Zombie Army 4: Dead War Reviews

Zombie Army 4: Dead War builds upon the original trilogy of games to offer a robust zombie-killing experience. While what’s here is enjoyable, and the combat is as satisfying as ever, it doesn’t quite step out on its own into something truly unique.

There’s just something deeply satisfying about mowing down waves of the undead. Like a Zen rock garden full of groaning corpses. Rebellion’s Zombie Army 4: Dead War walks a fine line between indulgent and exhilarating, with only a few stumbles along the way. It’s tough and grounded, but also crammed with ridiculous violence. While there isn’t a ton of depth to crushing Hitler’s zombie hordes, I still had a lot of fun doing it.

The Italian tourist board may consider litigation.

Zombie Army 4 is a game I never gave a chance before Game Pass, and it really is a perfect game for the service. The base campaign is long and the potential to get you to purchase the season pass DLC means it should help the developers earn quite a bit more for all their hard work. The shooting is fun, the campaign is just the right length, the voice acting, and story are bad on purpose and it all leads to a fun game that is worth your time, especially if you’ve got a few friends to play alongside you.

Republished on Wednesday 31st March, 2021: We're bringing this review back from the archives following the announcement of April 2021's PS Plus lineup. The original text follows.

In a last-ditch effort to avoid losing World War II, Hitler has enacted a plan that turned all his followers into flesh-eating zombies. Now, it’s up to you and up to three friends to shoot, slash, and blast your way through seemingly endless droves of the undead. The premise of Zombie Army 4 may be absurd, but it’s a consistently fun, albeit repetitive, adventure across an alternate-history version of 1940s Europe.

A solid zombie shooter with plenty of replayability that struggles at time with pacing

Zombie Army 4 feels like an old friend you're reconnecting with after a few years. Even though it's similar to its predecessors, the game has been refined into something that holds greater mass appeal. Weapon upgrading, fresh enemy design, and a packed progression system give players a reason to keep coming back. The core gameplay loop is even better more when tackled in co-op, yielding some hilarious and action-packed adventures. Despite the good, the game's core issues arise from a bland campaign that lacks the impressive set pieces and locations from the previous iterations.

At its core, Zombie Army 4 feels uninspired and fails to capture anything unique. With the plethora of zombie video game content out, it seems safe to say that there is plenty out there that have done it better. For zombie enthusiasts or those with a dedicated co-op partner, this game is a reasonable recommendation, but for anyone looking for something more, there are other games out there that can check all the boxes of a zombie game but still offer a unique experience. This is more than can be said for this game, and while it is typically best to avoid judging a game by its cover, Zombie Army 4's cover says it all.

Here's our Zombie Army 4 Dead War review. Does it improve upon the previous iterations and make for a worthy successor?

Zombie Army 4: Dead War is the newest installment of Rebellion’s co-op horde spin off from the Sniper Elite series and to be honest, I have never gotten into them. I played a bit of the Zombie Army Trilogy, but I was mostly a Sniper Elite fan and enjoyed the zany Strange Brigade much more. For me, Zombie Army always felt like it should have only been a mode within the Sniper Elite games and not its own standalone game. Much like Call of Duty and Gears of War do with their horde/zombie modes...

Zombie Army 4: Dead War is a mashing together of two very different properties. On one hand, it’s a spin-off of the Sniper Elite series, sharing the same gameplay, including the satisfying X-ray kill-cams. On the other hand, there’s zombies all over the shop. The game is soaking in schlocky B movie aesthetic, and cares more about the player having fun than anything else. And you can have a lot of fun with Zombie Army 4. Just as long as you play by its rules.

Zombie Army 4: Dead War brings the Sniper Elite experience to the zombie world. Rebellion's sequel is a considerable upgrade, featuring a gripping storyline, satisfying gunplay, and unique visuals for every city in Europe. Outside of the occasional bugs and glitches, Zombie Army 4: Dead War offers an entertaining experience that keeps you on the edge of your seat.

Sitting comfortably between Zombie Army Trilogy and Strange Brigade, Zombie Army 4: Dead War is an entertaining rollercoaster ride of horror and co-op zombie slaughter. It doesn’t really bring anything truly new to the table, but that shouldn’t put you off as it undoubtedly provides some of the best fun you can have killing zombies alone or with friends right now. Throw into the mix the usual pinch of British humour and oodles of character customisation, and you have a worthy follow-up to 2015’s compendium of undead mulching, and yet another opportunity to shoot Hitler in the face. You can’t go wrong with that.

Unlike the direction the Zombies mode from Call of Duty has taken in the past few iterations, Zombie Army 4 offers a cohesive and fun experience that doesn’t take itself too seriously. It’s engaging from start to finish and with its weekly challenges, the arcade-like setup of the chapters and leaderboards, and with Horde Mode, there’s a bunch of replay value here. Zombie Army 4: Dead War has finally broken free of its Sniper Elite shackles and will hopefully give rise to a lasting franchise of smiting out Nazi zombies.

Zombie Army 4: Dead War offers fun, mindless zombie slaughtering co-op excitement without pretending it's anything else. An absolute blast with friends, it's brutal, disturbing, and you get to kill Nazi zombies. What's not to love?

I probably should have swapped to one of the other characters, who your friends will inhabit if you play in co-op. I didn't get the chance to, but it's clear to me that you should. Every game is better with pals, but the mindless stretches of Dead War yearn to be filled with patter. There are even occasional voice lines that forget you might be alone, where my Russian-accented protagonist used a "we" to refer to his non-existent companions. That's a sloppy way to say 'you really should be playing co-op'.

A fun co-op shooter with a few too many empty calories.

You could very well copy-paste the conclusion to our Strange Brigade review when summing up the up-and-down nature of Zombie Army 4: Dead War and in one respect that does draw attention as well to this game's general relevancy. Even so, the short, and many, bursts of fighting back the hundreds-upon-hundreds of the undead remain a simple but satisfying loop that doesn't tire. With what appears to be a clearer focus on maintaining combos, the game does just enough to avoid the repetition -- though present -- turning stale. Instead, to a point, embracing the ridiculousness of its set-up if not fully committing to it. But for every opportunity to let players loose -- to additionally experience that additional touch of detail that makes it all the more sweeter to jump head-first into --- Rebellion do shoe-horn in a mechanic or design choice that doesn't always work in the player's, or indeed the game's, long-term interests. While cumbersome controls and an oddly-behaving combo meter can betray the underlining intention of pace and of orderly chaos ruling over, Zombie Army 4: Dead War does just enough to shun these unfortunate moments. Players voluntarily, not forcibly, involving themselves with such madness with sufficiently-positive results.

Its enemies might be mindless but while it’s very one note the gameplay in Zombie Army 4 offers some surprisingly engrossing co-operative action.

If you like shooting zombies with friends, then Zombie Army 4: Dead War is the game for you. There's a few new twists and several layers of progression now thrown into the mix, as you battle undead Nazis once again, but this is classic undead sniping action through and through.

Cooperative games often get away with more than they should because both suffering and joy are better when shared with another person. Every agonizing minute of Resident Evil 6 is made ever so slightly better when you have a Helena to your Leon as is thinking with another set of portals in Portal 2. Games on the worse end of the spectrum, like RE6, tend to try to use co-op to distract from their shortcomings and while most titles are not that actively awful, they build themselves around that mantra regardless like ZOMBIE ARMY 4: DEAD WAR. While this zombie-shooting experience avoids some of the catastrophic lows of other co-op zombie shooters, it still can’t escape its bland nature and the array of surrounding questionable decisions.

Will fans ever get a worthy Left 4 Dead successor? With Valve seemingly disinterested in continuing their beloved series, numerous other developers have attempted to step up with their own Left-4-Dead-style shooters (Warhammer: Vermintide 2, Strange Brigade, and World War Z being notable recent examples). Unfortunately, none of them have quite measured up. Zombie Army 4: Dead War is the latest potential usurper to take aim at the 4-player co-op king.

With no leader left to organise the forces of the occult, this Zombie Army 4 review sees brutal and historic zombie wave survival spill into every corner of the Earth. Call your co-op tactician friends and grab your mic!

One of Rebellion's best games, Zombie Army 4: Dead War is a thrilling and utterly relentless jaunt that will see you blasting Nazi zombies for months on end.

Ever wanted to dodge zombie sharks while on a quest to destroy the undead animated by evil wizard-Hitler? Well, it doesn't get much better than Zombie Army 4.

Zombie Army 4: Dead War feels largely familiar amid the horde of Left 4 Dead-style co-op shooters, but it isn’t without its clever mechanical touches and spins on the oldest of video game cliches: killing Nazi zombies. Between its varied and campy story campaign and an amusing horde mode, there are plenty of opportunities for harrowing teamwork and gory, disgusting X-ray kills. The weapon progression system doesn’t give a lot of reasons to branch out, though, so the pull of its replayability isn’t as strong as it could be.