In Battlegrounds, players engage in a battle royale where they must scavenge weapons and gear, sneaking around to kill each other until only one of them is left standing. A new community-created game mode, popular with streamers, pits one squad against countless ravenous zombies for that turns the tactical shooter into a full- blown horror game.
In “Zombie mode,” four players team up to fight an entire server that’s completely unified against them. Everyone else pretends to be a raving zombie, often , armed with nothing but crowbars, machetes, frying pans, and their fists. Zombies do not sneak, like a normal player would: they rush down on the squad by the dozens in a frenzy. Squads, meanwhile, arm themselves with whatever scavenged goods they find in an attempt to fend off the horde. The result is a terrifying bloodbath, as you can see in this video by jackfrags.
Jackfrags is not alone in showcasing the new mode. Streamers like StoneMountain and PsiSyn has also managed to pull off massive zombie hunts.
The sheer spectacle of a zombie match initially seems at odds with Battlegrounds‘ overall tone. The game tends to eschew constant streams of violence for a process of extended downtime. This is particularly true in free-for-all matches and duos, where players are often stealthily scavenging from point to point. Matches typically start explosively, as players rush to arm themselves before slowing down until the last few survivors stand in the game’s shrinking play space.
Zombies goes in another direction that nevertheless makes sense. Recalling mods like DayZ, the match turns into an extended chase as the numerous zombies bear down. It puts everything into the extreme as on-the fly communication becomes even more crucial, as does picking the right place to dig in and fight. It is Battlegrounds with the dial cranked up to eleven.
While it might be difficult to properly coordinate a zombies match, it is always full of surprises. A barricaded last stand or desperate sprint across expansive fields takes on a new dimension when facing off against a constant stream of baddies.
If we’re lucky, an official version will come to Battlegrounds and we’ll get to enjoy all the excitement of running around naked with a legion of frying pan toting buddies and beating the shit out of some very foolish squads.
Comments
5 responses to “Players Are Turning Battlegrounds Into A Zombie Nightmare”
DayZ was of course an Arma 2 mod. One of several. There was one where teams were pitted against each other as hostage-takers and rescuers, to save NPCs.
The earliest whispers of DayZ included a photo of a hill with dozens of zombies bearing down. That was always the weird thing, because in-game the zombies moved lightning fast (like 28 Days Later, those infected red eyed buggers with little to no “zombie” make-up) and of course you would never get a cohesive ‘horde’ scenario because they were always the most glitchiest part of the game!
The idea of re-creating the horde with actual players is compelling, but in this game? There’s a seed of an idea there but like the article says, you’re still ‘pretending’, and Battlegrounds matches don’t usually have people playing by the rules either.
Did you ever play the original zombie mod for Cod4? It played like a mad game of build up tag using only players. It was much more fun than the mod that had bots playing as the zombies. I think there is something always much more fun about the idea of the zombies being crafty sneakers, rather than just trying either overwhelm with numbers, bs mechanics or massive health pools.
Its probably one of the reasons I still go back to “Depth” with some mates for the game mode where one person starts as a shark. Smart predators are much more fun.
On the topic of PUBG though, the game is likely going to either live or die long term based on how robust mod support ends up being. Custom maps are one thing, but if they can change stuff like locking every player in a car and turning it into a massive demolition derby with mod files that are tiny I think the game could have some real legs; as opposed to being flavor of the month.
Nah, I don’t think so. This’ll die off and another mod ( Arma 4 mods, imagine those 😀 ) will rise to the top. I know the devs have grand plans when “launch” happens but what killed DayZ more than anything was the rampant cheating and similar abuse of the game that ruined the enjoyment for literally millions of players.
I dunno, I am more inclined believe that it had more to do with the ridiculously slow development time and deadlines constantly being pushed back. People claim that Starcitizen is the greatest slow con, but I would argue that Dayz is worse.
Hope something like this becomes a real mode with actual fast zombies.