History VideoGame / ZombiU

* BilingualBonus: Zombi is French for... well, yeah.

* StoryBreadCrumbs: Newspapers, Documents, and [[spoiler: The Dee Letters]] give out much of the story exposition, as well as some tidbits that can't otherwise be known. Such as [[spoiler: The Prepper's real name, John Wright, and his discharge from his service]].

* SpiritualSuccessor: Originally an [[http://wii.ign.com/articles/117/1174728p1.html arcade-style FPS featuring aliens]], the final game is an unintentional remake [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zombi_(video_game) of the first game UbiSoft ever released.]]
** And before that, [[http://www.gonintendo.com/?mode=viewstory&id=183131 it was a Raving Rabbids game]] for the UsefulNotes/PlayStation3 and UsefulNOtes/{{Xbox 360}}.

* AwesomeButImpractical:
** Sub-machine Guns and the Magnum Pistol. Ammo is very hard to find for those weapons; it's common to finish the game having found less than 10 rounds of magnum ammo and less than 40-50 rounds of submachine gun ammo, even if you go out of your way to fully explore all maps for ammo.
** The shovel and baseball bat for the [=PS4=] and Xbox One port. They're both much stronger than the cricket bat, but since you can't stash the cricket bat like the rest of your items, this requires you to have space to spare in your bag if you were to use either one of the additional melee weapons and still bring other items with you.
** One of the weapons you can find in the game, a Sig Sauer P226 Pistol, has a silencer which makes it an ideal choice for taking out zombies without alerting others. This is compensated, however, by the fact that the pistol is very weak and, like the melee weapons directly above, requires one to have additional space in your inventory as your starter pistol can't be stored either.

* BatterUp: Your basic weapon is a cricket bat.
** In the ''Zombi'' port, a shovel and a baseball bat with nails were included in the game, which are ''much more'' effective than the cricket bat.

* BoomHeadshot: Headshots are always ''guaranteed'' to immediately kill a zombie. However, it varies with what weapon and mode you're playing on. On Chicken mode, even the silenced pistol, which is weaker than the starter pistol, can headshot a zombie. But on Normal and Survival, mode it usually requires two shots from your starting pistol to the head to down a zombie.

** Flares only emit a temporary light when thrown but they're invaluable for diverting a horde's attention and gathering them in one place. From there, you can either escape or follow up with a Molotov/Grenade/Mine to take out multiple zombies at once.

* ButThouMust: [[spoiler: Even with foresight when it comes to The Arena, a trap, you still need to "Save the Girl" to advance the plotline and have Dr. Knight develop the Panacea]]. [[Administrivia/TropesAreTools Think of it this way]]: [[spoiler: Your mission turns into "Confront King Boris and put an end to his mad games. At least then, you'll stop him from kidnapping any future survivors!"]]

* ConspiracyTheorist: The Prepper has a lot to say about the government's role in keeping the public ignorant about John Dee's prophecy and the zombie outbreak it foretold. He also claims that the Queen is a [[ReptilianConspiracy Reptilian]], though he may have been joking about that one.
* ContinuingIsPainful: Upon dying, not only does your new character have to track down their items, but they will have ''none'' of the improved skills that the previous one had and will have to be trained up again, you only saving grace (in this case) is that the Prepper drops off the basic supply kit with the Cricket Bat. The only thing the new character carries over (thanks to the auto-save function), however, is the mission and storyline progresses since the previous one did their own advancements before dying/zombifying.

* DiabolusExMachina: In the Tower of London, [[spoiler: after you've cleared all the zombies on the roof and the helicopter is about to pick you up, the crows, which had remained calm through all the fighting and gunfire, suddenly fly straight for the helicopter's rotor downing it instantly]]. It's as if they were saying "Nooo! It's too soon to reach the ending!".
* DidIJustSayThatOutLoud: King Boris makes an offhanded remark over the PA that he construes as a hint to defeating [[spoiler: the first few rounds of zombies]] in the Arena. If he didn't mutter to himself about his mistake, most players probably wouldn't interpret it as a hint at first.
--> '''King Boris:''' Now, let's [[spoiler: ''blow'' some shit ''up'']], shall we? ...Oh, bother. It's a clue, isn't it? [[SayingTooMuch Me and my big mouth.]]

--> '''King Boris:''' Shall we give him another hint, [[spoiler: Sarah]]? How about your place or [[spoiler: '''''MINE!!!''''']]? It's your life, but if [[spoiler: it were '''''MINE!!!''''']], I would [[spoiler: set a few traps of '''''MINE!!!''''' own]].[[EvilLaugh Muwahahahaha!]]

* EarlyGameHell: You don't start off with an automatic sensor, and your skills are set to zero, so killing zombies with bullets isn't as easy until you do it frequently enough.

* EmergencyWeapon: Each character starts out with the world's toughest cricket bat, which never breaks or needs to be repaired. Your character swings it slowly, and it takes 3-4 whacks to kill a zombie if you don't take the effort to whack them in the head, so obviously you don't want to be stuck using it against a room full of zombies. The default pistol can be considered this compared to other firearms as like the cricket bat, it cannot be stored away in the drop box or dropped at all, and its ammo is more common than other gun types.
* EnemyDetectingRadar: The Prepper Pad can detect nearby zombies [[note]]It can also detect rats and crows, but those don't count as enemies[[/note]]. An upgrade halfway through the game lets the Prepper Pad automatically detect zombies, rather than having to repeatedly activate the radar manually. The only exception are the teleporting zombies, which emit some sort of electrical energy that jams the pad.

* {{Foreshadowing}}: At one point, the Prepper mentions how Dee predicted that only "black angels" would be able to end the plague; Sondra believed that it meant the Ravens of Dee, while the Prepper belives [[TheGrimReaper something more sinister]]; it's never brought up again. [[spoiler: Until the final cutscene shows RAF bombers silhouetted in black against the red sky, on their way to destroy London.]]

* GetOut: [[spoiler:The Prepper doesn't take the player trying to escape at the end with the Ravens Of Dee and the panacea very well]].

* GoingDownWithTheShip: At the end of the game, [[spoiler: With a city-annihilating firebombing only minutes away, Prepper nonetheless opts to remain behind in his bunker and continue giving guidance to survivors (for the few minutes any of them have left) rather than make any attempt to flee the city. Granted, this is due to his pride and paranoia in refusing to work with the Ravens, and even if he had been willing to put all that aside, with his prosthetic leg he probably would not have been able to get to the last evac chopper in time.]]

* HoistByHisOwnPetard: [[spoiler: King Boris and the gang of people who force survivors to go through the 'Arena', an extremely deadly gauntlet of zombies requiring them to place deadly mines while being chased and have absolutely barely any breathing room throughout the whole ordeal... end up alerting a ton of zombies to their location, as they've been jeering at your attempts to survive the Arena the whole time via VERY LOUD MICROPHONE. Hearing them get eaten by Zombies is music to your ears.]]

* InterfaceSpoiler: One of the achievements is called [[spoiler:''Betrayed! Survive the Ambush at the Church''. Looks like that distress call really is a trap.]]

* MagicAntidote: Averted with the Panacea. Dr. Knight specifically mentions that it turns out to be a vaccine, not a cure. [[spoiler: Which is why he unfortunately can't use it to prevent himself from turning into a zombie.]]

* MilesGloriosus: Your mentor The Prepper sees himself as your partner, though in truth he's more of TheNeidermeyer, as its not his ass on the line against the zombie hoards. He's holed up in a nice secure bunker, with months to ''years'' of food and supplies, while you're scraping by fighting to see another day in the ruins of London.
* MultipleEndings: Depending upon whether or not [[spoiler: you successfully reach the helicopter in game's final moments.]]
* NightmarishNursery: At one point, the player explores a zombie-infested nursery in search of medicine of Vikram's ill wife. As they investigate, they find an s.o.s. recorded by the manager, Gillian, about helping the children get to the basement in hopes of protecting them. [[spoiler: Unfortunately, a look at said basement reveals that Gilliam became a zombie and ate all the children.]]

* NoGearLevel: After being captured [[spoiler: by King Boris and his goons, you're stripped of all your equipment and thrown into Boris' Arena, where you're forced to fight against waves of zombies (most of which are Armored Zombies) with only a pistol with a few bullets, not anywhere nearly enough to kill all the zombies that get thrown at you. Winning requires you to make smart use of explosives. Fortunately, you can find all your stuff in a crate after beating the Arena.]]

* OneHitKill: While you can survive multiple melee attacks from zombies, one bite is all it takes for them to kill you. On the plus side, zombies won't try to bite you if you're at full health, and if you're carrying a virucide shot it'll let you escape from one bite attack at the cost of using up the shot on the zombie trying to bite you.

** [[spoiler: Taken to the extreme in the game's ending sequence. You get one shot at reaching the tower and escaping via helicopter. Fail, and you get stuck with the worst possible ending. To add insult to injury, the save file for the game is disabled immediately upon success or failure, and the only way to try again is to restart the game ''from the very beginning.'' Hope you brought enough weapons and healing items!]]

* ProperlyParanoid: The Prepper, [[spoiler: and not just because of the prophecy]].

* ResourcesManagementGameplay: While the amount of items[=/=]ammo in the game is not absolutely fixed since very small amounts will randomly drop from killed enemies, overall the number of healing items and bullets is quite scarce and needs to be conserved[[note]]The number of bullets found throughout the ''entire'' game is about on par with an early ''Franchise/ResidentEvil'' game..., namely about 200 or so pistol rounds, 40-50 shotgun rounds, about twice that many rifle rounds, 100-120 assault rifle rounds, etc. You're also likely to find less than 10 large health kits and almost as few medium health kits through the entire game[[/note]]. At the same time, those bullets and healing items won't do you any good if you're dead, ''especially'' on the one-life-only Survival Mode, so you do need to know when to use them to get out of a sticky situation. You also need to deal with limited inventory space as well as limited storage space back at the safehouse.

Originally expected to be a fairly generic zombie game, [=ZombiU=] was maybe the first attempt in years by a non-indie developer to resurrect the classic SurvivalHorror game, then regarded as a dead genre with virtually every horror game having tons of action or [[StealthBasedGame none at all]]. The game's polarizing reviews (ranging everywhere from an awful 4.3/10 to a stellar 9.3/10) led to debate over the viability of the genre in the modern era, until ''VideoGame/ResidentEvil7'' put the question firmly to rest.

Originally expected to be a fairly generic zombie game, [=ZombiU=] was maybe the first attempt by a non-indie developer to resurrect the classic SurvivalHorror game, then regarded as a dead genre with virtually every horror game having tons of shooting or [[StealthBasedGame none at all]]. The game's polarizing reviews (ranging everywhere from an awful 4.3/10 to a stellar 9.3/10) led to debate over whether "real" survival horror games would be accepted by modern audiences, especially given how much of the criticism was leveled at old-school design choices like discouraging (but allowing) combat and having limited ammunition, until ''VideoGame/ResidentEvil7'' put the question firmly to rest.

Originally thought to be yet another overused zombie-themed game that would be doomed as something very boring, ''[=ZombiU=]'' has taken many critics off-guard by its surprising gameplay and the actual thrill of horror due to the real time nature of the game. Since then, the game's polarizing reviews (ranging everywhere from an awful 4.3/10 to a stellar 9.3/10) have led to debate as to whether or not "real" survival horror games would be accepted by modern audiences, especially given how much of the criticism was leveled at old-school design choices like having a low emphasis on combat and having highly limited ammunition.

* SpiritualSuccessor / ReTool: Originally an [[http://wii.ign.com/articles/117/1174728p1.html arcade-style FPS featuring aliens]], the final game is an unintentional remake [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zombi_(video_game) of the first game UbiSoft ever released.]]

* UnwinnableByMistake: So common (there are at least five places this can occur in) that one can't help but wonder about Ubisoft's play-testing. If you're lucky, you merely have to reload your save; more serious cases may require you to restart the game from scratch.

* NoDeathRun: Survival Mode, in where you only get to play as one survivor. Die, and you'll have to start over from the beginning.

* RealityEnsues:
** Zombies are attracted by your light and the sound of gunshots, so be careful when trying to avoid them in groups.
** Zombies can still attack you when you are checking your inventory, since it's done in real time.
** Speaking of which, because your inventory is all inside a backpack, checking your inventory means that the player has to remove said backpack and set it down in order to properly obtain items. Additionally, whenever you enter a steep body of water, the player has to hold the backpack over their head to keep it from getting wet and potentially damaged. Both these factors thus make you even ''more'' vulnerable.

''[=ZombiU=]'' is a SurvivalHorror game with FirstPersonShooter elements developed by Creator/{{Ubisoft}} exclusively for the UsefulNotes/WiiU, released as a launch title for said console in November 2012. You play as a human trying to survive a ZombieApocalypse in London, but with one big twist... [[FinalDeath when you die, you stay dead]], and restart the previous mission as a new survivor without any of the skills learned or items acquired previously. The story is told through interaction with the handful of {{NPC}}s scattered throughout the game; mainly the mysterious man who guides you through the city and seems to know more about the events surrounding the zombie outbreak than he lets on.

* FinalDeath: The main twist of the game. When your PlayerCharacter dies, [[AndThenJohnWasAZombie he or she becomes a zombie]] and the player takes control of a different character. If that character dies, you take control of a new character and return to your current mission. However, you lose any equipment and upgrades your prior survivor had...until you kill them again, of course.
** And once you've beaten the game, you get access to Survival Mode, [[NintendoHard where you can only play a single survivor]].
** [[spoiler: Taken to the extreme in the game's ending sequence. You get one shot at reaching the tower and escaping via helicopter. Fail, and you get stuck with the worst possible ending. To add insult to injury, the save file for the game is disabled immediately upon success or failure, and the only way to try again is to restart the game ''from the very beginning.'' Hope you brought enough weapons and healing items!]]

** In the [[https://youtu.be/QW_NkNjimic trailer]], a business man is seen shooting himself while the office he's in is being attacked by zombies.

* ReptilianConspiracy: The Prepper seems to seriously believe that the Queen is one of them --though he may be pulling your leg.

* TheReptilians: The Prepper seems to seriously believe that the Queen is one of them (though he may be pulling your leg).

* ConspiracyTheorist: The Prepper has a lot to say about the government's role in keeping the public ignorant about John Dee's prophecy and the zombie outbreak it foretold. He also claims that the Queen is a [[TheReptilians Reptilian]], though he may have been joking about that one.

* CastOfSnowflakes: The first three characters are the same that you always set out with. After that you get random people with different looks that the developers say will ensure that you don't get the same person twice.

* EasyModeMockery: The easiest difficulty is called "Chicken."

* EmergencyWeapon: Each character starts out with the world's toughest cricket bat, which never breaks or needs to be repaired. Your character swings it slowly, and it takes 3-4 whacks to kill a zombie if you don't take the effort to whack them in the head, so obviously you don't want to be stuck using it against a room full of zombies.

* ZombieGait: Semi-averted; with the exception of the ones that teleport and are on fire, the zombies don't run but they still move rather quickly.

* CombatMedic[=/=]DeadlyDoctor: The Dee Letters reveal that the 17th century [[PlagueDoctor Plague Doctors]] were secretly sent into infected towns and villages to battle the zombies and contain the Blight under the guise of treating bubonic plague infections. Given that the modern day British military were wiped out despite having access to guns and explosives, it's pretty impressive that the plague doctors were able to keep things under control with just swords and poison blades.

** Zombies can still attack you when you are checking your inventory, since your surroundings don't just pause like in most video games.

* HeroicMime: The player never talks. The closest you'll get to "dialog" from him[=/=]her is grunting (whenever you hit a zombie with your melee weapon or step on their heads) and heavy breathing.

** In the [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ZJc9q77ptQ trailer]], a business man is seen shooting himself while the office he's in is being attacked by zombies.

* SoundtrackDissonance: The first trailer has "God Save the Queen" playing in the background to scenes of death and chaos.

* TheReptilians: The Prepper seems to seriously believes that the Queen is one of them (though he may be pulling your leg).