with no obvious way to join my son, I scratched my head.

Had the game glitched? Nothing to this point had been overly challenging or obtuse, but perhaps I’d missed something? No, I had just forgotten that my character’s other form, a dragon/lizard thing, is small, and could easily fit through the narrow entrance. A master at work. I’m not sure I’ll live this down.

-Tom O

Thronglets, Android

Thronglets is the game at the heart of new Black Mirror episode Plaything.Watch on YouTube

Throng-what? This is the new Black Mirror game. It’s Season 7’s Bandersnatch moment, except it’s not interactive TV in the way Bandersnatch is/was but an accompanying mobile game. And it’s actually quite good.

Thronglets is made by Oxenfree studio Night School, and it’s integral to one of the episodes of the new Black Mirror series – an episode called Plaything, starring Peter Capaldi. The set-up is that Capaldi’s character was asked, as a young video game journalist, to report on a game made by celebrated developer Colin Ritman, but the game ended up derailing his life. Or it gave purpose to his life – it depends on how you look at it.

What’s neat is that the Thronglets mobile game you play is the game being played in the Black Mirror episode, and it compliments it by taking you a layer deeper, to experience the compulsion of Thronglets for yourself. For reasons that will become clear once you’ve watched the show, the experience isn’t exactly as it is in Black Mirror, but it’s close enough to evoke a similar feeling, and it’s laced with Black Mirror atmosphere and meta commentary.

I wrote a longer piece about it that’s being published this afternoon, but for now, I urge you to watch the episode and give it a try.

-Bertie

The post What we’ve been playing – zombies in the snow, cursed mobile games, and family fun first appeared on Zombie Gaming.

The Fall 2: Zombie Survival brings comic-style horror and eerie puzzles to Android

Zombie Gaming — Sat, 12 Apr 2025 11:01:11 +0000

Take on waves of zombies as you try to save humanity
The story is told through cinematic, comic-style cutscenes
Free demo is available with the first part of the story

The undead apocalypse returns in The Fall 2: Zombie Survival, now available on Android. Building on the tense survival gameplay of the first instalment, this horror-action puzzler throws you into a ruined world filled with grotesque monsters, abandoned settlements, and deadly puzzles, all wrapped in an eerie, comic-inspired visual style.

Set in a post-apocalyptic rural landscape, The Fall 2 challenges you to fight your way through relentless zombie hordes, uncover the cause behind the devastating outbreak, and save what’s left of humanity.

Combat isn’t just about blasting through enemies. Each boss fight introduces distinct mechanics that demand strategy and timing. You’ll forage for resources, manage your stash, and solve intricate puzzles to unlock new areas and progress through the story.

The Fall 2 also leans heavily into its narrative, told through cinematic, comic-style cutscenes that heighten the tension and give depth to the world. It’s a chilling tale of survival and sacrifice, as you piece together what went wrong and what’s still at stake.

Beyond the adrenaline-pumping action and monster encounters, it also features a haunting rural setting that sets it apart from typical urban survival horror. Combine that with original sound design and atmospheric music, and you’ve got a compelling experience that’s easy to jump into anywhere.

Before you go on, check out this list of the best horror games to play on Android!

A free demo offers a taste of the action with part one of the story. If you’re hooked, upgrading unlocks the full experience, including all boss fights and the final conclusion to the overarching narrative. The Fall 2 also supports 12 languages with full subtitles, so you can tailor your experience.

Download The Fall 2: Zombie Survival now by clicking on your preferred link below. It is available for $0.99 or your local equivalent. Check out the trailer embedded above to get a feel of what’s to come.

Download now!

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Call of Duty Black Ops 6 Zombies Camo Challenge – Yardbarker

Zombie Gaming — Thu, 10 Apr 2025 17:13:27 +0000

In Call of Duty Black Ops 6, the Zombies Camo Challenge is split into three tiers: Military, Special, and Mastery camos. Each weapon has nine Military camos you can unlock by completing tasks like “10 Rapid Kills” or “30 Special Zombie Eliminations,” as detailed by Dot Esports. After that, there are two Special camos per weapon, each with its own unique objectives. The real gems, though, are the Mastery camo, like Mystic Gold and Nebula, which you earn by finishing all the prior challenges for a weapon, according to the Call of Duty blog. To make things easier, a Camo Hub is set to roll out soon after launch, letting you track your progress in one spot Windows Central has more on that. For the latest Black Ops 6 updates, check out our news page.

Tips for Completing the Zombies Camo Challenge

Jumping into the Zombies Camo Challenge can feel overwhelming, but a few pointers can help you grind smarter. Start by picking one weapon and sticking with it, bouncing between guns just slows you down. For Military camos, tasks like “10 Rapid Kills” are a breeze in the early rounds when zombies aren’t sprinting yet. Special camos often involve targeting specific zombie types, so watch for those tougher enemies and pack the right gear. Mastery camos? They’re a marathon, not a sprint so pace yourself, and don’t burn out.

Why Players Are Talking About It

This challenge is blowing up because it’s the perfect mix of brutal and brag-worthy. There’s nothing like flexing a rare camo you’ve earned through hours of zombie-slaying. That said, it’s not all smooth sailing, some players have run into glitches, like the Jade camo not tracking properly for the Kilo 141. Over on Reddit, folks suggest swapping attachments to fix it, while X is full of players posting their Mystic Gold unlocks, saying the grind pays off. Season 2 promises fixes like improved tracking and a co-op pause feature, per Destructoid, so there’s light at the end of the tunnel.

Community Reactions and Strategies

The Call of Duty Black Ops 6 community is all over this challenge, and social media’s lighting up with chatter. On Reddit, one player raved, “Nebula camo is nuts, took me three days straight, but it’s a total flex.” Others are teaming up for co-op runs. Smart players are sharing tricks, like camping in tight map corners for rapid kills or using specific perks to take down special zombies faster. Some swear by certain maps for racking up kills efficiently.

Common Challenges and How to Overcome Them

Let’s be real: the Zombies Camo Challenge isn’t a walk in the park. Beyond bugs like the Jade camo glitch, players often struggle with the sheer volume of kills needed, especially for Mastery camos. Special zombie eliminations can be a pain too, since those enemies don’t spawn every round. To beat these hurdles, try playing on higher rounds where special zombies pop up more often, and use weapons with high ammo capacity to keep the kills flowing. If tracking issues persist, double-check your progress after each match and report bugs via the official Call of Duty blog support channels. Patience and persistence are your best friends here.

What’s Next for Zombies in Black Ops 6?

The Zombies Camo Challenge is just the beginning for Call of Duty Black Ops 6 Zombies fans. Season 2 is shaping up to be a game-changer, with the Camo Hub for progress tracking and quality-of-life tweaks like co-op pausing. New maps and modes might drop too, bringing fresh challenges to keep the grind alive.

Conclusion: Is the Zombies Camo Challenge Worth Your Time?

The Call of Duty Black Ops 6 Zombies Camo Challenge has taken the gaming world by storm, and for good reason. It’s a tough, rewarding journey that lets you earn standout camos, sharpen your skills, and connect with a fired-up community. Sure, there are bumps, like glitches and grind heavy tasks, but with updates like the Camo Hub and Season fixes on the horizon, it’s only getting better. Whether you’re chasing Mystic Gold for the bragging rights or just want to dive into the hype, this challenge is a must-try for any Call of Duty fan.

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Giant Project Zomboid build 42 update makes zombies less scary and hints at NPCs

Zombie Gaming — Thu, 10 Apr 2025 13:39:18 +0000

Whether it’s State of Decay, Fallout, or DayZ, in post-apocalyptic survival games the biggest threat isn’t zombies or monsters or mutants – it’s other people. Until now, the existence of fellow survivors has only been hinted at in Project Zomboid, but given the success of mods like Week One, and the erstwhile prologue starring Bob and Kate Smith, it seems inevitable that NPCs will eventually return. Now, a big update to Project Zomboid build 42 perhaps lays the groundwork for that future, while also offering you a helping hand when it comes to dealing with Knox Country’s undead.

It’s almost certainly happened to you by now. You’re picking through stores in Muldraugh, Riverside, or anywhere else in Project Zomboid, and suddenly you hear a distant gunshot, a scream, or an explosion. You can never find the source – like the radio broadcasts and annotated maps, these elements of the metagame only imply the presence of other people – but it’s clear that you’re not completely alone.

Back in the earliest days of The Indie Stone’s survival game, the tutorial section cast you as the tragic couple Bob and Kate, and culminated with a showdown with a house-invading bandit. In fact, NPCs were a core part of Zomboid up until April 2013, when they were removed owing to the fact they were too buggy. Provisionally, non-player survivors are rumored to return in Zomboid build 43 – but the new update for build 42 could be laying the foundations.

The new version of Zomboid, unstable 42.7.0, includes additional crafting recipes for making gold and silver coins – if you find sheets of either metal, you can process them into currency. As it stands, there is no trade in Zomboid of any kind. There’s no money, no swapping, and no merchants – there isn’t anybody. So, why would you need coins? Perhaps when the NPCs come back, you’ll be able to buy and sell things…

One of the best Project Zomboid mods, Week One already demonstrates how the game will look with other survivors. It’s chaotic and cruel, but such is PZ. On that note, have you ever been bitten by a zombie that you thought was dead? Thanks to the new update, zombies that have been knocked down or stunned will now move their chests more noticeably, so you have a better chance of spotting that they’re still active.

If you’re stockpiling gasoline be sure to put it in barrels that have lids, since it can now evaporate if it’s left in open containers. If you’re a veteran Zomboid player, you might be relieved to know that the opening, mood-setting message – “These are the end times. There was no hope of survival. This is how you died” – will now only appear once per save. Also included in the big update, fences are now more resilient, and won’t collapse as quickly when they’re being climbed and pressed against by multiple zombies.

Let’s hope NPCs are coming back soon. In the meantime, you can brush up on your undead survival skills with the best zombie games, or maybe try the best sandbox games instead.

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One of the most wanted survival games on Steam, Into The Dead is finally here

Zombie Gaming — Thu, 10 Apr 2025 12:56:07 +0000

They’re slow, they’re stupid, and – provided you have the right weapon – they’re easy to kill. But what makes zombies frightening is their sheer numbers. It’s the horde, the relentless, unresting, amorphous horde. One of the most wishlisted survival games on all of Steam, Into The Dead is built around this specific type of terror. You can stockpile supplies, fashion weapons, and recruit new survivors, but the writhing ocean of zombies is always biting at your heels. If you’re a big Project Zomboid fan, or you’re eager for State of Decay 3 and Dying Light The Beast, Into The Dead is finally here.

It’s 1980, the town of Walton, Texas. Hot, tranquil, and picturesque, your homely little suburb is unfortunately under siege from ravenous ghouls, and if you want to stay alive, you need to scavenge for food, gather an arsenal of weapons, and safeguard both your physical and mental wellbeing. Played from a side-on perspective, Into The Dead is seemingly inspired by 11 bit’s beloved This War of Mine. By day, you stay indoors and reinforce your defenses. Other survivors may arrive and you can choose to admit them to your base or not. By night, however, you have to go out onto the streets of Walton and search for provisions. But the survival game has a twist.

No matter how well barricaded or how thoroughly supplied, eventually your base will be attacked by the zombie horde. You can’t get too comfortable – you have to keep moving. So, as well as rounding up resources, when you go out at night, you also need to scout for a potential new safehouse. It’s all about staying one twisted, rotting foot in front of the undead. You can’t just bed in and build up. The pressure is always on.

One of the most popular games during Steam Next Fest (the demo was downloaded more than 300,000 times) Into The Dead has also made it into the top 50 most wishlisted games on Steam overall. As of today, Wednesday April 9, it’s finally available via Early Access. You can also still try the demo before you buy. If you want to give it a shot, go here.

Alternatively, try some of the other best zombie games, or maybe the best apocalypse games available today.

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