Afterwords: ZombiU

Ubisoft's ZombiU stands out as one of the most high-profile new IPs for Nintendo's Wii U console. The game combines permadeath, first-person action, and zombies into a punishing survival horror experience. The game earned polarized reviews (read ours here), but got gamers talking. We spoke with Gabrielle Shrager, story design director and lead writer on ZombiU. Despite the aforementioned mixed reviews, Shrager vehemently defends ZombiU when questioned on the game's evolution, goals, and criticism.

What was it like developing for the Wii U? Did the GamePad deliver what you wanted? Was there anything you wanted to do with it that you couldn’t? At any point did the team feel restrained by the Wii U hardware?

We didn't feel restrained.  The real challenge for us, is one any team faces when developing a game in parallel with the development of a whole new system for launch. The framework that a new system provides is always interesting to us from a creative and technological standpoint, because it challenges us to take risks and imagine new ways of playing. 

Comparisons have been drawn between Red Steel and ZombiU, two new IPs developed to show off a new Nintendo console. Red Steel received poor marks, while ZombiU’s reception has been very mixed. How do you feel about this track record?

We really did not realize there would be such a huge debate about the game. The initial reviews seemed to expect to run and gun!  Just days later, when you compare walkthroughs done by players, alone, in the dark, in the right conditions to play a survival horror, it's a whole 'nother story. Suddenly, what might be perceived as flaws for an arcade shooter become strengths that make ZombiU's survival horror experience unique:  the slow pace, the feelings of vulnerability, the trauma of losing your survivor to one single bite, and the terror that lurks around every corner. The game is entangled with the overall reception and speculation about the Wii U's future and its capacity to draw hardcore gamers into the Nintendo fold.  ZombiU will have marked many for breathing life back into one of the industry's best-loved genres – and that’s cause for celebration!

ZombiU started life as Killer Freaks from Outer Space. What caused the change, and do you think it helped or hurt the game in the end?

Killer Freaks was designed to be a co-op arcade shooter with “pulp era” science fiction inspirations; fast, fun, and funny. The asymmetric multiplayer mode we showcased at Nintendo’s E3 2011 conference was a breakthrough from the point of view of uniting players of all skill levels to compete together in really fun, yet formerly impossible ways. As we continued to develop and test the game over the next few months, we realized that the GamePad, with its touchscreen, was also an ideal fit for a survival horror game.

It's a tension-making machine that materializes a world outside the TV screen, offering an inimitable experience that take players back to the roots of the types of intensely scary and compelling experiences offered by the best survival horror games. Zombies made the ideal enemy. They are slow and disgusting and allowed us time to exploit the second screen on the GamePad. But most people have forgotten how to play these as developers have moved away from that slow-paced experience in the hopes of hitting a commercial home run with a highly scripted, cinematic, FPS-type experience. So with ZombiU it feels like we had to educate players all over again, and not just about survival horror, but about a brand new way of playing with a brand new controller.

From a narrative point of view, zombies are more familiar territory for players than Killer Freaks From Outer Space. But the popular genre comes with a lot of baggage, so we had to be especially creative there too. The "one bite kills" rule has rocked the establishment.

It is strong design choices that make a game stand out. Ours work well for players who relish the idea of a credible survival experience in zombie territory. ZombiU is not for players who want the power trip of running and gunning through reams of enemies.

Did the team draw any inspiration from the DayZ phenomenon?

It's a fabulous experiment, but there's no direct inspiration.

Besides the frequent radio chatter, storytelling segments are sporadic throughout the game. What was it like balancing lonely exploration/survival with an evolving narrative?

Reactions to the “story” in ZombiU have been a marvel for us to try and understand. What are we referring to when we say “storytelling segments”? Some people seem to have wanted more cinematics, narrative bottlenecks whereby the player stops, breathes, and just watches the story evolve. These players might say Shadow of Colossus or Demon's Souls, for example, are light on story. Some would say there's as much story in these games as in an Uncharted title. Some players prefer what we call “visual” and “systemic” storytelling; i.e. the universe tells a story about isolation and apocalypse through world building, and the player lives his or her own story as the true main character – without ever relinquishing the controls and breaking immersion.

ZombiU tells stories at several levels, using many techniques. The content of the missions expose many of the classic characters and situations found in zombie tropes (no spoilers) and exploit what makes them so frightening. There is also is a tale behind the tale which players can discover for themselves if they are inclined to read the collectibles in their notebook. This story links the Prepper (a mysterious guide who speaks to you through the GamePad speakers) to a 400-year old prophecy. Players have a different perception of story in ZombiU depending on how deep they want to go. In this iteration, the biggest story remains the one players tell themselves and each other about their epic tale of survival. Since launch, ZombiU players – by the thousands – have been tweeting and posting walkthrough videos, spray-painting online messages for each other on the walls of London in-game, and talking about ZombiU in the Miiverse; all because they want to share this unbelievably intense experience with one another.

Did the craze over Demon Souls' unrelenting difficulty influence ZombiU’s game design? Where do you see this love affair with very difficult games going?

Thinking about risk/reward is a significant part of designing a game. It has been our experience, and Demon Souls made this obvious, that one of the strongest ways to create a compelling gaming experience is to give the player something significant (within a game's DNA) to lose and be fair about it. Games can be boring when they offer little or no challenge, but that doesn't mean the challenge must be as radical as Demon's or ZombiU's. But with survival at the heart of our game and zombies as our genre, killing off survivors like flies is exactly what you'd expect from a zombie game. 

What was it like developing a classic, challenging survival horror title in a generation that sees so few of them?

It was actually incredibly fun and gratifying that we succeeded in genuinely scaring the dickens out of players – and it really pumped us up. The reactions have been so intense! As mentioned earlier, the tough part was reminding people how to play a survival horror game again.

Based on feedback and reviews, what is the biggest thing that you would change about the game?

More melee weapons would be one of the first things on our list. Give me a halberd to keep those zombies back! The pickings in the Tower of London’s armory would feel like Christmas!

The cricket bat was designed to be used almost as a last resort, significant because it's such a violent assault on your senses. Players quickly learn that it won’t save their bacon against more than one zombie at a time (either the hard way, or by listening to the Prepper). Some players depend on it entirely instead of scavenging for ammo and new gear, and these players deserve a richer melee experience.

ZombiU’s melee combat is sluggish and repetitive. Why did you make it take so long to bludgeon enemies?

Once you're down to just your cricket bat, it often means you could have prepared better, and you're going to feel the pain of this poor planning. When you go head-to-head with the undead, the sensation of gambling with your life is underscored by the stressful character voices that enact the human limits of physical and psychological endurance. Can the undead die? It's a battle of wills, and a matter of opinion as to when too much is too much.

Some of the GamePad interaction (inventory management/scanning/etc.) feels distracting. Do you think there are areas where you tried too hard to implement the Wii U’s unique hardware features? Did you feel pressure to use them all?

Everywhere you look today, people are using multiple screens. At work we have two and even three screens to multitask; we watch TV while texting and Googling on our smartphones and tablets, and often with multiple applets or windows open simultaneously! Using the new GamePad becomes natural after a couple of hours. In fact, ZombiU's use of the GamePad has been heralded as the most innovative and successful uses at launch by a majority of media and players. With any new system, you want to experiment with as many features as you can that excite you, and bring something to the experience that no other system can. When you try anything innovative for the very first time, you’re not going to get everything just right.

One of the interesting features of ZombiU is the use of permadeath and random protagonists. In the end this resulted in frequent backtracking. Did this feature work out as you envisioned?

Permadeath makes the survival experience realistic and compelling. We worked hard to support this daring choice by limiting loading times and backtracking by creating shortcuts for survivor’s to go mercy-kill their former selves and recover their stuff. Like any totally new and untried approach to storytelling, there's no guarantee it will work, but the feature has stood out as another one of the aspects of the game that make it such a uniquely terrifying experience. There’s something really creepy, visceral, and dramatic about killing your self-turned-zombie!

ZombiU’s multiplayer feels like a quirky afterthought. Did you consider a more traditional co-op mode? If so, what prevented it from happening?

We worked tirelessly for over a year to develop what became the first proof of concept for the Wii U GamePad's power to create a whole new paradigm for play. Like the Wii, it allows people of completely different profiles have fun together. It requires a tremendous amount of tuning in order to obtain a perfectly balanced experience when two people are competing in the same game while essentially playing two completely different games. We wanted to renew the fun of playing games together in your living room, while making the most of Nintendo’s new hardware with its two screens and two different controllers.

Finally, the multiplayer is a great way to become introduced to and experiment strategies with the different types of weapons and zombies in the game. It's more accessible to newbie survivors, and more hardened players can blow off some steam and play with friends who might never have picked up a controller before.