If you’ve ever consumed zombie fiction and thought that the characters were doing a bad job foraging, fighting, or running post-apocalyptic society, LifeAfter wants you to put your thumbs where your mouth is. The open-world online game puts you smack in the middle of a zombie-infested wasteland, and tasks you with nothing more than surviving. That can be complicated, and there are tons of options.
To cover the basics, we’re looking at very beautiful and very complex online third-person shooter and scavenging game. Your character has needs that have to be fulfilled in order to ensure continued survival, such as hunger. Naturally, you’ll also be competing with the elements. Sure, you could hunker down in a bunch of branches, but building a proper shelter will help against zombies as well, and they’re everywhere.
Zombies come in a wide variety of shapes and sizes, each with their own special attributes. The virus that wiped out most of humanity was spread by a massive blizzard, and that means that it didn’t just hit human society. Creatures hit by the virus, including humans, are transformed in both mind and body, becoming monstrous creatures with all kinds of powers and special attributes.
While all of this is a good foundation for any zombie game, this one really gets interesting with the involvement of other survivors. When you meet other survivors, you can choose to be nice and cooperate, or you can fight them and try to take their resources or subjugate them. Naturally, other survivors meeting you have the same choices. It’s up to you just how much you want to cooperate with other survivors; you could simply share a campfire, you could start a city together and create a powerful base of operations for a coalition against the undead, or you could murder them in cold blood for the guns in their pockets.
If this game sounds a lot like you’ve suddenly become Rick in AMC’s hit series The Walking Dead, that’s because that’s pretty much the case. There are other precedents for this game both outside and inside the video game world, of course. As far as NetEase, the company has learned a lot over the years leading up to the development of this game. Astute NetEase fans may notice that the excellent third-person shooter action in this game feels quite similar to NetEase’s own Rules of Survival,
This is the first game on a mobile platform to be so in-depth and immersive in its telling of the classic zombie tale, and it’s also the first of its kind on mobile to give players such absolute freedom in how they can treat one another when meeting online. Whether more games follow that example in the future and how big of an impact this game has on the mobile gaming space in general, of course, all depends on just how successful it is. The concept and execution both seem solid, so it should do well in theory. As has been time and time again, the whimsy of a number of factors, like the space in general, the game’s rivals, and possible issues down the road, will determine all of that.
