World War Z has been out for a couple of years now and despite a slightly rocky launch, has seen several vast improvements that have turn it around. Aftermath is the latest and greatest iteration of this very much underappreciated gem.
The game draws tenuous inspiration from the 2013 movie you have probably completely forgotten about ( I almost had, Brad Pitt doctor, helicopter, zombie horde?). By tenuous, I mean tenuous.... literally the only correlation I could see was the zombie horde element. The horde throw themselves against walls and barriers in order to build a tower of bodies that enable their following zombie buddies access to their prey....you.
In WWZ you play as a survivor in a co-op team of 4 (or play alone with AI companions). Each level is basically a series of small maps in which you much survive waves of zombie hordes, whilst completing additional objectives such as holding an area, loading missile launcher to destroy targets etc.
Aftermath improves upon several aspects of the original formula, most notably the addition of a first person perspective, improved companion AI and a couple of extra levels.
The first person view is a welcome addition that really adds immersion, this also comes fully fleshed out with newly created reload/fire animations. Although this can get a little disorientating if you're stuck in the middle of a horde.
The improvements to AI were very much needed and is much improved, although the improvements won't really see you through a difficulty setting much higher than normal.
For review purposes I played this on PC via Steam, max settings 4k and it runs very smoothly and looks beautiful. The stages are relatively self contained but it was still nice to see the effort that has gone into making each area look as spectacular as possible. Animations are top notch although sometimes the rag doll physics seemed to get a little carried away with itself.
For the cons? The big one for me was controller support, or rather lack thereof.
The Steam page suggests that the game has full controller support and indeed, there are options in game for controller. However I was unable to get my Xbox controller to work in any way.
I tried allocating different configurations from steam, I even tried a different controller just in case, but the game failed to respond to any controller input. A cursory online search showed that I wasn't alone with this issue and it is something that really needs to be fixed as a priority. (Both my game and drivers were fully up to date and both controllers tested worked fine via steam for other games).
With relatively inexpensive 4k HDR TV's more and more people are using a PC in a similar way to their consoles, hooked up to their TV for couch gaming in the living room. Especially with many people working from home during covid times, separation of "church and state" is more important now than ever. I would much prefer to slump into a comfy chair with a controller to play a game, than to remain hunched like a human prawn over the same keyboard and mouse I have been using for work all day.
As such, integration of controller support for games that are a natural fit for such, is an absolute must in my opinion. While its important to note WWZ does have controller support, it seems hit and miss as to if people find it functions for them or not.
WWZ: Aftermath is a really fun co-op shooter, although limited play area and repetitive gameplay do limit the playtime of a particular gaming session. It's still enjoyable for an hour or two at a time particularly with friends.
Technically the game runs very smoothly, looks, sounds and feels great in both first and third person and seems to have great performance via online play.
If you haven't already tried this game and you're a fan of Left4Dead or Vermintide it's well worth adding to that wishlist or checking out.
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