Highlights

  • Dying Light 2 and Dead Island 2 offer advanced gore systems and blend horror with satire for intense, humorous gameplay.
  • Zombie gaming has evolved over the decades, from Resident Evil to Left 4 Dead, but it's time for a new wave of innovation.
  • Fans are eager for a fresh take on zombie games beyond the familiar action-adventure formula.

The zombie genre has remained a fairly consistent part of the gaming landscape for around four decades now, with some of the biggest horror gaming franchises around putting a strong focus on the classic enemy type. Dying Light 2 and Dead Island 2 are just the latest in a long line of high-budget zombie games and they're both a pretty great example of just how far the genre has come in the last few decades.

Both Dead Island 2 and Dying Light 2 offer some of the most advanced gore systems in all of gaming, allowing players to savagely tear apart their zombie foes with ease. Both games also lean heavily into both the horror and satire elements of the genre, delivering plenty of intense sequences as well as moments of humorous absurdity. But while Dead Island 2 and Dying Light 2 offer some of the best zombie-based gaming experiences around, they're a little too similar to one another, and it would be great to see the genre produce something completely different in the coming years.

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It's Time for Some Fresh Meat in the World of Zombie Video Games

Dying Light and Dead Island Have Had a Hold on the Zombie Gaming Market

As alluded to up top, there have been countless zombie-based video games over the last few decades, but only a handful still stick in the mind all these years later. The most influential cornerstones of the zombie gaming world rarely share the same gameplay format. For instance, 1996's Resident Evil was one of the first games to really popularize zombies as an enemy type, and its survival horror gameplay was unlike anything gamers had seen at the time. The first House of the Dead game was also released in 1996, offering a completely different experience thanks to its light-gun shooter gameplay.

In the decades that followed, several other highly influential zombie games were released, each one providing a new type of experience. Left 4 Dead changed the co-op shooter landscape forever, Dead Rising delivered some of the first open-world zombie games, and Telltale's Walking Dead raised the bar for narratives in video games. In all of these cases, zombies were a major part of the experience, but they weren't the only draw.

Dead Island forged a distinct identity by bringing together beloved elements from previous zombie games.

Then Dead Island reared its head in 2011. Rather than bring something new to the table itself, Dead Island forged a distinct identity by bringing together beloved elements from previous zombie games, such as Left 4 Dead's co-op and Dead Rising's open-world. A few years later, many of Dead Island's original developers would go on to adopt a similar approach with Dying Light, and eventually, both series' sequels would end up forging a bit of a rivalry, with Dying Light 2 and the long-awaited Dead Island 2 still fighting one another for dominance over the zombie video game space today.

Dead Island 2 One Year Main
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Zombie Gaming Fans Deserve Something New

But with Dying Light 2 and Dead Island 2 both offering a fairly similar first-person action-adventure experience, there's a growing desire to see something new come out of the zombie genre. While this goal is probably very difficult to achieve, with zombie games adopting a slew of different genres over the last few decades, it's not impossible. There are still a few gaming genres that zombies have yet to infect. From a high-budget Metroidvania or roguelike to something a bit more out-of-left-field like a zombie life-simulator, there are still ways the zombie genre could be revitalized.

It might be time to bring back some long-dead zombie franchises.

In failing that, it might be time to bring back some long-dead zombie franchises. The aforementioned Dead Rising series would be great to see return, and though its hack-and-slash gameplay is similar to Dead Island 2 and Dying Light 2, there are enough differences there to make it feel like a refreshing take on the zombie genre.