USD ($)
EUR (€)
With Halloween around the corner, what better time to round up our favourite zombie games! The Zatu bloggers have summed up the games they love most which feature these ghastly beasts. So, if you want to make this Halloween even tastier pick up one of these treats.
Zombicide by Sophie Jones
Perhaps the best zombie board game ever made; Zombicide will take players through a post-apocalyptic adventure. With a thick campaign book to guide you through missions, your characters will have their fair share of fights.
What I love about this game are the miniatures. With gruesome zombie figures and kickass heroes, I love how good this looks on the table. Also spawning zombies to the map is satisfying as you place them on the board. It’s an immersive experience I can’t get enough of. Collecting weapons, working as a team and chainsawing the horde are all extremely fun!
As your group gets more experienced you will progress through the campaign. Missions will become harder, but you also unlock vehicles. This gives a sense of progression. The map changes each time with its tile format, which keeps things fresh. However, the core formula remains the same, complete the quest and don’t get killed. As this is a cooperative game, if one person dies the whole team fails.
The combat is rewarding as you roll dice to determine if your attack hits or misses. The suspense of rolling the dice and watching them fall is fantastic. Coordinating attacks with fellow teammates and lining groups up for Molotov hits is thrilling. Additionally, simple tasks like opening doors, will have you on tenterhooks as you have no idea how many zombies will be lurking in the darkness.
If you’ve ever played Left for Dead or watched The Walking Dead, this game is reminiscent. It’s everything you want from a zombie game. It has action, hordes, kick ass weapons and tension! The zombies may be slow but the sheer amount of them can make the game feel frantic. If you want a phenomenal zombie action adventure, you have to check this out. The only drawback is, it takes up a lot of table space.
Dead Of Winter by Rachael Duchovny
What better way to celebrate Halloween than with a story-driven co-operative game with a psychological twist, where one of your survival party could be secretly acting against you.
In Dead of Winter, players control two characters protecting their colony from zombie attacks, feeding survivors and above all else trying to survive. Whilst searching for vital resources, players have a personal objective to accomplish as well as fighting for the common good. Along the way you’ll meet new people and yeah, maybe you’ll have to turn your backs on them, probably leaving them to be devoured by hordes of hungry zombies but hey… you’ve got limited food and you can’t save the entire world... right?
With a 2-5 player count and the potential of a traitor in your midst, who will you trust? What decisions will you make? Because by the end of the game if you meet your personal objective you win… otherwise, it’s game over.
Each round sees a new crisis that must be resolved or risk a zombie infestation breaking into the colony. Survivors get hungry and they need feeding. There is a constant need to find 10-year-old baked beans and hope they still taste as good as the day they were canned. And of course, there are no recycling collections so all those tins add up to food waste and food waste, well as you can expect affects survivors' morale. Let’s face it… the world is being over-run by zombies… lots of things are going to affect morale. And don’t forget the game narrative where crossroad cards tell a story whilst forcing you to make some difficult decisions that affect gameplay.
There are heaps of zombie standees just waiting to attack the survivor standees… there’s even the cutest and most helpful dog standee and not forgetting the Mall Santa guy. The game components really help add to the story and theme so if you’re looking for a one-to-two-hour adventure this spooky season, Dead of Winter should be high on your list!
Zombie Kids Evolution by Camille Hindsgaul
Zombie Kidz Evolution is, as the title suggests, a zombie game aimed at children. Rather than the gory disease spreaders of more adult-centered games, the zombies here are cartoonishly mindless with no exposed brains or dripping guts. This may make the game sound a bit toothless, but do not be fooled: Zombie Kidz Evolution is anything but.
Though the rules start off simple (roll die to spawn zombie and take two actions, such as move or defeat zombie), the more you play, the more challenging it gets. After each game, you add stickers to a tracker which lets you open envelopes to expand the rules. Suddenly some zombies are much stronger - or the players are, at the price of spawning more zombies each turn.
I really love how the game puts the world of the child player front and centre. The setting is a school, the cast of zombies are various teachers and other school staff. There are no adult player characters but each child character has the power to beat zombies from the get-go as they fight to secure their school. Eventually they also get personal abilities which work together in interesting ways depending on which characters are in use.
As a cooperative game, Zombie Kidz Evolution also has a high focus on teamwork. To win, the players have to lock all four gates around the school, which is done by two player characters being on the same outdoor space on the board and their players high fiving. A cute mechanic that is surprisingly hard to set up as going outside often becomes a low priority once the zombies start filling up the school - because if you run out of zombies, you lose.
If you are looking for a zombie game to play with the whole family, where you can all work together to fight off the monsters (and spray a teacher with a super soaker in the process), I cannot recommend Zombie Kidz Evolution enough.
Last Night On Earth by Andy Broomhead
Brains, brains, brains. It’s a tough gig being a zombie sometimes, but there’s fresh meat on the menu as a few unlucky humans face their Last Night on Earth.
This is a cracking horror survival game for 2-6 players, where some people take on the role of plucky heroes trying to fend of swarms of zombies, and the rest play as zombies themselves, relentlessly pursuing the brains of the living.
There’s a lot packed into this box, with different play modes and scenarios, modular boards to set up, and tons of minis. There’s a lot of replayability here. It’s a turn-based game where heroes are moving to either escape zombies or get into position to wipe them off the board, albeit temporarily. The zombies are just coming to kill you and that’s that unfortunately. Combat is resolved by throwing a load of dice, which feels good, but can leave you striking out a lot and your ultimate success being so reliant on luck is something to be aware of.
Players have their own asymmetric powers and a dedicated hero deck to draw from, whereas zombies are (unsurprisingly) all the same but draw from their own zombie deck on their turn. This means that while the heroes can get some pretty helpful items and weapons, zombies can also affect the board making a difficult night even harder.
What I love about this, is almost how ‘trashy’ it is. The art is all photography (some of which you could argue is somewhat dated), but it leans into that small town, high school quarterback, unlikely series of events bargain basement style horror fest. And it does it so well. The card titles are littered with tongue-in-cheek quotes, all the characters are perfect classic horror tropes and there are so many zombies. You have to get a handle on them quickly, otherwise you’re easily over-run as they pop up from everywhere. But it’s never dull and it executes the theme wonderfully!
Smash Up: Monster Expansion by David Ireland
Arguably Smash Up lends itself to a themed party with all factions that could contribute to a fancy dress of some sort. That would be epic. If you are looking for classic Halloween, grab the base game and the Monster smash expansion.
If anyone is unfamiliar with Smash Up it is a very simple game. You take two factions (20 cards in a deck of any one faction) and smash them together to make a unique combination. The objective is to break bases with your minions and be the first player (2-4 player game) to get to 15 victory points. On your team you simply play 1 minion card and 1 action card. Draw 2 cards at the end of your turn and pass on play.
So, if you are looking for Halloween inspiration Monster Smash contains 3 factions within it, the Vampires, Werewolves and Mad Scientists. The expansion can be played without the base game as a standalone 2 player, that’s worth noting. Mix these factions up with the Giant Ants to see which combination comes out on top. All these factions are incredibly powerful in very different ways, the Vampires in particular preying on the weak.
Then there is the base game containing a couple of Halloween themed factions out of 8. You have the tricksters led by the deadly Leprechaun. Then one of my favourites within the entire Smash Up series with Zombies. They are a nightmare, quite literally as they just cannot be killed off. As the game progresses they get stronger and stronger, and their numbers seem to increase as they continually resurrect. Their strength lies in your minion being killed off early, so you have a pool to resurrect. Not all factions partner well but I am yet to see a faction the Zombies do not work well with. Led by the commanding Zombie Lord, they are a faction I love to use, but hate to go up against.
So, if you want a little dose of zombie mania this Halloween, you can’t go wrong with Smash Up.
Zombie Dice Horde Edition by Sophie Jones
If you fancy a lighter game, Zombie Dice Horde Editon is a great option. This game is a push your luck dice game. Players take on the role of mindless zombies and their only objective is to eat brains.
Over the course of the game, players will select dice from the bag and roll them. Each die represents a victim to devour. However, not all victims will go down easily. With 3 icons, you can roll brains, footprints or shotgun blasts. If players roll 3 shotgun blasts during their turn, they will lose all the brains they collected, and their go will be over.
In the Horde edition, you have access to the game’s 2 expansions. The Double Feature and School Bus expansions add more dice and depth to this quick rolling game. The Double Feature includes new character dice, the Hunk, Hottie and Santa! Each of these interact with one another and Santa offers new perks. My favourite being the football helmet. If you are lucky enough to roll this, you can endure another shotgun blast on your turn.
Additionally, the School Bus expansion introduces the epic 12-sided school bus die. Players can announce, ‘I’m getting on the school bus’, after they roll this die and reap the rewards or suffer the dices misfortunes.
For a simple concept, Zombie Dice packs a punch. The theming is on point with gruesome box art and the garish yellow bus dice is a perfect addition. Afterall, what classic zombie film doesn’t include an American school bus! With a simple setup and quick to learn rules, this game is perfect for a filler or party game. Great for entertaining at Halloween festivities.
Resident Evil 2 by Matthew Morgan
I truly believe this wouldn’t be a zombie themed list without Resident Evil featuring somewhere on it. Known as one of the most defining zombie video game franchises to this date, it was only a matter of time until it made its way onto the tabletop. Thankfully, Steamforged Games took the opportunity and created a tabletop version that blew fans away.
The game plays like a modern dungeon crawler and features item upgrades, boss fights and enough zombies to shake a stick at. Every scenario is challenging, intense and tests players to think on their feet and problem solve on the go. Each scenario is built using tiles, so a fair amount of table space is needed for some of them, nonetheless, it’s amazing to see the streets of racoon city or the Umbrella labs sprawled out in front of you, just waiting to be explored.
Another amazing feature of this game is the miniatures that are included. Each one is highly detailed and bears an incredible resemblance to its character in the video games. And although the base game comes with heaps of zombie miniatures, you also have the option to pick up a variety of expansions. Each one adds more scenarios, creatures, zombies and alternate character cards. There’s even a giant zombie crocodile!
But I know what you’re asking, what’s the zombie rating for this masterpiece? Well, given that the virus the Umbrella Corp has decided to test is turning the public and their pets into ravenous zombies, I’d definitely give this game a zombie rating of 11/10. They feature in every scenario, and if you’re not careful, you might become one. But then again, what else would you expect from the most famous Zombie game out there?
Blood On The Clocktower by Craig Smith
Have you heard about the mysterious goings on at Ravenswood Bluff? It’s a bit like Albert Square, everyone either ends up dead or miserable… I’m not sure why anyone would choose to live there.
Ravenswood Bluff is of course the setting of the hottest social deduction game, Blood on the Clocktower. A slightly heightened version of Werewolf, players are given a role and alignment, either good or bad. The townsfolk represent the good people, and all have useful powers to attempt to weed out the bad team, who are generally made up of a demon and minions. There are also outsiders who, whilst good, often hamper the good team.
The game is played over a series of days. At night, any player who has nighttime abilities may be given information, but this is also the time when the demon strikes. During the day, players have the chance to discuss what they’ve learned, as well as nominating people for execution. Work out who the demon is, and you generally win the game, except that there are so many variations of demon and minion, that games can often be trickier than that.
I’ve played many a game of Blood on the Clocktower, both in person and online, and I’ve had a wonderful time with both. The number of theories that start circulating when the numbers get whittled down makes for a very interesting experience. As with any party game, it relies on people throwing themselves into the spirit of it. The strength of the game is its variability. There are characters with different complexities which means that you can accommodate most abilities.
So, turn the lights down low, gather a bunch of your friends and watch them as they slowly turn on each other, question if they’re drunk or generally wreak havoc. It’ll make for an unforgettable experience.
Hit Z Road by Rachael Duchovny
Hit Z Road is a thematic horror game based on taking a family road trip from Chicago to L.A. during the zombie apocalypse. Because when the zombies come… who wouldn’t want to get to Hollywood and meet some new friends along the way.
Within the game you place cards showing the available routes you can take, then bid valuable resources to determine turn order before making difficult travel decisions. Different travel cards offer different challenges, rewards or dangers. You can claim resources, but you may have to fight zombies, which, as you know, can be very dangerous. There are also events that must be resolved such as losing 2 survivors or discarding a token if you have it. You can even pick up more survivors, make new friends, have a blast but beware, if you get attacked by a horde of zombies those extra friends are going to cause more dice to be rolled so what’s that saying… choose your friends wisely.
Each player chooses a colour for their lead survivor represented by a typical people meeple, as well as getting 4 grey survivor meeples. There are loads of cardboard resources too. But the cutest components are the little black zombie meeples that literally have arms outstretched and if you listen really closely are screaming out for brains. Okay, those voices were probably in my head.
As family members (a.k.a other players) die, and they will die, some routes will cost more to travel leading to the game really heating up towards the end as cards get more brutal, and resources run low. Winning the game is simple… survive! If more than 1 of your travelling party survive count up your points earned throughout the game to see who has the most.
Hit Z Road is a fun, simple yet quite intense game for 1 to 4 people. Yep, that’s right! There’s a solo mode because when zombies take over the world you may well find yourself alone, alone and afraid. If you want to battle zombies in a game taking around an hour this Halloween… Hit Z Road is definitely for you!
If that isn’t a feast of zombie games, I don’t know what is! Now, dim the lights, grab the snacks and get these gruesome boards games to the table this Halloween.