|
This article or section is about an upcoming project. The page was created for announcement purposes and may not be updated soon. Please excuse its informal appearance in the meantime. We hope to begin working on it as soon as possible. |
|
This page is under construction. Please excuse its informal appearance while it is being worked on. We hope to complete it as soon as possible! |
|
This article's creator does not speak English as their first language. As a result, this article may contain spelling or grammar errors. As a reader, please feel free to make corrections as needed. |
| Zedd | |
| Developer(s) | Trinity Studios |
| Publisher(s) | Trinity Studios |
| Composer(s) | Potted Plant |
| Platform(s) | Microsoft Windows MacOS Linux PlayStation 4 Xbox One PlayStation 5 Xbox Series X Wii U Nintendo Switch Amazon Fire TV Apple TV |
| Genre(s) | Third-person shooter |
| Engine | CryEngine |
| Release Date(s) | October 31, 2016 |
| Mode(s) | Singleplayer, multiplayer |
| Age Rating(s) | |
| Cost | Prices in euros are equalized in most other currencies (E. g. dollar, pond)
€19.99 (Standard Edition) |
Zedd is a 2016 third-person shooter video game developed and published by Trinity Studios, initially released on Halloween 2016 for Microsoft Windows, Mac OS X, Linux, PlayStation 4, Xbox One and Wii U. Over the course of the following years, the game was ported to several other platforms, including other consoles like the Nintendo Switch (2017), PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X (2020) and microconsoles like the Amazon Fire TV and Apple TV.
Zedd primarily offers third-person shooter and hack-and-slash gameplay, in which a group of highschoolers from all around the world must face off against an endless wave of undead brought forth by a necromancer cult called Necromercer, who seek to conquer the world. In addition to its singleplayer campaign, Zedd offers a variety of multiplayer gamemodes in various fashions. Development on the game started in late 2013.
Citing the Left 4 Dead series as inspiration, the crew started developing their own spin on the idea using CryEngine. Right from the start, the idea behind Zedd was to offer more variety in various fields and generally utilize a comedic and satirical undertone. According to Trinity, the game was deliberately made looney and satirical because they felt like the zombie genre used the exact same tropes over and over and hence became repetitive: "pandemic takes over the world, only few people survive, the atmosphere is super sad, gloomy and depressing, society collapses completely, cities are ravaged et cetera et cetera". The team decided to deliberately disregard all these tropes, instead filling the game with humor, satire, a completely different story than is usual and present all this in a "normal", modern society environment.
Gameplay[]
Zedd is primarily a third-person shooter, in which the camera is positioned directly over the shoulder of the playable characters. The characters, in addition to standard movement, can sprint, crouch/sneak, jump, do dive rolls, and use four melee attacks even when unarmed: A punch, slap, karate chop and a kick. Each of these melee attacks has unique speed and damage output. All melee attacks are bound to a single button; another button allows the player to swap these attacks. For example, if the player wishes to use another attack instead of the punch, they can hit the other button / key and then hit the melee button to use the slap instead, and so on. These melee attacks can be used even if the player has a weapon.
The game has a myriad of different firearms, melee weapons, explosives and gadgets for the player to use. All firearms can also be used in a melee attack by hitting another key. The game has the following categories of items available to use:
- Automatic firearms: Includes weapons like machine guns, submachine guns, carbines, assault rifles, battle rifles and automatic rifles.
- Power arms: Includes various kinds of shotguns, scatterguns, muskets, matchlocks, arquebuses and revolvers / wheel guns. They share a common trait of firing one powerful shot at a time and housing little ammo at once, meaning they must be frequently reloaded.
- Side arms: Includes various kinds of pistols, wheellocks, flintlocks, caplocks, and derringers. They may be dual-wielded.
- Heavy arms: Very powerful guns of which ammunition is scarce. Think of miniguns, grenade launchers, rocket launchers, flamethrowers, crossbows and bazookas.
- Explosives: Various kinds of explosives that must be thrown or planted. Think of bombs, dynamites, firecrackers, fireworks, grenades, pipe bombs, Molotov cocktails, etc.
- Melee weapons: A variety of melee weapons for close range, like swords, axes, clubs, baseball bats, knives, morningstars, hammers, etc.
- Gadgets: All miscellaneous items that don't fit in other categories, like the Magic Spellbook, Tesla gun, laser pistol, freeze ray, and so on.
The player has a fairly large inventory that allows all sorts of weapons to be stored, but only 4 may be held in the "hotbar" (Not counting healing items and the Magic Spellbook). The player cannot open the inventory in combat, as it automatically closes every single time they take damage. This encourages the player to analyze situations pre-emptively, and then base their loadout on their findings. It additionally promotes inventory management and general strategy, as the player cannot plausibly swap weapons or items from the inventory when fighting.
The player is always equipped with a Magic Spellbook that allows various spells to be cast. Spells require Mana, which slowly fills up as the player kills zombies conventionally. There are various different kinds of spells, split in the following categories: Offense (= Energy blasts, elemental attacks), Abjuration (= Defence and Healing), Conjuration (= Summoning), Convenience (= Spells like invisibility, noclipping, illusion projection etc) and Hexes (= curses). Hexes are the most cruel spells there are, but using them is a risk, since the player will suffer as well, wether it be in HP or other factors.
Multiplayer mechanics[]
There are 2 different ways to get defeated in Zedd's multiplayer, i. e. Unconsciousness and Death. The "downed" mechanic doesn't exist here.
The one the player would probably want to suffer most is Unconsciousness. In this state, the character is knocked out cold and lies down on the floor, but can be awoken by any other character. Of course, this takes time and the player can't do anything else while waking up teammates. This is the state the player gets if their HP is emptied by causes like getting punched, slapped or tackled, getting hit on the head by a blunt melee weapon, explosions, offensive spells cast by enemy mages etc.
However, if the player is unlucky, they might just blatantly die. In this state, the character is, well, dead, and no other character can revive them unless they're lucky enough to find the rare Resuscitation Spell. There are various kinds of attacks that kill the player outright rather than knocking them down, like gunfire, getting impaled or decapitated by a sword, electrocution, drowning or getting crushed.
Unless it is played in Co-Op, the singleplayer campaign makes no distinction between Dead and Unconscious. Considering that there are no other characters (Human or AI) to revive the player, it doesn't really matter.
Story[]
Characters[]
Enemies[]
Zedd sets itself apart from conventional zombie games in that there are more enemies than just zombies. While there are dozens of types of zombies too, the game also introduces the player to various other undead creatures, such as mummies, vampires, ghouls and wights, among others.
More TBA.
Gamemodes[]
- Story Mode: The game’s main story mode, which may be played both in singleplayer or as co-op with friends. The player fights their way through countless different (semi-linear) levels and worlds to defeat Necromercer, fighting various bosses along the way.
- Multiplayer Campaign: A Left 4 Dead-esque mode where a group of players must make it from Point A to B and complete various objectives while shooting up swarms of undead.
- Survival of the Fattest: A group of players must face off against an endless series of zombie waves for as long as they can, until they inevitably die.
- All Nighter: In this gamemode, the players must defend a house against a siege of zombies from 12 AM to 7 AM. Unlike other gamemodes, this gamemode introduces a new mechanic known as the Stamina bar, which decreases as the characters move, attack and take damage, as well as on its own to a lesser degree. If it is fully empty, the character will fall asleep. Other players can wake up each other which will refill 15% of their stamina bar. The stamina bar must be refilled with coffee, soda and sugar dishes (Eg. cake). The players win if they defend the mancave in the house until 7 AM, and lose if all players are asleep, KO’d / dead or if the zombies compromise the mancave.
- Four to One: A quartet of players must survive the onslaught of a fifth player, who summons and guides enemies and creates traps trying to kill the other players. The lone wolf in this gamemode plays very much like a MOBA / strategy game.
- Anime Mode: A complete overhaul of the other gamemodes where all characters are replaced with anime girls (Some of which are nekos). The artstyle of the game is changed to hand-drawn graphics for this, and several unique weapons, powers, maps and enemies are introduced. According to the developers, the Anime Mode, in spite of it containing no more comedy than the other modes, was more or less intended as a joke because "why the f**k not".