The Best Zombie Games That Are Not Horror

Zombies. Some people love them, some hate them, and video game developers can't seem to get enough of them. While pop culture's zombie obsession has mellowed in recent years, there's no denying that there are a ton of zombie games out there. At this point, there's a zombie game for everyone, from excellent retro zombie games to comedy games and, of course, terrifying zombie horror games.

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That's great news for those of us who enjoy crushing zombie skulls. There's something uniquely satisfying about squashing hordes of shambling undead. The truth is, zombies really aren't all that scary. Many zombie games aren't even horror games anymore, and we've put together a collection of some of the best examples. They might be a little scary or creepy in places, but even the biggest scaredy-cat can work their way through these games. We've limited the list to games featuring genuine zombies and ignored games like The Last of Us and Days Gone, which feature enemies that look and sound like them but aren't technically zombies.

9 DayZ

Zombie's Are Nothing But A Minor Inconvenience

DayZ has a long and storied history. An open-world game built on a shoestring budget, it started life as a popular mod for military sim Arma 2 before being made into its own standalone game. DayZ isn't just partly responsible for the huge surge in popularity of hardcore survival games; it also inspired the creation of the original PUBG. The original mod came out in 2013, with the standalone game coming out in 2018, so DayZ has been in constant development for quite a while now.

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Perhaps once upon a time, Bohemia Interactive envisioned DayZ as a survival horror game, but the horror aspect has long been dropped. The focus in DayZ is on realistic survival mechanics and avoiding hostile players. Anyone who has spent any time in a recent build of DayZ will attest that the zombies are little more than an environmental hazard and a minor annoyance. DayZ can get very stressful, but it's never scary (barring some custom servers). In DayZ, the real horror is other people.

8 Project Zomboid

Surviving The Zombie Hordes Has Never Been More Difficult

Project Zomboid is sometimes referred to as survival horror, but it's really not. It's a tough-as-nails zombie game that plops the players down in a dense urban environment and expects them to survive for as long as possible. It's a hardcore survival game where, outside the occasional human, the only enemies are zombies. These shambling, old-school-style zombies are dangerous 1-on-1, but encountering a horde can spell disaster.

Project Zomboid uses a 2D top-down perspective that saps the horror out of its premise. It's easy to see how a first or third-person version could be scary, but Zomboid's graphics are more cartoony than scary. Things can get tense, and a zombie catching the player off guard might make them jump, but Zomboid is rarely "scary." After a few hours of getting to know the game's systems, the player can turn their character into a gun-toting zombie-killing machine. While the survival elements remain a constant threat, the same can't be said for Zomboid's undead.

7 Dead Island 2

A Zombie RPG All About Power Fantasy Wish Fulfullment

Any of the Dead Island games could have made this list, but we chose Dead Island 2 because it's arguably the most action-heavy and least scary entry in the franchise. One of the best zombie RPGs in recent years, Dead Island 2 is all about the player building up their survivor and slicing their way through as many zombies as possible. The story is bare bones, and the game is surprisingly short for a modern release, but while it lasts, it's a lot of fun.

Set in L.A. Dead Island 2 has the player working through Hollywood mansions, zombie-infested film sets, and city streets full of the undead. The main focus is on getting up close and personal and killing zombies with an impressive array of melee weapons, but the developers threw in some guns for good measure. Most zombies are soft and squishy and put up little fight. Things only really get tense when facing off against annoying special-type zombies like the Screamer or Brute. The one time the game dips its toes into horror territory is during the theme park boss fight against a zombified clown. While not that scary in itself, it's certain to trigger anyone with coulrophobia.

6 State Of Decay 2

Bringing Civilization Back To The Zombie Apocalypse

State of Decay 2 is another zombie survival game that takes the undead threat and makes them more of a nuisance than a terrifying horror. One of the best base-building zombie games, State of Decay 2 has the player choosing a base and then focusing on building up a viable community of survivors. There's not really a "main character". Instead, each player-controllable recruited survivor has their own skills and personality. As survivors fatigue easily, the player will find themselves swapping between them often.

In small groups, zombies are easy to handle, especially once the player has found some decent weapons and built up their survivors' stats. The only real source of fear is the game's perma death mechanic, which means one lapse in judgment can lead to the death of a favorite survivor. There are no jump scares, and the sheer number of zombies the player faces robs them of any intimidation factor. The game's art style also focuses more on cartoony graphics than horrific realism.

5 Zombie Army 4

A Zombie-Themed Sniper Elite Spin-Off

For those not in the know, the Zombie Army games are a spin-off of the popular Sniper Elite series. While Sniper Elite has always focused on stealth, "realistic" sniping, and careful planning, Zombie Army has always been about taking out hordes of zombies with friends. The series borrows many elements from Sniper Elite, like the "realistic" sniping mechanics and kill cam, but offers a very different experience.

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Zombie Army 4 is the most removed entry from Sniper Elite. While sniping is still the bread and butter of combat, there are far more sections where the player will have to take on zombies up close and personal. Compared to Sniper Elite, the maps are far more linear, and the players are mostly funneled from point A to B, wiping out hordes of zombies as they go. It's a simple experience that scratches the zombie-killing itch nicely. Throw in some friends into co-op, and it becomes one of the best zombie shooters around.

4 Dead Rising 2

Inflicting Cartoon Violence On As Many Zombies As Possible

Dead Rising 2 has a story. Something about finding Zombrex to stop the protagonists daughter from turning, and finding a way to escape a zombie-infested mall while uncovering the truth behind the outbreak. What Dead Rising 2 really cares about, though, is giving the player as many outlandish and gruesome ways to kill zombies as possible, all while wearing ridiculous outfits. Imagine Bugs Bunny loosed in a zombie apocalypse and being handed an R rating, and that pretty much sums up Dead Rising.

The Dead Rising games feature countless crazy and bizarre weapons. These weapons are usually created by strapping two or more objects together. That can be as simple as a spiked baseball bat and knife-boxing gloves, or as outlandish as a wheelchair with machine guns taped to it or a homemade lightsaber. Usually, the weirder the weapon, the better it is at killing zombies. For an older game, Dead Rising 2 had impressively-sized zombie hordes, which the player was tasked with fighting through while building up as high a combo as possible. Killing zombies was never very difficult. Instead, the biggest threat came from the game's psychos, powerful human enemies that acted as bosses. Unfortunately, the franchise peaked with Dead Rising 2. Dead Rising 3 was a bit of a letdown, and the scariest thing about Dead Rising 4 was the fact that Capcom locked its ending behind a DLC.

3 Lollipop Chainsaw

No One Said The Zombie Apocalypse Had To Be Serious

Lollipop Chainsaw harkens back to a different age of gaming. One of the best zombie comedy games, it stars an overly-sexualized, just-turned-18-year-old cheerleader who carries around her boyfriend's severed head and chops up zombies with a chainsaw. It never took itself seriously and had as much fun with its premise as humanly possible.

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A classic beat-em-up, the game's combat was fast-paced, gory, and emphasized, building up combos and using special moves. This surprisingly good combat was broken up by hilarious mini-games and some fairly basic character customization. All of it was all held together by a colorful, comic-book art style that complemented the game's zany and irreverent sense of humor. Fondly remembered today by those who played it, Lollipop Chainsaw is something of a cult classic, and even has a remake/remaster on the way.

2 Plants Vs Zombies

One Of The First Big Mobile Games

Many people take mobile games for granted these days, but back in 2009 they were a big deal. Along with the likes of Angry Birds, Plants vs. Zombies helped to revolutionize mobile gaming and proved these bite-sized experiences could spawn massive franchises. Plants vs. Zombies was a relatively simple tower defense game where the player used different types of pants to fight off waves of zombies.

It might have been simple, but it was also addictive. In 2009, everyone and their mother were playing this game on their phone. The cartoony, comically-animated zombies were about as unthreatening as possible, and the plant units were outright adorable. The original game was an immediate hit and spawned several sequels and spin-offs, including an odd third-person competitive shooter. The franchise isn't as popular as it once was, but the fact remains that Plants vs. Zombies was a great zombie tower defense game with surprising depth.

1 World War Z

Some Of The Best Zombie Hordes Ever Seen In A Video Game

Ask any zombie fan what the most disappointing zombie film is, and there's a good chance they'll say Brad Pitt's World War Z. Barely based on the book of the same name, the film lacked nearly everything that made its namesake a cult hit. When a video game version was announced, fans approached it with trepidation.

World War Z takes more inspiration from the film than the book. A cooperative-focused zombie game, players pick a survivor and load up before dropping into a camping mission where they must complete simple objectives while mowing down massive hordes of zombies. It's similar to Left 4 Dead — the best co-op zombie game ever made, and only missing from this list because it can actually be scary — but on a much bigger scale. While the initial launch wasn't particularly well received, the Aftermath rerelease went much smoother and managed to fix many of the complaints made about the game. World War Z is at its best when players are working together to kill the seemingly endless groups of zombies that fill the screen, but its quieter moments can be a bit of a drag.

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