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Infestation: The New Z

Infestation: The New Z is an open-world zombie survival MMO with a heavy focus on PvP. Players scavenge for supplies to survive in a hostile environment inhabited by hungry zombies and opportunistic players.

Publisher: OP Productions, Fredaikis AB
Playerbase:
Medium
Type: F2P Survival MMO
Release Date: November 22, 2016
Pros: +Free-to-play. +Simple PvP-focused gameplay. +Rebuild of Infestation: Survivor Stories.
Cons: -Outdated graphics. -No tutorial. -Overly-high item spawn rates. -Prone to spawncampers.

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Overview

Infestation: The New Z Overview

Fight for survival in the zombie-infested sandbox world of Infestation: The New Z, the latest iteration of the survival MMO WarZ. Explore the farthest reaches of the game's vast open world map, from abandoned cities and towns, to national parks and pine-covered mountain tops. Scavenge for food, weapons, and other supplies while dealing with undead hordes and hostile players. Engage in fast-paced PvP using a variety of weapons and equipment including sniper rifles, unique melee units, and night vision goggles. Earn experience and money from every kill which you can then use to buy equipment from the in-game marketplace.

Infestation: The New Z Key Features:

  • Large Open-World Map – explore abandoned towns and cities and trek through desolate mountaintops and national parks while scavenging for supplies..
  • PvP-focused Gameplay – be prepared to engage in action-packed PvP almost anywhere in the map. Arm yourself with a variety of weapons from sniper rifles to frying pans.
  • Global Vault – deposit items in your personal vault and access them from any of the safe zones or even through the game lobby.
  • Private Servers – rent password-protected servers to play solo or exclusively with friends.
  • MLG Anticheat – the game is protected by an anti-cheat engine developed exclusively for the game.

Infestation: The New Z Screenshots

Infestation: The New Z Featured Video

Infestation: New Z - Official Trailer

Full Review

Infestation: The New Z Review

By, Marc Marasigan

Infestation: The New Z is a 3D open-world zombie survival MMO set sometime in the near future. Players survive the zombie apocalypse by scavenging for weapons and gear, as well as food and water, while dealing with hordes of hungry undead and hostile players. If the game looks familiar, it might be because Infestation: The New Z is the third iteration of a game originally called The WarZ (later renamed Infestation: Survival Stories).

The game looks dated with textures that are blurry and half-finished. The animations and ragdoll effects also leave much to be desired. The audio is generic, with gun sounds that could have been copied from any run-of-the-mill shooter game. Character creation is also limited to three template characters with only a handful of options to customize them. Additional character templates can be purchased using premium currency.

The Tutorial, or Lack Thereof

Tutorials are an integral part of any game, even if most players would like nothing more than to skip it. It helps newbies and veterans alike quickly get accustomed to the game’s controls and mechanics. Unfortunately, Infestation: The New Z fails miserably. Players are dropped in the middle of a persistent PvP environment rife with spawnkillers and hostile players, and left to figure things out for themselves. Spawning with a glowing green light around you also doesn’t help and makes you an easy target for snipers, especially at night.

Flashlights and Granola Bars

Infestation: The New Z’s gameplay is similar to other post-apocalyptic games. Players spawn in a supposedly random location armed with a flashlight, a bandage, a can of soda, and a granola bar. I write "supposedly" because I spawned in the same location each time I joined a new server and was spawn-killed twice.

Once players are spawned into the game, they can pretty much do whatever they want. Although, I highly recommend heading for the first structure you see and looting it. You might get away with bonking a few zombies on the head with your flashlight but another player isn’t going to go down that easy. In addition, points of interest on the map are few and far between so it’s probably best to make do with what you’ve got, at least at the start.

The good news is that the weapon spawn rate is ridiculous. You’ll easily find helmets, armor, and a boatload of weapons and ammo in almost every building in the game, whether it’s a military base or a house in the middle of nowhere. I was able to loot enough weapons in 10 minutes of playing to start my own private army. Unfortunately, this ruins the survival aspect of the game, instead turning it into an endless kill-fest. Much of the fun and excitement of PvP is also lost when you can easily arm yourself within five minutes of dying.

Life After Death

Speaking of dying, players who die in the game not only lose everything they’re carrying, they also need to wait for an hour in real-time before they can revive their character and rejoin the server. This can easily be solved by either upgrading to a premium account or by creating a different character. Players can also delete the dead character and create a new one, which defeats the purpose of having a wait time in the first place.

Also, unless you’ve saved weapons and gear in one of the safe zone’s vaults, you’ll be entering the game empty-handed. You won’t even have a flashlight to fend off zombies so logging back into the server can be a real pain, especially at night. The global vault can be accessed both while in the game and in the main game lobby allowing players to equip their characters with deposited weapons and gear even before rejoining a server.

The Marketplace

The in-game cash shop, called the Marketplace, in Infestation: The New Z sells two types of items: premium and regular items. Premium items can be bought using real-world cash and are limited to cosmetic skins and vehicles that significantly cut down on the long-walking times. Regular items, on the other hand, range from melee weapons and armor, to food and medical supplies. These can be bought using in-game currency earned by killing zombies and other players in the game. Like the global vault, the marketplace can be accessed both inside and outside of a server. Any items bought while out of a server are automatically placed in the global vault.

Skills

Aside from earning in-game currency, players also earn experience points for every kill they get in the game, regardless of whether it’s zombies or players. These experience points can be used to unlock skill upgrades which increases a character’s proficiency in three areas: Physical, Survival, and Weapons. The required experience points ranges from 2000 all the way to 20,000 points. With each zombie kill awarding around 150 experience points, unlocking the top tier skills requires a whole lot of grinding. Also keep in mind that, deleting a character also deletes any skills and experience points you’ve earned on that character.

Battle Royale

If persistent PvP isn't action-packed enough for you, Infestation: The New Z also lets players compete against each other in 100 player free-for-all matches called Battle Royale. Players spawn with random weapons equipped and fight it out in fast-paced close quarter battles with the sole goal of getting the most kills. Battle Royale gives players a quicker way to kill each other without having to walk for minutes at a time or scavenge for weapons to use. Although, with no leaderboard, and without any experience points or money awarded for either killing a player or winning a match, there doesn’t seem to be any point in playing it, except to blow off steam while you wait to revive your dead character.

Final Verdict - Fair

Infestation: The New Z doesn’t have much going for it. The game has less than stellar graphics, generic audio, and item spawn rates that takes the survival aspect out of a survival game. What’s left is a PvP game that is only fun the first few times you take a crack at it, unless you’re the type of player who enjoys spawn-camping. Infestation: The New Z isn’t the worst survival game, but there are far better alternatives.

Screenshots

Infestation: The New Z Screenshots

Videos

Infestation: The New Z Videos

System Requirements

Infestation: The New Z System Requirements

Minimum Requirements for PC:

Operating System: Windows 7 - SP1 64bit
CPU: AMD® A8 3870 3,6 Ghz or Intel® Core ™ i3 2100 3.1Ghz or better
Video Card: NVIDIA® GeForce GTX 465 / ATI Radeon TM HD 6870
RAM: 2 GB
Direct X: Version 9.0
Hard Disk Space: 10 GB

Recommended Requirements for PC:

Operating System: Windows 10 - SP1 64bit
CPU: AMD® FX 8150 3.6 GHz or Intel® Core™ i7 2600 3.4 GHz or better
Video Card: NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 950, ATI Radeon™ R7 360 or better
RAM: 4 GB
Direct X: Version 9.0
Hard Disk Space: 15 GB

Music

Infestation: The New Z Music & Soundtrack

Coming Soon...

Additional Info

Infestation: The New Z Additional Information

Developer: Fredaikis AB
Publishers: OP Productions LLC, Fredaikis AB

Open Alpha Date: October 15, 2012
Initial Steam Release: December 17, 2012.
Steam Relaunch: November 22, 2016

Development History / Background:

Infestation: The New Z is a re-worked version of the survival MMO The WarZ which was later renamed Infestation: Survivor Stories due to copyright issues with World War Z. The game was initially released on Steam but was taken down only a few days later due to a number of controversies, including false advertising and prevalent hacking. The game is now under a new developer and publisher and was relaunched on Steam on November 22, 2016.