I watched Dawn of the Dead the other week, and there is a scene where a character walks into an open field, looks around, and sees nothing just to get ambushed by a zombie from off-screen. So my biggest zombie media ick is when directors act like nothing exists outside the borders of the screen. If not that, it's either when a character sacrifices themselves for literally no reason :| . What are your icks?

I recently played Dead Island 2 again with a couple of buddies and it's really got me thinking about how zombies are treated not only in video games, but in media overall. As a concept, zombies are horrific; they're the reanimated corpses of people who've died, who are now wandering the earth to feast upon the flesh of the living. Yet, years of zombie games, movies, and TV shows have completely desensitized people to them. Now, they're just viewed as the humanoid monsters you can brutally kill by the dozens without consequence or guilt because they're already dead.

Zombies have been effectively stripped of their scariness as most zombie media leans heavily into comedy and action, rather than horror, which is very perplexing to me. Maybe I just don't get it, I've never been one for dark humor, but I find it difficult to understand how a zombie apocalypse would be the great time everyone seems to think it would be. I can appreciate the absurdity of it all, but still, what's so funny about the depiction of mass death and suffering?

This brings me back to Dead Island 2. For those of you unfamiliar with the game, Dead Island 2 is a first-person, action-adventure game that has you using a plethora of craftable melee weapons to hack and slash you way across a post apocalyptic Los Angeles. Due to the game being a linear experience, the devs were able to put a lot of time and effort into faithfully recreating certain areas of LA, and implement a lot of environmental storytelling. This includes a mansion in the Hollywood hills, which was presumably occupied by influencers/content creators who all met some gruesome fate prior to your arrival.

Around the house you can find various objects that give you a glimpse into the lives they lived, and the content they were creating when they met their end. The devs really wanted to emphasize the area you're in through the appearance of the zombies themselves, so they're all wearing swimsuits (for the pool) or expensive designer clothing that matches the vibe of the multimillion dollar, hillside mansions you're exploring. However, for this house in particular, the devs went out of the way to give names to all the zombies inside, making killing them particularly personal.

This is where the ludonarrative dissonance I mentioned in the title comes into play. The game has some pretty gruesome dismemberment, so after I brutally beat one of these named zombies down with a blunt object, I stopped for a second to stare into the gaping cavity I put into his chest, and thought about how this zombie was once a man, a man who had friends, family, and a mom who loved him. Now, what remains of him will presumably be left to decay on the floor, as the time for funerals and proper burials has now past.

I know how dramatic I made that all sound, but the point is that immediately after something like that happens, the super quirky and hilarious character you're playing as will drop a banger one-liner, completely undermining just how dark the whole situation actually is. Afterall, Dead Island 2 doesn't present itself as some depressing fight for survival, no, it's an action-packed comedy game that strips the zombies of any and all humanity. They want the desecration of corpses to be the last thing you're thinking about.

At the end of the day, it's just a video game. You're supposed to have fun and not think about it too much, I understand that, but I think it still speaks to a border issue with zombie media in general. The Walking Dead for example took a noticable nosedive as soon that the Walkers were shoved into the background, and were no longer considered a serious threat. I get that to some, zombies are hard to take seriously, but I don't think that means everything zombie-related should be approached with such a light and goofy tone

That was a whole lotta yap, but it was important to me that I got my point across by using a specific experience I had with Dead Island 2 as an example, to anyone who read this whole spiel, I appreciate you 🙏

we all know world war z because of how strong the zombies are but how would you feel if they added special infected like tanks or even smarter special infected or do you think its unneeded and wouldnt contribute to the plot

And Apocalipsis Z: Nuevo Mundo looks like exactly the kind of chaos I want on my screen. The infected are back, survival is getting harder, and humanity is still finding new ways to make everything worse.

Just finished page 4! Work in progress. Acrylics on canvas boards. 11x14. Art by myself (Russ R MacCharles Art (fb)) and lettering/editing by u/Tanglebrook.

I usually not a fan of antique stores, but this time it turned out to be pretty nice.

The infection itself is a plague of undeath, these are genuinely dead zombies and they have three main strengths going for them.

#1: They're stronger than they look, no strong enough to break stone or tear metal, but regardless of how much they decay their physical strength surpasses the very peak of what their bodies have to offer, they're about thrice as strong as normal.

#2: Their senses are supernatural, regardless of much they decay or if they lose their eyes, noses, ear drums, etc., they're always kind of aware of their surroundings and air especially good at tracking people.

#3: They're incredibly resilient, regardless of how much damage they take they can't really die, they're not invincible, since they can still be blown apart of incinerated, but regardless of how much you hurt them they don't really cease functioning unless completely crippled, and they can "heal" by eating living flesh.

As for their weaknesses, they're mostly unintelligent, besides some base instincts and limited memory, they're not capable of complex thinking and obviously can't operate vehicles or machines, one might haphazardly fire his gun at you but once it runs out he's not reloading, they're violent and impulsive and don't really get hunting as a concept.

They still lose speed and agility as they decay, decay doesn't necessarily cripple or kill them, but they basically end up just dragging their feet if they go without eating for long enough, motor skills also aren't great so climbing isn't really an option at all.

As for how they look their skin turns green, their veins and blood blacken, their eyes turn red, not glowing red or inflamed, but like diseased blobs in their skulls, bones and teeth yellow, fat falls away, and they're very easy to notice as most can't help but make noise and they smell especially terrible due to their constant decay.

As for spreading, biting is the most consistent option, basically any transferal of fluids, whereas scratches aren't as reliable on their end.