ZombiU Gameplay Footage Shows First-Person Old-School Survival Horror

For a good decade starting in the mid-nineties, the survival horror genre blossomed and was actually pretty amazing. Sometime in the past 8 years, though, the genre began to decline. The Resident Evil series became more action-oriented and the Silent Hill series languished without a game comparable to that series’ first couple of games.

It’s odd, then, that the revival of the genre might come on a Nintendo console. Sure, the Gamecube had the Lovecraftian Eternal Darkness, but the bloody Zombie game ZombiU is unexpectedly fascinating. Combining the first person perspective with traditional survival horror mechanics on a new console from a company that has a reputation as family friendly is a bit of a risk for Ubisoft, the game’s developer. Add in features from the new Wii U pad controller and the experience might just be the most fun Zombie outbreak in recent memory.

As the gameplay footage below shows, the feeling of trying to guess the last number of a door code while a flaming zombie approaches is an experience that hasn’t been replicated on consoles for quite some time.