Yet Another Zombie Survivors Review - This Roguelite Lets You Nuke Thousands of Zombies!
- Seren
- 5 minutes ago
- 10 min read
Available on Playstation 5, Xbox consoles, and PC.
Despite its playful yet self-deprecating title, Yet Another Zombie Survivors isn't just that, and even though I'm not well versed in the genre, I was astounded by how much I enjoyed this game. My kind of zombie game is the narrative-driven Resident Evil games, as I tend to value atmosphere and the horror of it all over just popping the head of a zombie.However, this bullet heaven-style game had me hooked from the start and made me appreciate how satisfying it is to just get stuck in. Its various systems and modes made for an addictive gameplay loop that had me itching for one more round.
Yet Another Zombie Survivors is a typical bullet heaven that will feel like home to fans of the genre, and yet for newcomers, like myself, I found entering this new genre through this title to be incredibly accessible and easy to follow. This is probably due to the fact that Awesome Games Studio has been cooking this game over a slow heat for the last 3 years, and even though Early Access can be a bit controversial, I can confidently say that its 1.0 release feels refined and ready for a new horde of players to enjoy. In its full release update, players will be treated to a new hub so they can interact with characters and take on story/character missions. There’ll also be a couple of new modes and maps for existing players to have fun with. For its price tag, Yet Another Zombie Survivors is a steal with the endless fun you can have.
I’ll split the gameplay section of this review into two sections, pre-run and the run itself. Before you begin your run, you can either hang around the newly added camp, where you can talk to the survivors, look at your achievement log, or most importantly, put points into skill trees to unlock more abilities. For each run you complete, you’ll level up, and each level for each survivor will translate into points. These points are categorized by survivor, but you’ll also earn general points from your survival level. The general skill tree will let you upgrade general features like weapon damage, health points, etc. In terms of the survivors, you’ll customize their arsenal, providing them with higher-power weapons, new abilities, and badges that will grant them stat buffs. It's this skill tree system that makes you want to dive into a new run as soon as you’ve completed the last one, as you find yourself wanting to try out newly acquired equipment and abilities. There are even synergized abilities that trigger if you bring two specific survivors into a run, like the combination of the tank's sawblades with Huntress’s bear traps. I also have to mention how versatile these skill trees are, as if you feel like you’ve put points into the wrong skill, you can reset them at any time. Want to bypass putting points into your starter weapon in favor of upgrading later game ones? Then you can do that. There’s no sense of permanence in Yet Another Zombie Survivors, which does the game a lot of good. Instead, you’ll find endless customization that keeps you hooked for hours of gameplay.
After you’ve found yourself equipped, you’ll be able to customize the run itself. There are now 5 maps for players to choose from in 1.0 and 5 modes to choose from that unlock as you complete certain conditions in previous modes. For example, if you survive 20 minutes in the Endurance mode of a map, you’ll unlock Hardcore and so forth. This means that you’ll be motivated to dive back into previous maps even though you’ve unlocked new ones so you can get more options to play around with. One of my favorites was how batshit crazy endurance mode gets once you pass the 30-minute mark. It got to the point where zombies were spawning on top of me and bosses were coming out of the wazoo. There’s a good sense of progression in unlocking maps and modes that never made me feel like I was rushing through the game’s content. From unlocking modes to story missions, I found myself happily coming back to the beginner map, Isolated City despite having completed 4 or 5 runs there already.
You will also need to pick which survivors will be your team leader; they all come with unique weapons, abilities, and stats that will change how each run goes. Some story missions even choose the character for you, so trying all of them is worth your time. Finally, you’ll choose a difficulty setting, which you can also unlock more of as you advance through the game. Now that’s all your prep out of the way; let's kill some undead monsters.
Each standard run in Yet Another Zombie Survivors is 20 minutes long (this time varies in other modes), and you just need to survive those 20 minutes in order to have a successful run. Simple. But where the fun and chaos come in are the various items, abilities, and characters you can pick up so you can tackle the hordes as they get more powerful. You’ll be able to control three team members at a time with the choice to auto shoot or do it manually, but how the hell can you keep up with manually shooting? I don't know. You’ll be constantly on the move at the start, dodging zombies so they don't attack you but also running to the various pop-ups on your map. You’ll get loot crates, which hold a variety of items; timed abilities, which include a frenzied mode that has your survivors mow down enemies in sight; and SOS signals that at first allow you to pick up new team members but will then give you ability and weapon upgrades. Once you’ve run out of upgrades, you’ll then be able to get stat modifiers.
What’s most important in traversing the map is picking up gems that drop when a zombie is killed; they range from small yellow ones to large red boss games. The more you pick up, the faster a gauge fills up so you can pick your next ability and weapon upgrade. Each weapon and ability has 4 upgrades that increase their damage input and lower their cooldown, amongst other things. These abilities are where each character differs, and each one makes for a different kind of run. You have gun users like the Tank and SWAT who rely on grenades and minefields, or you have AOE ability users like the Engineer who chucks down an electric turret that electrocutes enemies, or abilities that buff stats like the No Pain No Gain stat buff from Pyro. Speaking of electricity, though, the game also has different elemental attacks from fire to chemical, which adds an extra layer of strategy to how you want to kill your enemies. You can stack up your electricity tags and stun most zombies that come near you, or you can use chemical warfare to poison them.
You even have differences between weapon types, like the long-range bow wielder to close combat users like Ghost and Pyro, who use swords and axes. You’ll find when picking a team leader that you often need to be careful who you pick, as I found some suited the role much better than others. Characters like the Medic and Pyro acted as support characters compared to Tank, who could act as a damage sponge in the early game. There is a lot to think about and experiment with in Yet Another Zombie Survivors in terms of its character builds, which helps in making the game feel so alive and addicting.
What adds even more to think about in each run is the constant stream of achievements you can unlock. In about 5 hours of playtime, I unlocked 50 or so achievements, but there were around 150 in total you could unlock. The constant layer of getting an achievement, trying a new build, and completing story and character missions made this game feel so fresh despite starting up a map I had already played loads of times before. You are really spoiled for choice in terms of content.My only criticism when it comes to the runs in this game is that I feel like they are a tad too long. An option in the settings that modifies the length of runs would be nice, as sometimes I only wanted to dip in for 10 or so minutes. The first half of a run would often feel intense due to having to be on top of collecting items and upgrades and dodging zombies. However, when it got to the 15-minute mark, I found myself scrolling through my phone whilst my team stood in one spot, as once you unlocked better weapons, I would find the standard mode, and the difficulty became too easy. Breaking the game was a lot of fun, though. There is one item you can pick up that triggers a frenzied timed ability every time you defeat a boss. Late game spawns bosses constantly, so I found myself in a constant state of frenzy where zombies weren't even getting anywhere near me.
Another issue was during endurance mode. It's basically an endless mode where the longer you play, the higher level the hordes become. However, when I reached the 30-minute mark and the horde level was 15 or something, I found they equated difficulty to more enemies or the elite version of the usual mini bosses. I was hoping for a unique big bad boss to appear or something that would really make me think, but instead it's just an even bigger onslaught of zombies.
So, I don’t think anyone playing this game asked for a story, and frankly, the game doesn't need a story. Its gameplay does the talking, and the faster you get into a new run, the better. However, the devs were kind enough to give players the option to explore the game’s lore and provide story-related challenges that just give you something to aim for in a run. In the camp, you can get to see snippets of a character’s personality in the chat feature. Every time you come back from a run, two characters will interact and give you a short exchange that provides a little bit of thought into who these survivors are.
You can also get to know their story through their character missions. There are around 8 for each, and they will provide you with a burst of text that points to what their life was like before the apocalypse. For example, Huntress is searching for her missing daughter. The objectives attached to these missions are standard goals, like open 6 chests or trigger 6 timed effects. The correlation between the goal and the mission’s story is extremely loose, but that's to be expected in a game where you’re just supposed to be gunning down zombies.
Yet Another Zombie Survivors presentation is suited for the game; it's grungy and gives that old Call of Duty vibe that actually made me feel nostalgic for my Black Ops 2 days on Xbox Live. I also appreciated each survivor's character portrait. They could have just gone super generic, but I loved the contrast between the normal-looking guy and the cyberfuturistic-looking Ghost. I also thought the various zombie designs were really cool. Each map had its usual zombie hordes, but they also peppered in some unique enemy types like the werewolves and eldritch beasts in Green Hell and the Dune sandworms in Vile Wastelands. Map designs are also varied with later maps having extra challenges like dodging trains running along the map, or steering clear of toxic waste.
Another design aspect I appreciated in this game was the overall audio design. As you can expect, there are a whole lot of things going on in each run, so making everything have its own sound would probably get a bit headache-inducing. I think they struck the right balance with a variety of zombie noises and each survivor's primary weapon having a unique shooting sound, from the buzzing electric from the Engineer's taser to the sharp cut of Ghost’s katana.
There isn’t really much to say about the game’s music; each map has its own track, but it kind of gets drowned out by the onslaught of zombies kicking the bucket, so I never found myself sitting back and enjoying it. Like the story, I don't think that's really what you’re supposed to do anyway, so I wouldn't consider it a slight on the game. You’re not going to catch me humming to this game’s soundtrack on Spotify.
For this review I had to mostly play on a monitor, but oh my god, you are doing yourself an injustice if you don’t take advantage of the portability of the Steam Deck—of course only if you have one. This game is made to be played on the go. I travelled an hour and a half to the beach with my family the other day, and it flew by with Yet Another Zombie Survivors. The game runs smoothly, and the AI fits perfectly, and it quickly became my preferred way of playing. Sneaking in one more run before bed, which was quite chaotic and stimulating before I went to sleep, was actually quite cozy.
The comfort in playing with a handheld is helped by the range of options you can mess around with in order to have the perfect experience, from visual quality like making the game look brighter when you play during the day to visual cues that help you identify where enemies are and what type you’re going up against. If you're feeling squeamish, you can even turn blood spatter off.
Overall, I was downright surprised at how much I enjoyed Yet Another Zombie Survivors. It is in no way my kind of game, and I wouldn't have given it the time of day outside of reviewing, but I have been happily swept up into a whirlwind of bullet heaven goodness. There is so much to unpack in its gameplay, from skill trees and character abilities to different maps and modes, that this game is the perfect on-the-go time killer. There’s a smattering of stories for those wanting it, but if you don't want a side of story with your zombie shooter, you can easily jump into new runs within seconds of booting up the game. I can see this game resonating with longtime players of the genre but also being a great way in for people like me who wouldn't think twice about this game. There is so much to have fun with here, and it feels like this game is at its best coming out of Early Access. I just hope they can add multiplayer so I can share these chaotic runs with friends. I can’t believe cozy gamer Seren is saying this, but I'm giving Yet Another Zombie Survivors a silver genie lamp.
What to like
Plenty of modes, achievements and content to unlock
Each survivor feels unique and plays different
Enemy and map variety
An early access game done right
What to dislike
Runs can feel a bit too long
Runs can be visually overwhelming
No multiplayer
Who’s it for
Bullet heaven veterans
Newcomers to the genre
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