I have always enjoyed the Zombie Army series in spite of it feeling like a bit of a perfunctory afterthought to Sniper Elite. Zombie Army 4: Dead War adds a host of arcadey abilities and perks that help to distinguish it in this respect, but still retains the series’ trademark slow-mo kills, straightforward gunplay, and lovable B-movie narrative. My time with an early build at a behind-closed-doors E3 appointment left me chuckling and optimistic.
I kicked off the demo by taking control of series’ front man Karl Fairburne in a WW2-era Milan train station. Before I knew it, a runaway passenger car teeming with undead Nazis barreled into the station and I found myself retreading familiar ground by slow-mo sniping zombies in the head, and other less ethical places. At the most basic level, Zombie Army 4: Dead War plays very similarly to the preceding installments. Zombie grunts are still slow-moving fodder, holding shift slows down time and prompts a forgiving real-time reticle, and you have access to an array of WW2 armaments beyond the iconic sniper rifles.
