THE 4K ZOMBIE MASH
The original World War Z was reviewed for our site back in April 2019 and was given a 7.5. For the purposes of this review I will focus on the things that Aftermath adds to the overall game of WWZ. First of all, the entire game received a next gen upgrade by way of 4K graphics running at a solid-ish 60fps. The “ish” is added because as the hordes begin to increase I experienced some stutters and frame drops. It very quickly recovered and didn’t take any of the enjoyment away.
Having put hours and hours into the original game the increase in graphic fidelity is immediately noticeable. Loading into one of the new areas for this expansion set in Rome, seeing the sun shining through the architecture in the once, great city was truly a sight to behold. The textures on all of the buildings, and weapons just look so much more lifelike…. which of course is kind of terrifying when considering the zombies.
MSRP: $39.99
Platforms: Xbox, PlayStation, PC
Price I’d Pay: $29.99
And boy do they not disappoint, the variety in the faces is noticeable as is the detail in their skin, clothing, etc. The flesh looks necrotic and rotting, individual organs can be made out in-between rib-cages; where once it was all kind of a blur. The conversation to 4K/60fps has enabled the developers to produce what is truly their vision graphically for World War Z and we are all better for it. It was never an ugly game, and the fact that its horde mechanic literally has the zombies making pyramids of themselves to reach players is insane. All of the weapons were given a graphical upgrade as well, and the melee combat was expanding in function and weapon variety (dual wielding!!). Even on the standard Xbox One/PS4 WWZ looked amazing; but the Aftermath expansion is the only way to play if you own a next gen (Xbox Series X|S or PS5) console or PC.
But the developers didn’t stop there; the teams also added a new perspective into the game. Now if players choose, they can switch to first person mode at any time. While I enjoyed the novelty of it, and it was even kind of cool to experience the game from a different perspective; its isn’t long before the problems start to sour the experience. I found in first person mode that the movement felt very ‘floaty’, turning and changing view just felt off. As I said after the novelty wore off, the rest of my experience was spent in the traditional third-person mode.
So, after improving combat systems, graphics, adding an FPS mode the team added two new story episodes. One as mentioned above takes the player to Rome with 4 new survivors to help escape the undead threat. The other sees the story return to the frozen temperatures of Russia; this time in the Kamchatka peninsula. The frozen buildings, and piles of snow and ice were quite the sight in 4K; I just can’t get over this “budget game” being able to drop a next gen update that so completely overhauled the original game.
Aftermath is an interesting title for this expansion to World War Z. The very definition of the word is the “aftereffects of some sort of significant unpleasant event, but honestly this expansion is anything but unpleasant. Sure, there are some frame drops, and the FPS mode is gimmickier than anything else but this is an extremely solid update. The addition of the extra class in the Vanguards, the extra story missions as well as the Horde XL update adding more hordes of the undead to take down and what you get is a very pleasant update to an already stellar co-op zombie shooter.
Review copy of game provided by publisher.
