ZackFurniss
Techland of Dead Island fame is trying their hand at the zombie genre again, this time with free-running and fancy new PS4-exclusive features. While there have already been a few videos showing the gameplay, we are now starting to see slower, more detailed videos explaining the core systems at work.
For starters, Designer Maciej Binkowski spoke of the cool things the team is trying with the Dualshock 4. The touchpad can be used to quickly pull up the menu, and the controller’s light will shine in different colors based on the context of the scenario. For example, turning on the flashlight in-game will correspond with a white light appearing on the controller. As I’ve yet to hold the new controller, I’m not sure how bright the light is, so I can’t attest to this being a good or bad idea. When getting attacked, the light will flash red. Nothing game-changing, but still interesting. Here’s where the prospects become enticing: the team is working to allow voice recognition in multiplayer so you would be able to distract the zombies and assist your friends. I like the idea of waking up my sleeping family so my friend can score some extra points, so bring it on, Techland.
Other features include in-game radio voices coming through your controller speaker, à la Silent Hill: Shattered Memories, and the Share stream being used in fun ways. They’d love to see a ‘Kill of the Week’ type segment, in which I’m sure plenty of players would be willing to participate.
In the IGN developer video, you can see the how smooth the parkour elements are, and how the combat works. Now it’s in the hands of an actual player, it looks more like Dead Island than I originally thought, but with more polish. It’s nice to see it all being focused on the mechanics instead of the story. The game is releasing sometime next year on PS3, PS4, Xbox 360, Xbox One, and on PC.
Looking forward to it. I can’t wait to jump on those stinky zombie faces.
