Call them what you will, Infected, Walkers, The Undead, zombies are iconic monsters that shuffled their way into our hearts with how much they've bled their way back into video games, movies, and pop culture in general over the years.
There are a plethora of great games from studios that are triple-A, indie, and everything in between, with each producing their own take on the classic decaying rotting tide. Some takes are better than others, with a handful even redefining the "zombie survival" genre completely and although there is a little bit of over-saturation with how many of these games have been churned out over the years, there are still quite a few worth checking out. Here are the best zombie games that have come out so far.
Updated July 10, 2024 By Matthew Mckeown: The irony of Zombie games is that just like the undead hordes, there are a lot of them. Whether it's experiences that trap you in a mall with them, give you a huge open wilderness crawling with ghouls, or let you play as them, there’s a lot to pick from.
There’s always some new variation of dealing with Zombies and there’s usually a fun gimmick or satisfying gameplay loop that makes them stand above all the rest. So with that in mind, we’ve fished out the latest and freshest titles featuring animated corpses for you to peruse with an updated look at the best zombie games out now.
Be My Horde
An Undead Army At Your Command
A mix of Vampire Survivors and The Unliving, Be My Horde is a top-down 2D rogue-lite from Polished Games that has a lot of potential and is highly enjoyable for fans of big hordes. The idea is simple, you play as Moriana, a stereotypically evil Necromancer who wants to build an army of the dead.
Every creature and critter you kill can be resurrected for your horde and over time you can gradually build and upgrade more resources at home to make your hordes stronger and bigger. It’s a simple but low-stakes loop that can catch you in for a few hours with some cartoony and gory gameplay. An Early Access gem that shouldn’t be missed, check out Be My Horde.
Dead Room
A One-Room Rule Of Anarachy
A cartoony and cutesy zombie horror game from LineChill, Dead Room comes with an art style that’s almost Binding of Isaac like and a gameplay loop that’s as challenging as you make it. You’ve got one room that you need to defend from Zombies, so keep those windows barricaded.
A single-player roguelite, Dead Room locks you down in a small single room with an unending horde scratching at the door that wants to make your insides, outsides. There are over 50 unique items to unlock to improve your survival chances and some collectibles that can be used to decorate your little cozy cabin.
Truck
Horde Survival In An 18-Wheeler
A Zombie game with a difference, Truck from Molance Games is sublimly simple in its execution and it’s great for messing about with on a second screen or when you’ve got some time to kill. The zombie hordes are infinite, you have a big truck and it’s time to test how sturdy your vehicle's front bumper is.
There are lots of auto-firing weapons to unlock to help bump your score, but your main way of causing damage is to hit those shambling corpses at high speed. There’s five maps to power slide across and lots of vehicles to try out including fire trucks, military lorries, and more. Plus, it’s super cheap.
One More Day
An Enjoyable Post-Apocalyptic Hermit Simulator
An exciting and surprisingly challenging Zombie Survival game from NekkoNikki, Astro Swarm is a blend of house defense and management with huge waves of zombies and rogue-lite upgrades available through gameplay.
Featuring an art style reminiscent of Castle Crashers or early Newgrounds games, One More Day is a charming horror game where it’s just you in your underwear against the undead. Fortify your home, unlock new weapons, save NPCs for more unlockables, and don’t let the dead inside. If you’re looking for an inexpensive and enjoyable couple of hours then One More Day comes highly recommended.
Survival Tips
- Regularly check, repair, and rebuild your doors as the Zombies will bash them down when you least expect it.
- Talk to and rescue the NPCs as they provide a lot of valuable upgrades, weapons, and items.
- The melee animations are a little buggy, so stick to guns.
Astro Swarm
Zombies, In Spaaace!
Next up we have another Indie gem from ClumsyQaurk that’s a little odd but in all the right ways. You’re a lone astronaut trapped on a moon somewhere in space and there’s an alien blight that’s mutated and transmogrified those that came before you. The planet is swarming with monsters and Undead, so you’ll have to be resourceful.
You can craft, collect and mine for resources from the slain and across the planet and you’ll need to. These items can be used to create powerful turrets, defensive modules, and sci-fi weapons that will give you an edge over the progressive stronger hordes. There are upgrades and modifiers to keep gameplay fresh and entertaining and lots of unique synergies between certain items that are fun to discover on your own.
Infection Free Zone
Your Hometown Is Now A Warzone
An Early Access game that’s blowing up in popularity and has perhaps the largest play space for a zombie game ever seen so far, Infection Free Zone from Jutsu Games brings the Zombie plague to your hometown. Using a unique system that combines Google Maps data, you can set up shop and defend literally any street, town, or city in the world.
Using a combination of satellite photos and real-time rendering, Infection Free Zone uses the real buildings in your street for its locations. From there, you have to defend your area from the Undead that are trying to aggressively beat down your walls at night. Scavenge resources, recruit other survivors, manage your city, and try to survive for as long as you can.
Whilst you can use famous locations, it’s worth using your own street as it adds a nice layer of immersion.
Raining Blood: Hellfire
A cute cross between Enter The Gungeon and Vampire Survivors, Raining Blood Hellfire from Mr Granade has you annihilating hordes of monsters. From mutations, monsters, zombies, undead nightmare creatures, and massive bosses, the odds are pretty stacked against you.
But you do have a large arsenal at your disposal in this Early Access game. There are over 100 weapons to collect and upgrade, plus their power can be improved exponentially. Each run is unique and there are some tricky puzzles to solve, a mystery to figure out, and plenty of ways to protect humanity from the demonic hordes.
Night Raider
If you’re looking for a Zombie exploration shooter with a lot of customization then add Night Raider by Tsukuyomi to your Steam Library. This simple yet satisfying survival game from a solo developer may look basic on the surface, but there’s a ton of depth and customization just below the surface.
Everything on your character can be customized. From attachments on weapons to individual parts of armor, plus there are a lot of various meters and mechanics to manage as you try to scavenge what you can from the ruined city around you. There’s permadeath, the game is very cheap to pick up and it’s great for burning away a few hours in some low-stress sessions.
Sound plays a lot of importance in Night Raider. So it’s recommended to always stick a suppressor on your weapons.
Resident Evil 4: Remake
Leon Kennedy is back on the worst Spanish holiday known to man in Resident Evil 4: Remake. Another outing on another system for probably one of the most ported, remade, and remastered Resident Evil games, but a brilliant retake on the most entertaining title in the long-running franchise.
The cult of Los Illuminados have captured the President of America’s daughter and there’s only one blonde, bishie-haired man that can save the day. A highly recommended Resident Evil game to play that’s only been improved further than its predecessors, Resident Evil 4 is the silliest installment in the series for all the right reasons.
A fun fact about Resident Evil 4 is that the original game was one of a few prototypes that would later become Devil May Cry.
Zombie Estate 2
A classic indie game from 2017 by Sad Spaghetti Entertainment that’s always worth a revisit, Zombie Estate 2 is a perfectly pixelated arcade romp that’s satisfying on your own but heavily recommended to play with friends. Using a combination of 2D sprites on a 3D plane to create a cute cut-out look for all the characters, Zombie Estate 2’s premise is simple. There are zombies, go kill them.
It’s super simple, exceedingly cheap, and a highly rated horde shooter with online multiplayer, 100 unique weapons including a Nuke Gun, 13 Zombie types, 35 characters to play as, six levels to try, and 30 hats that boost your stats to collect. It’s good value for what you’re getting so we really recommend picking this one up if you like Zombie horde games.
Zombie Estate 2’s Co-op is both online and local.
Word Warrior: Zombie Typocalypse
Test your typing speed and creativity with this chaotic and creepy game. Taking inspiration from the campy classic Typing of The Dead, Word Warrior: Zombie Typocalypse is an on-rails shooter that doesn’t just test your dexterity, but also your vocabulary and ability to improv.
This is because whenever an Undead Ghoul creeps over, you’ll have to fend them off with an object conjured purely by you typing it. For example, you could use a gun or grenade, or just chuck a toilet or couch, it’s up to you. The only limit is your imagination.
All of your summoned weapons (including the toilet) can be upgraded and made more deadly.
Thriller Garden
A horde shooter that took some notes from Vampire Survivors and gave it their own Cowboy spin, Thriller Garden from BlackDrop Workshop is a spooky and surprisingly challenging Early Access game that’ll test your skills with its sadistically massive hordes.
However, instead of magic and wild abilities, it’s six-shooters, rifles, and other Western weaponry that you can unleash on the hordes of creatures and undead. There are over 120 unique items to mess around with and plenty of tasks and missions to complete as you blast through those overwhelming hordes of shuffling ghouls.
Rise Of Gun
A post-apocalyptic zombie game with a difference, Rise of Gun from PimpGameStudio has you trying out the role of weapons merchant to passing survivors. Manage your storefront, stop shoplifters, customize your wares and store to maximize profit and help give humanity a fighting chance against the dead.
It’s an Early Access game with a lot of potential and there’s a respectable amount of customization in both the types of weapons you can sell, your storefront, and even the entire neighborhood. It’s a little rough around the edges, but it's got a lot of great ideas and it can be quite a cozy game at times as you get lost in shop management.
The more attachments and extra bits weapons have, the better they sell.
Survivalist: Invisible Strain
If you like a Zombie game that’s got a cute comic book style and a hardcore survival experience, then take a look at Survivalist: Invisible Strain. This unique Early Access game has you building a community of survivors from people you encounter out in the wilds of its procedurally generated world.
What sets it apart from the others is that the people you recruit have their own personalities, needs, and lives. So you’ll need to work on your social skills if you want to develop a strong base. Plus, there’s an interesting multi-camera system that lets you view the dead and your struggling survivor from multiple angles. Great for awareness, and it scratches that micro-management itch.
Golf vs Zombies
Just because it’s a Zombie Apocalypse, it doesn’t mean you can’t work on your backswing. Golf vs Zombies is a mix of Zombie murder and mini-golf that’s wrapped in an arcade coating and is downright ridiculous but very enjoyable to play. The goal of the game is simple, play golf, collect Bottle Caps for upgrades, and kill zombies with balls.
Play by yourself, or take advantage of its local split screen to share the scares with some friends. There are all sorts of traps and zombie types to contend with plus tons of Ghoul-filled courses to putt your way around, plenty of devilishly deadly Golf Balls to launch at Zombie heads, and all sorts of arcade Golf-inspired mayhem to enjoy.
Army Of Ruin
A surprisingly detailed horde shooter that went to the Vampire Survivors school of design, Army Of Ruin from Milkstone Studios has a similar setup. At your disposal are a number of unique heroes, each with their own stats, moves, and passive boons. Whilst in your way is an infinite horde of fantasy monsters.
This surprisingly satisfying auto-shooter can turn into a high-intensity Bull Hell in a short amount of time and the hordes that are thrown against you never stop, slow, or lessen in their number. Hold out for as long as you can, create unique and powerful builds, unlock new characters, and slay those shuffling monster-filled armies of evil.
HumanitZ
An Early Access game that’s been likened to a low-end Project Zomboid, or top-down Day Z, HumanitZ from Yodubzz Studios is an interesting zombie game that’s worth putting on your radar. Set on a massive map, this co-op isometric survival game has you playing as a survivor in a post-apocalyptic Zombie wasteland.
Survive with friends or go solo and live off the land. Scavenge resources, build your own base and grab the right gear to stay alive in those rough outdoor conditions. With some unique character customization options and a lot of space to explore, HumantiZ is on the right track, and it’s one worth watching at least.
Dysmantle
Another isometric Zombie Survival game, this time from 10tons Ltd. After emerging from your Bunker, you find the world in ruins and the dead roaming the woods and wilds. But they’re not your ordinary zombies, these twisted mutations come in all sorts of shapes and sizes, and it’s up to you to make it home alive each day.
Survive, gather resources, craft important gear, set up shop in an abandoned building, or create your own Zombie-Proof home away from home out in the wilderness. The island you’re trapped on is vast, so there’s plenty of ground to cover. Just don’t go out there unprepared as it can all go wrong very quickly.
Terminus: Zombie Survivors
An interesting 2D Turn-Based Zombie Survival game from Korean developer Ingeon Games, Terminus: Zombie Survivors is a unique roguelike worth your attention. A massive procedurally generated world awaits and with over 150 different locations to scavenge, each journey guarantees to be exciting and unique.
There’s a lot of detail put into the nitty-gritty mechanics of the game and it can be as difficult or as simple as you like. Endless waves of zombies await, there’s tons of loot to take and equipment to wear, plus with every action tied to AP, each decision is going to be pretty important. If you’re looking for a slow-burn Zombie Survival experience on a massive scale, then Terminus: Zombie Survivors is for you.
Zombotron
A side-scrolling shooter set in a far-off world, Zombotron from Ant Karlov is a cathartic old-school game that’s chock full of fun references. You play as Blaze Rush, a Mercenary answering a Distress Beacon on the strange planet Zombotron.
What he discovers is an ancient crash site and a planet filled with hostile undead creatures. Zombotron has a mystery to solve at the core of the game, a massive arsenal of weapons, armor, and equipment to keep the biters at bay, and plenty of enemy variety to keep you plunging onwards until the end. Plus, you can get quite creative with your kills.
