Highlights

• Zombie games need to be unique and high-quality to capture modern audiences' interest amid over-saturation in the gaming market.
• Expect a wave of upcoming zombie games, from indie to AAA, with diverse settings and genres to keep players excited.
• Keep an eye out for projects like Beyond Hanwell, STALKER 2, Wanderlost, and Projekt Z, offering fresh takes on the zombie genre.

The zombie genre ruled the entertainment landscape for the better part of the last decade, and though audiences are currently a bit fatigued, it's a post-apocalyptic setting that comes back in waves. It's been that way since George A. Romero released Night of the Living Dead back in 1968.

These days, a zombie-focused video game can still capture audiences' excitement and anticipation, but they need to deliver something that feels refreshing, unique, and/or of unmatched quality. More games, both AAA and indie, are released in the modern era than ever before. That means that there's likely more than a handful of upcoming zombie games to look forward to at any given time.

Updated April 16, 2024 by Mark Sammut: While not too many projects have been confirmed for 2024, plenty of zombie games are expected to drop over the coming months and years.

As long as its monsters are similar to zombies, a game will be considered even if it assigns a different name to them.

Beyond Hanwell

Psychological Horror Set For Early Access

Steam's upcoming zombie games section has quite a few titles that probably will not attract too much attention, and their quality is difficult to predict. Reborn: Survival is an MMORPG that is aiming for a 2024 debut, while IfSunSets, Ebola Village, and Suffocate are all survival horror games set for release within the same year. Kakuriyo, Darfall, and Metavoidal could drop zombies in unusual settings or genres, and they all look pretty interesting. Still, these projects are unpredictable and warrant cautious excitement.

As such, Beyond Hanwell is acting as a representative for Steam's massive collection of upcoming projects. Steel Arts' horror game is set in post-apocalyptic London, and it is scheduled to enter early access in August 2024. A demo is available, so players can at least sample this title to see if it is something that may interest them in the future. The visuals look impressive for an indie project, and the combat is fairly punchy. Technically, the game will feature "Anomalies" rather than zombies, but they will likely be quite similar.

S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl

Open-World Survival

Regardless of the circumstances, S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl was always going to be a big deal. GSC Game World's franchise has amassed an impressive cult following on PC, and the sequel's console availability and Game Pass Day 1 launch should significantly expand the license's audience. Even if some entries are better than others, S.T.A.L.K.E.R. has yet to produce anything resembling a bad project, and the anticipation for a modern game has been steadily building up over the last decade, especially since the last release was 2009's Call of Pripyat.

Utilizing Unreal Engine 5, Heart of Chernobyl will allow long-time fans and new players to return to the Exclusion Zone, a nuclear wasteland that is slowly trying to rebuild. Faction warfare, anomalies, and strange artifacts are just a few things players can anticipate, along with (presumably) a heavy focus on survival mechanics. S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 should be one of the biggest games of 2024.

Wanderlost

Roguelite Farming Sim

Indie games deserve love, so it's nice to shine a light on a zombie-centric one that fans can't wait to get their hands on. Wanderlost is a survival role-playing simulation game where players control a red-headed adventurer looking to fight back against the zombie infestation.

Its beautiful art style, in combination with both its RPG mechanics and crafting system, is looking to provide fans of the genre with a colorful take on a post-apocalyptic world.

John Carpenter's Toxic Commando

Co-Op Shooter

Revealed in June 2023, John Carpenter's Toxic Commando introduced itself with a gloriously cheesy '80s trailer soundtracked by Bon Jovi. Set in a post-apocalyptic world overrun with zombies, Toxic Commando looks set to be a co-op first-person shooter with a class system and a quirky sense of humor. Any horror project that carries John Carpenter's name comes with higher expectations, but this game at least left a positive first impression.

Saber Interactive has an extensive resume that includes World War Z, another co-op zombie shooter that was received fairly well. Toxic Commando appears to retain that release's overwhelmingly massive hordes, which is the best part of that game; hopefully, the upcoming title fine-tunes and improves upon World War Z's ideas.

Projekt Z: Beyond Order

Co-Op FPS

Hard to imagine that a game simply called Projekt Z will be released too soon, but this World War II zombie shooter has made quite the impression with its trailers. Not only does it provide a captivating atmosphere that infuses a bit of horror into the well-treaded genre setting, but visually the game offers beautiful lighting and textures.

The developers are a fresh new German indie studio called 314 Arts comprised of nine total employees. It'll offer both single-player and online co-op zombie killing spectacles as players try to uncover Nazi secrets hidden on an occupied island.

Killing Floor 3

Co-Op FPS

Technically, Killing Floor's zeds are not zombies, but they essentially play the same role and the games cater to the same crowd. Tripwire's co-op shooter is finally gearing up for its comeback, and while not much has been revealed about Killing Floor 3, the franchise is generally quite reliable. Killing Floor 2 has enjoyed a very long shelf life, and it is still fairly active considering it has been around since 2016; still, the title is starting to show its age, and plenty of similar games have entered the market over the last few years.

Set in 2091, the upcoming sequel will be taking on an almost cyberpunk theme by presenting a megacorporation as the core evil. Unsurprisingly, this organization has decided to weaponize zeds, forcing a resistance group to rise and rebel. Outside this basic plot summary, Tripwire has kept most other details under wrap, although the developer has confirmed that Killing Floor 3 will support 6-player co-op.

State Of Decay 3

Sandbox Survival

Undead Labs feels like a game developer destined to deliver a truly remarkable zombie experience in the world of video games. Their first entry in the genre was a lower-budget arcade-style zombie survival game that won the hearts of players despite its many bugs and issues. Its sequel, State of Decay 2, took the series forward.

In 2020, State of Decay 3 was revealed, and interviews with the studio suggest they're working on making this the zombie survival game they've felt they were capable of delivering. Now owned by Microsoft and overseen by Xbox Game Studios, it seems that the third installment in the State of Decay series could be the one that puts Undead Labs on the map in a major way.