World War Z VR Review – Guns, Grenades, and Gatling Guns Galore

World War Z VR Review

World War Z VR is an immersive single-player first-person shooter from developer Saber Interactive. It is based on the 2013 movie. The VR game is also a follow-up to the 2021 flat version. Like its flat-screen counterpart, you will take on enormous swarms of zombies across three difficulty levels and choose your operator, weapons, and perks to create unique playthroughs.

Unlike the flat screen game version, which supports four-player co-op, in the VR version, you must face the overwhelming swarms on your own. You, fortunately, have AI teammates. As AI companions, they exhibit the expected limitations in behavior. However, those limitations don’t stand out as much because of the sheer number of zombies that attack. One can’t help but hit targets no matter which direction one shoots.

The Prologue functions as the training level, which familiarizes you with the game mechanics such as movement and weapons handling. You also get a taste of how the game handles zombie swarms. Saber has stated that the game can display up to two hundred zombies on the screen at once.

While the taste of zombie swarms in the training level raises your eyebrows, it’s not until you play the first mission that the zombie hordes will impress you. To see them in the distance streaming over buildings like a swarm of locusts is a sight to behold. It becomes even more awe – and terror-inspiring as those initially small zombies get closer and closer, growing in size, until they reach you and become life-sized. It’s a sight to behold, especially in VR.

Gonna Need a Lot of Guns

Almost as impressive are the level details. Initially, the training level is disappointing because of the amount of fog employed to hide distant details, but the first New York mission really turned my opinion around. The game features highly detailed and colorful graphics. There is a cattle chute vibe that games on standalone VR headsets employ because of hardware limitations. However, the game does a decent job of minimizing that feeling with the addition of alternate paths and areas to explore.

As you battle your way across the level to reach the final objective, you’ll be scooping up ammo, health, weapons, keys, and grenades. There is a wide range of weapons, from revolvers to rifles to a variety of rapid-fire machine guns to rocket launchers. And you will end up using a lot of them as well as ammo. The zombies keep on coming at you at a relentless pace with little time to rest to catch your breath.

There are several zombie types in the game. You have your generic zombies, which present the usual challenges tied to their sheer numbers. There are several more troublesome types, like the screamer. A screamer’s specialty is their scream, which is used to attract fellow zombies. The sooner you kill a screamer, the sooner a zombie attack will end. There are also zombies that explode and release a toxic gas. Not to be outdone are the zombies that explode in kamikaze fashion and cause damage to anyone in their near vicinity.

Screamers are another type of zombie. Their specialty is their scream, which is used to attract fellow zombies. The sooner you kill a screamer, the sooner a zombie attack will end. At level choke points, the level allows you to use collected keys to activate electrically charged floor plates and operate large-caliber Gatling guns. This does a great job of mixing a sense of panic into your combat strategy.

Every Rose Has A Thorn

Despite the lack of cooperative play, the game creates an intense level of gameplay. You’re so busy scrambling around an area, shooting zombies, grabbing ammo and guns, plus activating traps and throwing grenades. Not to mention healing your teammates. The action is intense, and the pace is relentless. Overall, I am impressed.

There is much to praise here, but like a rose, the game has some thorns too. The big three are the mission structures, the save system, and the limitations of standalone VR headsets. Let’s start with the mission structures.

World War Z assigns ten missions to New York, Tokyo, and Marseilles. At game start, there is only one mission available in New York. The game locks out all other locations and missions. This is frustrating, especially if you run into a particularly difficult mission. If you can’t progress beyond said mission, your game progression stops. I can already hear the chants of get gud! Fortunately, missions come with three difficulty settings: easy, medium, and hard.

There are also perks that give you better odds of progressing. The perks are spread across five branches: teamwork, firepower, recovery, ammo, and utility. The Catch-22 is that in order to get a perk, you have to complete a mission. Another thing to note is that you can only equip yourself with 3 perks.

Checkpoint Saving Needs To Go

The save system is another burr. It’s checkpoint-based, which means you must complete a mission before the game saves your progress. If you fail, you must replay the mission from the start. Such a save system – right, get gud gang? – It’s frustrating because of how long it takes to play a mission. You can progress through mission objectives over the course of twenty minutes only to fumble and die. In today’s age, with so many other diversions beckoning for one’s attention, checkpoint saving should be retired.

The final game limitations are technical. Standalone headsets have come a long way, but they still can’t match the breadth and scope of VR games that run on a PC or console. Game devs can do clever things with level design to hide limitations. Take the Meta Batman game as an example. That game works so well because of the nature of Batman games. With stealth being a big gameplay element, much of the game takes place in enclosed spaces.

For World War Z, the DNA of that franchise is big, open urban areas where hordes of zombies swarm streets and buildings. For this game, the developers have to move the game into enclosed spaces or use other tricks. The training level is a perfect case. It takes place on a bridge in a wide-open environment. To make it work, fog is used to obscure distant objects. Fog use in games can set the mood, but it feels counterintuitive for World War Z.

The final technical limitation is the LCD display panels of the Quest 3. These panels can’t display true blacks, so any of the dark areas are disappointing. The limited black of LCD panels washes them out, so they present as flat and lifeless.

Zombie Hordes In VR

Despite these shortcomings, World War Z is an above-average zombie shooter. The sheer number of zombies, up to two hundred, is a sight to behold. Except for Days Gone, and that is flat screen only, there has never been a VR game to tackle zombies on such a large scale. If you are a fan of zombie killing and the World War Z franchise, Saber Interactive has done a good job with this game.

***Meta game key provided by the publisher***