World War Z: Aftermath is the upcoming sequel to 2019's critically acclaimed third-person zombie shooter, World War Z, in which the survivors of the previous journey are now working to turn the tide of the war and go on the offensive. A recent preview event provided Screen Rant with an opportunity to play the current beta version of the game with some of the developers and discuss all the new and exciting things coming to this burgeoning franchise. First impressions of WWZ: Aftermath show that, even in its unfinished beta version, players are in for a highly polished and thoroughly fun experience.
Much like its predecessor, WWZ: Aftermath is a third-person, four-player cooperative zombie shooter, but this new installment offers many new features and more versatility. One of the biggest changes is that players can now alter their POV to play in third-person or first-person at any time. To keep things balanced, the developers gave each perspective differing strengths and weaknesses, such as aim and damage adjustments, in order to encourage players to experience each POV.
Two other big adjustments include adaptive A.I. and randomizers for each map. The A.I. for the zombie hordes is already great, as they will try to attack from multiple angles and work together to overwhelm players. However, if players quickly adapt to their tactics, the zombies will become more aggressive and spawn special enemies more often. Some of these include brutes that are covered in body armor and charge at players, a jockey-like zombie that will pounce on a player and mercilessly claw at them, and some common zombies that spawn with the added ability to infect anyone they down. Each map has its own objectives to complete and supply areas to change weapons and replenish ammo, while the randomizer ensures that the caches never spawn in the same place, which forces the player to quickly adapt and get to know each level inside and out.
Kamchatka is a great example of how important it is to be familiar with a level because half-way through, there’s a section that requires switches to be activated in a specific order. While the order changes with each playthrough, the location of the switches do not, and learning those locations makes getting through that section very quickly - which is important since the bitter cold of Russia will kill the player if they’re exposed for too long. WWZ: Aftermath's design is all about replayability and variety because the developers saw how many people were replaying levels in the first game.
Those who played the first World War Z will be familiar with the available classes, with the exception of the new Vanguard class, which plays a more defensive role that can utilize shields to block doorways and entryways. There are also new weapons to play with that have certain perks, such as dual-wielded sickles that improve health stats after enough kills. While having a base price of $39.99, WWZ: Aftermath will allow current WWZ owners to upgrade for $19.99 and carry over their progression and other save data.
As of now, World War Z: Aftermath is shaping up to be a worthy successor. The beta showed off an already polished experience that will hopefully continue to improve during its final stretch of development. Its replayability, upgrade path for previous players, and cross-platform capability give the impression that World War Z: Aftermath has its players in mind and wants to provide the best experience possible, something it seems primed to do based on initial impressions.
World War Z: Aftermath releases on September 21st for PlayStation 4, Xbox One, PC via Steam and Epic Games Store, and is playable on next-gen consoles . The official next-gen editions will launch for PS5 and Xbox X/S in 2022 via a free upgrade. Screen Rant was provided with a beta key and play along opportunity for the purposes of this preview.
No comments:
Post a Comment