The 10 Best Apocalypse Zombie Games

Zombies are a vast feature of pop culture and are always a hit in games, with titles putting us against hordes of these ravenous creatures. Whether shooting bullets or trying to stay alive with limited resources, zombie apocalypse games continue to leave their mark on each generation of gaming, delivering increasingly memorable adventures.

In this article, we’ll list the ten best games in this genre, taking into account both critical and public reception, as well as setting, plot, characters, and originality.

Zombies Ate My Neighbors

Starting with a classic. Zombies Ate My Neighbors was the first zombie game I ever played, and it marked the childhood of many others, as well as mine. In the Nintendo era, where games like Donkey Kong, Super Mario, and Mortal Kombat gained legions of fans, this game fully immerses us in a zombie infestation in an ordinary neighborhood.

The game is challenging, and you must collect weapons and use your strategy to save the innocent and defenseless neighbors.

Stubbs the Zombie in Rebel Without a Pulse

Stubbs the Zombie holds a special place in the genre for its innovative approach, placing you on the other side of the apocalypse as a zombie. In this game, you take control of Stubbs, a zombie whose goal is to eat brains while transforming the residents of a retrofuturistic city into his own.

You'll face off against the local authorities and must hunt down and infect residents to create your own army as you progress through the game.

State of Decay

In State of Decay, you must join forces with other survivors to create a safe and stable community in the middle of the zombie apocalypse. Managing the community is one of the game's most important features, requiring you to scavenge for resources such as food, medicine, and weapons, as well as manage the relationships between the survivors within your group.

The game's open world provides a good immersion, and the undead are quite threatening, especially in large numbers, as an apocalypse should be.

Days Gone

In Days Gone, you take on the role of Deacon, a former outlaw searching for his wife, whom he believed to be dead. The game features a vast open world that you must explore while surviving, fighting both the living and the dead, who are extremely aggressive and fast.

The game is clearly inspired by World War Z and The Walking Dead series, but manages to establish its own identity and offer a very distinct gameplay experience, with Deacon's motorcycle serving as his primary mode of transportation. Combat is a mix of various weapons and stealth.

Dead Rising

In Dead Rising, you play as Frank West, a journalist investigating an incident in Willamette. Frank finds himself trapped in the midst of a zombie apocalypse and must defend himself as best as he can while trying to unravel the mysteries behind the incident and help other survivors.

Capcom managed to create a new hit in the genre after its success with the Resident Evil series, but Dead Rising offers a completely different approach, where you must explore the city's shopping mall and use any objects you find along the way to eliminate the zombie hordes, with a more comical twist.

Plants vs Zombies

Few games in the genre are as unique and fun as Plants vs. Zombies. In the game, you take on the role of a survivor in a friendly neighborhood who uses super-powerful plants to defend themselves from the brain-eaters. You must create your own strategy and acquire new types of plants with varying powers to prevent the hordes of the dead from invading your backyard.

The game was a phenomenon and is still fondly remembered today. The gameplay is fun and intuitive, and the design is friendly and colorful, making it a game for the whole family.

Left 4 Dead 2

Left 4 Dead was another game in the genre that defined its era, featuring a more cooperative multiplayer approach, where you and four other players must survive the endless hordes of zombies together.

You'll need to use teamwork and strategy to progress through each chapter while battling the infected, which are fast and violent, and feature some unique variants that act as bosses in each stage. The game also offers other modes, where you can even take on the role of zombies to prevent survivors from escaping.

The Last of Us

The Last of Us reinvented the genre with the Cordyceps fungus infection and uniquely designed infected that pose a real threat, but the game goes much further.

In The Last of Us, you must survive in a devastated and pessimistic world while following the adventures of Joel and Ellie, the protagonists of one of gaming's most memorable stories. This game is undoubtedly a masterpiece and one of the best in the genre.

Resident Evil 2

It's impossible to create a list like this without mentioning the franchise that made zombies famous in the gaming industry and paved the way for games like The Last of Us and Days Gone. I could choose any of the main titles in the Resident Evil franchise, but Chapter 2, starring Leon and Claire, holds a special place.

This is the first game set in Raccoon City and the first to explore the concept of a large-scale zombie apocalypse as we're used to seeing today. The suffocating camera, the enemies surrounding you on all sides, the scarce resources, and the claustrophobic feeling this game conveys are what make Resident Evil 2 so special, and the 2019 remastered version masterfully transported all of this to the current generation.

Project Zomboid

However, none of the previous games provide such a complete zombie apocalypse experience as Project Zomboid. The game, developed by The Indie Stone, puts you in the shoes of a customizable survivor with unique personality traits and skills to survive in a vast, devastated, and lonely world, where the undead are a real threat and behave very similarly to what we see in the movies. You must gather various resources such as food, clothing, weapons, medicine, and even books to prepare yourself and find a safe place.

In Zomboid, you'll face the weather, resource scarcity, disease, and even depression. Sadness, fear, pain—all of these are present in the game. Your character can contract an infection from a wound, become physically exhausted, tired from sleep, or simply go insane.

Project Zomboid offers a complete zombie apocalypse experience, and you also have an online multiplayer mode where you can play with your friends if the solitude of the single-player mode is too much for you.