World War Z is a fast-paced third-person shooter set amid an undead apocalypse, with story-driven campaigns spanning locations such as New York, Moscow, Japan and Jerusalem. Its premise centers on groups of survivors banding together, and its co-op format supports up to four players.
Its defining threat is the mass of zombies. The Swarm Engine renders large hordes, whose crowd behavior includes bunching in narrow corridors and climbing over one another to reach players on higher ground. As campaigns progress, the hordes grow harder to defeat and can act like a single-entity boss. Those shifting crowds give firefights their distinctive pressure and make positioning part of the encounter.
Players can choose among eight classes, each with its own perks and play style, and strengthen characters through class levels and weapon upgrades. Alongside the co-op campaigns, World War Z includes Player vs Player vs Zombies modes, where human opponents and undead threats share the fight. The combination of squad missions, class progression and mixed-faction competition gives the game more than one way to approach its apocalypse.
