Zombie Shooter Epidemic Spreads To Counter-Strike

The series may be an apocalypse or two late to the party, but massively popular multiplayer shooter Counter-Strike is getting a zombie-centric spin-off. Huh. Well, I guess it worked for Call of Duty

OK, so something to note here: series creator Valve—aka godking emperor sun lord incarnate of PC gaming—isn’t the main developer on this one. Instead that honor goes to a Korean company called Nexon, they of Maple Story, Vindictus, and most pertinently, Asian F2P shooter Counter-Strike Online.

So they’ve worked on Valve’s terrorist-thwarting series before, and they’ve already taken it for a walk on the wild side. Counter-Strike Online 2, for example, includes giant pink pigs, giant bug men, and—yep—zombies (thanks for the knowledge bomb, RPS).

Here’s what that looks like:

Fittingly then, Counter-Strike Nexon: Zombies, sounds like something of a, er, departure from Valve’s damn near immortal formula.

“Expanding one of the top first-person shooter (FPS) titles across the world, Nexon teamed up with Valve to unleash a new zombie-themed, free-to-play CS title featuring new game modes, creatures, and more.”

“Now, the CS world is about to be infected with the introduction of the ultimate game-changer: Zombies. Fast-paced, frenetic action awaits, as a wide variety of new weapons are added to the fray, with diverse game modes available, featuring countless undead. The zombies in the game are quick, aggressive, and dangerous, which makes for a completely new experience.”

Classic CS-style modes like Bomb Diffusion Bomb Defusal and Hostage Rescue will also be part of the package.

CSN: Zombies—which sounds like the name of some kind of zombie-powered news network—will be free-to-play. It’ll go live sometime in the next couple months.

I… I’m not sure what to make of it. Fast, aggressive zombies seem like they would disrupt the heck out of Counter-Strike‘s tense, hair-trigger playstyle, but maybe that’s the whole point. I hope they do more than just get in the way. Like, a Left 4 Dead/Counter-Strike mash-up—with various zombie types that require interesting strategies to counter and/or strike—could maybe be interesting. That’s the basic gist of Counter-Strike Online‘s zombie mode, and I imagine this will turn out similar.

I guess we’ll see what all of this means soon. For now, we know that a Counter-Strike game is getting zombies. Oh this brave new world, with zombies in goddamn near everything.