New Genre in Development: MMOZ (Massively Multiplayer Online Zombie game)

The zombie masses have spoken, and they have demanded (or so we’re led to believe) their own piece of the social gaming phenomenon, the dreaded MMO genre.

Evidently gamers have been held back all these years by Medieval-themed fantasy MMOs, and Seattle, Washington-based Undead Labs (a creation of former Blizzard and NCsoft employee Jeff Strain) is here to rectify that problem by amassing a “whole lotta zombies, because the world doesn’t need more dragons.”  I guess dragons and warlocks have been done to death in gaming, but not zombies.

But, to be fair, the zombie MMO concept is something different for a change, even if it’s only a new spin on an overdone topic.  Strain left NCsoft last summer to form this ambitious new company, and he says his ideas for the MMOZ came to him while watching zombie movies with his friends.

“Every time I see a good zombie movie with friends, we spend days debating our strategies for surviving the zombie apocalypse,” said Strain. “The police station, or the supermarket? Garden rake, or staple gun? Bach, or the White Stripes? I’m a game developer, so I’d probably be useless for anything other than ghoul bait, but I’m excited to have the opportunity to build an MMOZ that lets us put those strategies to the test and find out for sure.”

Mindless, wandering, flesh-eating masses go hand-in-hand with the MMO genre, and there’s quite a bit of irony in choosing zombies as the subject for a genre that often involves turning gamers in soulless, monotonous, anti-social drones (I speak from experience here).

So when and where will this online social zombie apocalypse be arriving?  We don’t know so far, but one thing is confirmed: it’s coming to consoles (which consoles remains in the air).  The title is being created from the ground-up by Strain, who formed the initial team for and kicked off development on World of Warcraft, and who founded ArenaNet with fellow Blizzard leads Mike O’Brien and Patrick Wyatt back in 2000.  So if anyone can pull this project off, it’s probably Strain.

Undead Labs is currently hiring, so if you’re interested in all things zombie related, check out their website at www.undeadlabs.com.