Dead Island: Epidemic's MOBA gameplay detailed

Dead Island: Epidemic eschews the first-person view the series has been known for, and instead goes for the same top-down view of so many other MOBAs. Still, it stays true to the series' focus on crafting

Andrew Yoon

August 21, 2013 7:30 AM

Deep Silver was rather vague when it announced Dead Island: Epidemic, a free-to-play MOBA that the publisher likes to label "ZOMBA" for marketing purposes (It's "Zombie Online Multiplayer Battle Arena, if you must know.) Epidemic eschews the first-person view the series has been known for, and instead goes for the same top-down view of so many other MOBAs. Still, it stays true to the series' focus on crafting, with players being able to craft any of hundreds of weapons, trinkets, and items. Players won't be fighting just the undead. In Epidemic, human players will be fighting each other as well. Twelve players are split up into three teams of four, and everyone will be competing for various control points strewn about the map. There will be "dynamic gameplay objectives" and shifting targets that will keep teams on their toes. Perhaps the most interesting thing Deep Silver is attempting with Epidemic is forcing teams to compete--and cooperate--with one another. Not only will some objectives require cooperation, but super-boss zombies will occasionally appear, "requiring the cooperation of all 3 competing teams" to take down. Here are some fresh new screens:

Click to see more screenshots

Andrew Yoon

Andrew Yoon was previously a games journalist creating content at Shacknews.

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August 21, 2013 7:30 AM

Andrew Yoon posted a new article, Dead Island: Epidemic's MOBA gameplay detailed.

Dead Island: Epidemic eschews the first-person view the series has been known for, and instead goes for the same top-down view of so many other MOBAs. Still, it stays true to the series' focus on crafting
- celery4183
  
   reply
  August 21, 2013 8:12 AM
  
  Why even waste the time and resources on this....
  - Arcanum
    
     reply
    August 21, 2013 8:14 AM
    
    Because some other company made big piles of money via a MOBA, so clearly everyone else can make big piles of money by doing the same damned thing.
    - Tawler
      
       reply
      August 21, 2013 8:37 AM
      
      This also worked out wonderfully for Medal of Honor and Homefront.
      - the archvile
        
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        August 21, 2013 9:00 AM
        
        This is how a bunch of product industries work, especially when the companies are hounded to hit the numbers, and fall back on trend-chasing, instead of having a proper product pipeline. At this point, it feels like "It would cost too much and hurt our quarterly earnings per share to cancel this, so keep working on that MOBA."
        
        This is essentially what happed to the XCOM shooter, and Elder Scrolls Online, and probably also this MOBA. Either that, or it's a quick 1-year project to fill a gap in the release schedule (like Halo: Spartan Assault being released in a year where Halo 5 won't be announced yet).
- Vogerl
  
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  August 21, 2013 8:12 AM
  
  who thought that there is demand for this? a game about zombies? and a MOBA, no less? WHY, MARKETING, WHY?!
- cptstern
  
   reply
  August 21, 2013 8:28 AM
  
  why would they do this? the best part of the game was the satisfaction of beating zombies to a pulp with grisly weapons
- tw3kr
  
   reply
  August 21, 2013 11:33 AM
  
  Let's not pretend like there's no room for innovation in the MOBA space, guys. We've all been playing one map for four+ hours a day for how many years now? Some of these ideas sound interesting.
  - [7]kami
    
     reply
    August 23, 2013 3:47 PM
    
    That one map is the game.
    
    Shit like ARAM, 3v3 and Domination pretty much proved that point for a while now.