Characters / Zombie Army Zombie Horde

Zombie Army character index
Survivor Brigade | The Zombie Horde

General Tropes

• Attack on the Heart: In Dead Army, a shot through the heart has the same effect on Zombie Grunts as a headshot, and Zombie Officers can only be one-shotted with a bullet to the heart.
• Boom, Headshot!: In general, a headshot is the surefire way to put a zombie down shy of just blowing it into pieces. Zombies can be killed without headshotting them, but it takes more bullets, and there's a chance they may spontaneously revive to rejoin the fray.
• It Can Think: The intelligence of the zombies varies depending on the type. Some zombies, such as Creepers or Screamers, are implied to be little more than animals. The standard Grunts have enough wits to use simple melee weapons, and are implied to be able to "decorate" their surroundings with various grisly and Satanic-looking tableaus, but still have little in the way of intelligence beyond shambling towards their next victim. Zombie Elites are smart enough to use complex weaponry, but still pretty Dumb Muscle. Finally, the Zombie Officers are implied to be fully intelligent.
• Our Zombies Are Different: The legions of the undead during the Dead War have the following subtropes:
  • Elite Zombie: Aside from the standard Grunts, there's a diverse array of more unique and/or powerful zombies to be found throughout the blasted regions of Europe.
  • Flesh-Eating Zombie: Hitler's zombie hordes are repeatedly shown scavenging flesh from corpses when not directly hunting for their next meal.
  • Possessing a Dead Body: It's implied that the source of the reanimation is Demonic Possession. This is why zombies not killed with a headshot or completely destroyed can spontaneously reanimate.
  • Nazi Zombies: All zombies seen are former members of Hitler's army, revived through The Dark Arts. It's implied in the original Zombie Army Trilogy that Hitler specifically cast the spell to only target those enlisted in his army, with collectable files in Dead Army suggesting the spell targeted anyone of German heritage in Europe. Precisely why is unknown, but considering that Hitler regarded "Project Z" as a Doomsday Super Weapon, it was probably propaganda. This means that the zombies can't reinforce their ranks with those they kill... but the problem is that there are so many of them...
  • Raising the Steaks: Zigzagged. Whilst zombified rats and crows appear throughout the infested territories, they're shown to be harmless. Dead War added zombified sharks to the bunch, however they are not encountered during normal gameplay, except for on one occasion where one is strung up as part of a trap.
  • Voodoo Zombie: Whilst whether or not the reanimation involves Demonic Possession is unclear, the series is explicit that the cause of the undead is The Dark Arts.
• Who Needs Their Whole Body?: Zigzagged; whilst it's possible to blow off limbs, the shots that do so usually kill them. On semi-rare occasions, they'll survive the attack and keep going on, and if they reanimate, they'll likewise resume the attack with limbs missing.

Leadership

Adolf Hitler

The Leader of Nazi Germany. Deliberately unleashes the Zombie Apocalypse upon his own country as a desperate contingency plan as the Allies assault Berlin.

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• Ain't Too Proud to Beg: When finally defeated in Dead War, as soon as Hitler notices one of the heroes coming towards him with the Agartha Relic, Hitler falls on his knees and begs for mercy. Naturally, he doesn't get any.
• Ax-Crazy: As we see from the first cutscene of the trilogy, he’s on the edge of a very bad Villainous Breakdown. He kills one of his men for daring to suggest surrender, kills another offscreen and bashes his last subordinate’s head in with a piece of the Sagarmatha Relic before the zombies clamouring outside his office break in and savage him to death. After he comes back from his fatal mauling, this goes into overdrive and he goes completely insane, now desiring to unleash Hell on Earth in the name of his own megalomania and relishing at the thought of the mass destruction that it entails.
• Big Bad: All the demonic carnage you have to fight through in the ruins of post-apocalyptic Germany was unleashed by him in order to rout the Allies. After his resurrection he goes full throttle and is out to deliberately open the Hellmouth and doom all of humanity in the name of the Reich.
• Big "NO!": Makes a truly spectacular one when his Hell Machine is destroyed. In German, no less.
• Bad Boss: As his three underlings find out the hard way, Hitler is a very easy man to cross and when he does get angry, someone dies.
• Came Back Wrong: After his death, his corpse is reanimated along with much of the rest of Germany, although unlike the others he retains his intelligence, but has turned him into a complete lunatic.
• Came Back Strong:
  • After coming back and stealing the Book Of Souls, he uses it to give himself Nigh-Invulnerability and telekinetic powers. The latter comes in useful after Karl takes a shot at him, stopping the bullet in mid-air before it hits home.
  • His stay in Hell has made him even more powerful by the time Dead War rolls around. Not only does he display Power Floats, but he's capable of sending other people into Hell and can create an a horde of clones to attack his enemies for him.
• Deader than Dead: According to one of Dr. Schweiger's notes in the "Return to Hell" DLC, Hitler's very soul was torn apart when the Agartha Relic was plunged into his chest. It does not seem like he will be coming back from this one.
• Determinator: Horrific bastard he may be, but despite being killed twice he still desires to conquer the world.
• Devoured by the Horde: His first death came in this fashion, doubling as a Karmic Death since it was he who unleashed the zombie menace in the first place.
• Disc-One Final Boss: What his role in Dead War ultimately ends up as. He is the definitive Big Bad of the main campaign, but the subsequent DLC chapters reveal that Hitler was just one player in a larger plot. As such, Hitler's attempt to conquer the world spans the first half of the game, while the second deals with Baron Umbra and his cult.
• Dragged Off to Hell: Well, more accurately he's thrown into Hell, but the principle still applies. After the final battle with his giant avatar, he confronts you personally (or at least tries to), only to be kicked down and tossed into the Hellmouth, which would have damned him to an eternity in Hell had the cult in Dead War not anticipated this scenario.
• General Failure: Hitler is portrayed as quite incompetent, having succeeded in the early stages of the war largely through luck and bravado, but now crumbling in the face of competent resistance; it was sheer desperation that led him to fall back on Plan Z.
  • In Dead War, the first few documents from Baron Umbra's cult found in the Zombie Zoo stages openly refer to him with such contemptuous terms as "ranting madman", and note he was chosen specifically because he would be so incompetent that he could be pushed to activate the Sagarmatha Relic. Umbra himself notes that the resurrected Hitler was created to be more of a servitor than a leader. It later turns out that things weren't so black and white, as Umbra's cult became infested by true believers in Hitler's personality cult and these ultimately schismed, usurping control from Umbra and his loyalists.
• Hair-Trigger Temper: His failing war campaign at the start of the game made him a bit twitchy, to say the least. The mere suggestion of surrender causes him to grab a gun and shoot the poor general that made it, then scream about how the "Fatherland will not fall!"
• It Can Think: Hitler inexplicably retains his sapience after coming back from the dead. It's justified in Dead Army that he was mystically chosen to be the leader of the zombie horde by Baron Umbra's cult.
• Karmic Death: His desire to activate Plan Z in a final desperate ploy to win the war gets him Eaten Alive inside his own office, then when he comes back and tries to cause Hell on Earth, he gets thrown into his own Hellgate after he’s defeated.
• Killed Offscreen: His first undeniably sticky end from being flash-mobbed by a pack of zombies inside the Fuhrerbunker happens offscreen after he screams in terror as they break in.
• Me's a Crowd: After his Cool Tank is destroyed in Dead War, Hitler will start summoning zombies with his face in place of their heads as a Desperation Attack in an attempt to overwhelm the survivors.
• Nigh-Invulnerable: As you see in the Post-Final Boss fight, Hitler confronts you personally and is completely invulnerable to harm, requiring him to be knocked down and tossed directly into Hell itself to finish him off. Dead War reveals that even this was not enough to destroy him completely, as his cult managed to revive him once more and more powerful than ever with the Agartha Relic.
• Not Quite Dead: Saying that is a bit much, considering he was already undead beforehand, but getting thrown into the Hellmouth turns out to not have been permanent, as he was conjured back to Earth by a Nazi hell-cult, thus kicking off the events of Dead War.
• Omnicidal Maniac: After coming back from the dead, he’s now got it in mind to evoke Hell on Earth upon the entire world. Considering that by the time the protagonists set out to stop his Evil Plan 99% of the population of Berlin at the very least is either dead or worse, he more than definitely counts, that’s for sure.
• Post-Final Boss: In both Zombie Army Trilogy and Dead War, the confrontations with Hitler himself take place after the proper Final Boss has been destroyed.
  • In Trilogy, Hitler loses most of his powers after his demonic avatar is defeated. While he cannot be killed no matter how many times you shoot him or blow him up, he's no more dangerous than any other ordinary zombie grunt. All that's needed to defeat him is to kick him down, pick him up and throw him into the Hellmouth.
  • He puts up a lot more of a fight in Dead War, in the sense that instead of fighting one basic-zombie-Hitler you fight an entire horde of them while the man himself hides behind an energy shield. Simply mow them all down and he will collapse in exhaustion, allowing you to finish him off.
• Too Dumb to Live: Hitler activated Plan Z as a final desperate act to repel the Allies from Germany and turn the tides of the war, but while that part of the plan worked Hitler quickly finds himself on the business end of Evil Is Not a Toy as a horde of crazed corpses encroach upon his bunker and kill him gruesomely. Even after coming back, his stupidity hasn’t waned a single bit, as he’s still dabbling in the Occult and now seeking to unleash the wrath of the Hellmouth upon humanity. This gets him a one-way trip to an eternal Fate Worse than Death for his megalomaniacal foolishness. Or not. All this accomplished was completing the second stage of his cult's plan, allowing him to take command of his undead army once again and gain access to even greater war machines... and then he loses again. And is disintegrated by the Agartha Relic, finally killing the Führer once and for all.
• Unwitting Pawn: Subverted. Hitler was initially meant to be nothing more than a pawn in Baron Umbra's plans, but many of Umbra's cultists ended up becoming enthralled by the Führer's ambitions and betrayed him in favor of their new leader.
• Volcanic Veins: Upon his second resurrection in Dead War, hellish energy surges through Hitler's body and causes him to have orange glowing veins.
• Why Won't You Die?: Yells this at the heroes when his Hell Machine is nearly destroyed. He even punctuates it for emphasis.

Occult General

Encountered three times throughout Zombie Army Trilogy, an Occult General is a powerful summoner that leads the zombie menace while Hitler has yet to rise from the dead.

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• Ambiguous Situation: It's not entirely clear if there is just one Occult General or if you encounter three separate entities. The fact that all three have the exact same voice and appearance on top of one directly talking to you suggests that it's the same one, but the achievements for defeating one switches between "the" and "an" Occult General.
• Death of Personality: Seems to happen when becoming an Occult General. At the end of Nazi Zombie Army 2, we meet a Nazi general or SS officer in the middle of being turned into a new general, but he seems to be actively fighting the process. While the four Summoners around him perform the ritual, the man begs the heroes to help him and that he can't hold on much longer. Once the transformation is complete, he behaves like the other Generals before him.
• Evil Sounds Deep: Their voices are incredibly deep and seek to ravage the world with their zombie armies.
• Evil Laugh: The summoning of a new wave of zombies is marked by their distinctive demonic laughter.
• Dem Bones: They have the appearance of skeletons wearing SS uniforms.
• Final Boss: In the original releases of Nazi Zombie Army 1 and 2.
• Flunky Boss: In the most extreme way possible. Occult Generals have no offensive abilities at all, their only offensive measure being the summoning of increasingly massive zombie hordes.
• The Heavy: Throughout the first two episodes of Trilogy, Hitler has not actually died or been resurrected yet respectively. As such, the zombie hordes are led by the Occult Generals for two thirds of the game until his return.
• King Mook: To the Summoners, since both do nothing but spawn endless waves of additional zombies. However, while the Summoners are limited to spawning regular zombies, Occult Generals are fully capable of summoning elites.
• Shielded Core Boss: Occult Generals are shielded by a set of flying skulls orbiting around them. As long as these skulls remain intact, the Generals cannot be harmed.
• Stationary Boss: For whatever reason, Occult Generals never move from the spot they rise out of, which is good since it makes shooting their skull shields a lot easier than it otherwise would be.
• Voice of the Legion: One of the many aspects of their unholy nature. It's even accompanied by the creepy giggling of children sometimes.

Baron Umbra

^{Click here for the Baron in the modern day.}

^{Click here for spoilers.}

A Transylvanian nobleman who discovered a profane enlightenment that revealed to him the secrets of magic and the existence of the reality-shaping power hidden at the center of the Hollow World.

Granted immortality through his dark knowledge, he founded a cult to aid him in reaching the Hollow World and activating that machine, allowing him to recreate the world in a new "Golden Age" of his own design.

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• Affably Evil: While his voice is demonic and imposing as it can be, Baron Umbra is nothing but polite to the Survivor Brigade when they meet. All of his contempt is reserved for his former servants. That does not stop him from being a ruthless tyrant who killed thousands of people for his own ambitions, even before taking Plan Z into account.
• Beat Still, My Heart: The final step of his ritual requires one of the heroes to rip out his heart and crush it, just like they have likely done to several Zombie Officers before. This creates a portal to Hell from his body. The achievement for completing the "Abaddon Asylum" DLC is even called "Kali Ma".
• Blood Magic: His specialty in regards Black Magic is the use of blood as an arcane fuel source. He even describes the foundations of magic as being "blood and will".
• Body Horror: When encountered at the climax of "Abaddon Asylum", he has had his jaws broken so his tongue lolls out constantly, his chest carved open to expose his heart, and has literally been welded into the back wall of a cathedral to the point he has spread out across it like a great mass of Meat Moss, with the skinless bodies of other humans visibly incorporated into the sprawling expanse of shapeless flesh.
• Can't Kill You, Still Need You: When Baron Umbra is close to being destroyed completely, he starts trying to invoke this by claiming he is the only one with the knowledge on how to stop Project Ragnarök. Schweiger and Alpha Squad kill him anyways, unwilling to let a tyrant like him be allowed to live any longer.
• Enemy Civil War: Files in the first half of the "Abaddon Asylum" mission hint that the Baron's own cult turned against him and imprisoned him in the titular asylum. In the second half, he confirms that his cult ironically became subverted by Hitler's own cult of personality, which led to infighting which the Hitler-worshippers won, causing them to seal Umbra and his loyalists away in San Abaddon Asylum.
• Enemy Mine: When he and the Survivor Brigade finally meet, they enter a temporary alliance to get rid of the remaining Nazi cultists. The Brigade because they intended to kill them anyways and Umbra because he wants revenge for their betrayal, but currently... lacks the mobility to do it himself.
• Evil Sounds Deep: Umbra has perhaps the deepest voice in the entire game and is an extremely dangerous cult leader.
• False Reassurance: One of the notes you can find in the "Blood Count" DLC is a letter from him to Alina, a resident of his castle town that tried to investigate when people started to disappear for the count's blood rituals. In the letter, he tells her that he knows she must be concerned for her family's safety, of course nobody is as concerned for his people as he is, invites her to his castle if she wants to discuss the matter further and assures her that he will always keep an eye on her.
• Grand Theft Me: What his true motives for "rescuing" Schweiger from Hell turn out to be. With his old body broken beyond repair, Umbra has been manipulating Schweiger ever since he was first dragged into Hell by the Hell Tower. By revealing arcane secrets to him and seeding doubt about the trustworthiness of his companions, Umbra was trying to push Schweiger into a Despair Event Horizon, preparing for the moment where is able to transfer himself into a newer, stronger vessel and return to the realm of the living.
• Greater-Scope Villain: Without his occult research, Hitler would have never been able to initiate Plan Z and escalate World War II into an apocalyptic hellscape. He finally takes center stage as the Big Bad of the "Abaddon Asylum" and "Return to Hell" DLCs.
• Hell Seeker: Created a cult to reach the Hollow World and exploit the powers of Hell in order to achieve his vision of a Golden Age.
• High-Class Glass: Even after all these years of being trapped as a wall made of flesh, Umbra still wears a monocle on his left eye.
• Human Resources: Was responsible for having thousands of people slaughtered to be processed into blood batteries.
• The Man Behind the Man: The nine DLC missions establish that Baron Umbra, and the cult he founded, were secretly behind furnishing Hitler with the means and motivation to use Plan Z, if not the rise of the Nazi party to power entirely. They also provided Schweiger with the occult technology he needed to analyze and decode the Sagarmatha Relic, although how he used that inspired Umbra and his cult in turn to create the Rachegeist and the related "Occult Computers" that were used for the cult's other major projects.
• Man of Wealth and Taste: His apparition in Hell wears a nice black suit, a red tie and a black coat with a red handkerchief in its pocket.
• Magitek: Created highly advanced machinery, including a primitive Artificial Intelligence, a gargantuan drill machine/elevator and devices that could preserve a human as a Brain in a Jar, all fueled by occult energy, often using canisters of human blood as batteries.
• Me's a Crowd: During his boss fight, several Umbras appear at the same time, functioning like Summoners without hearts to shoot at. Justified, since this battle takes place in Hell and Umbra is a being of pure energy at this point. Like Hitler before him, the final part of the fight requires you to destroy every last copy until Baron Umbra is finally exhausted enough that Schweiger can destroy him completely.
• Really 700 Years Old: The Baron was born some time around the 1600s, but is alive and well in the 1940s.
• Sealed Evil in a Can: After his cultists betrayed him for Hitler, Umbra and his loyalists were ritualistically sealed within San Abaddon Asylum. The Survivor Brigade eventually destroys the seals and release him.
• You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: A victim of this by his own cultists, who saw fit to dispose of him once they were certain his guidance was no longer needed.

Rachegeist

^{Click here for the Rachegeist core.}

"WE ARE MORE THAN A MACHINE. WE ARE THE RACHEGEIST."

An occult-empowered Artificial Intelligence created by Baron Umbra's cult after witnessing Dr. Schweiger's success in using a Z5 computer to decode the Sagarmatha Relic prior to the unleashing of Plan Z.

Fueled by human blood and outfitted with living human brains to augment its processing abilities, the Rachegeist was created to help run the more impressive occultic wunderwaffen and projects, but it attempts to take revenge on the Allies after its activation.

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• A God Am I: As its defenses are being destroyed and it undergoes a literal Villainous Breakdown, Rachegeist fails to say its own name several times. It eventually gives up in frustration and declares itself to be God.
• Androids Are People, Too: The Hell Cult considers the Rachegeist a full-fledged member of their organization on account of its sapience, rather than just a subservient machine.
• Artificial Intelligence: A combination of 1940s calculating engine technology, human neural tissue, Blood Magic and occult rituals all combined to create a singular new mechanical intelligence.
• Attack Its Weak Point: The prolonged effort to destroy the Rachegeist involves destroying its human brain-bank slave-cores and sabotaging its blood battery supply. Then, in the final confrontation, the players have to destroy its weapon turrets, shoot its brain-based subprocessors, and finally destroy its coolant cores.
• Arc Villain: Of the second DLC mission trinity ("Damnation Valley", "Alpine Blitz" and "Dead Zeppelin") and "Terminal Error".
• Evil Sounds Deep: A bombastic, mechanical voice that echoes throughout the entire complex. Unlike other Z5 cores however, Rachegeist's voice does not have a Machine Monotone and is dripping with malice.
• Foreshadowing: The player first encounters a Z5 computer in the form of Project Agartha, a massive Nazi digging machine, in the final part of the 2nd DLC mission "Blood Count".
• Genius Loci: The Rachegeist is huge, consisting of a building-sized central core and several smaller but still massive Z5 computer complexes and human brain-banks as "slave-cores".
• Human Resources: Uses human blood for fuel and dismembered but still living human brains as sub-processors.
• Insistent Terminology: It is very insistent that everyone knows that it is not just a machine, it is the Rachegeist.
• Magitek: 1940s computer technology married to Blood Magic to create an Artificial Intelligence capable of manipulating arcane energy and performing occult rituals.
• The Man Behind the Man: The Project Valkyrie Z5 core was subservient to this thing, sending a signal back to it before it was destroyed.
• Mind Hive: It is a collective of independent Z5 computers networked together to form a greater whole, though the intelligence that calls itself the Rachegeist is dominant over the others, which are referred to as "slave-cores". When Edie suggests it is a Hive Mind the Rachegeist rebukes the theory, angrily remarking that it is more than the sum of its parts. Unfortunately, it is right. While destroying the slave-cores is painful, it ultimately has little impact on its functionality.
• Names to Run Away from Really Fast: The word "Rachegeist" is a portmanteau of the German words for "Vengeance/Revenge" and "Ghost/Spirit", so an effective translation would be "Vengeful Ghost" or "Spirit of Vengeance".

The Ragnarök Kommandant (Massive Spoilers)

"Blood is Will." - The cult's mantra.

Or rather, the Hell Cult itself. Initially the dutiful servants of Baron Umbra, the cultists betrayed their master when they became obsessed with Adolf Hitler's vision. They are the ones responsible for both unleashing Plan Z and Hitler's rise from the dead.

Shrouded in darkness for most of Dead War, they finally step into the light in the "Ragnarök" DLC, which reveals that the cult is mostly comprised of clones connected to each other through occult magic.

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• Arch-Enemy: They are collectively this to Dr. Efram Schweiger, as they manipulated him into researching the Sagarmatha Relic and caused him unspeakable misery.
• A God Am I: After becoming one with the void bomb, Arnold begins to see the very fabric of reality. This newfound power causes him to go even more loony.
  Arnold: "The mantle of godhood is ours! Taken by force!"
• Apocalypse Cult: They seek to usher in a golden age by ending the world as we know it.
• Big Bad Duumvirate: Of the "Ragnarök" DLC and the true masterminds behind the series as a whole.
• Clone Army: Produced in the cult's main base in Hell, where all of the elite zombies are also manufactured.
• Dragon Their Feet: The most powerful and loyal followers of their undead prophet, Adolf Hitler. Even after he has been completely destroyed, they still continue their work to usher in the Eternal Reich he spoke of.
• Expendable Clone: They consider each individual member to be disposable. Considering they all literally share one mind, it is not all that surprising.
• Faux Affably Evil: They are remarkably polite towards the Survivor Brigade in the final confrontation, but that's mostly because they are confident that there is nothing they can do to stop Project Ragnarök. They still want to kill them all.
• Hijacking Cthulhu: In order to ensure the success of Project Ragnarök, Arnold decides to merge with the void bomb and personally unleash its power unto the world.
• Hive Mind: The Hell Tower ritual linked them all to one unified will that gets stronger the more they add to it. It doesn't matter how many of them are killed, they will live on as long as a single one survives.
• My God, What Have We Done?: Towards the end of their boss fight, Arnold comes to a horrible realization about their plan and screams for help before he is completely consumed by whatever force they unleashed.
• Omnicidal Maniac: What Project Ragnarök is really all about. They intend to trigger the void bomb contained within the Ragnarök fortress to end all life on Earth completely and rule over Hell by remaking it In Their Own Image.
  Cultist Fanatic: "There is no heaven! Only an eternity of hells! We will form them in our image!"
• Tom the Dark Lord: The clone that ultimately becomes one with the void bomb and the greatest threat to all life is called Arnold. He himself says that whether that name even means anything is debatable though, since he is just one of many clones.
• True Final Boss: The final opponents of the last Dead War DLC.
• You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: Betrayed their original master Baron Umbra after becoming obsessed with Hitler's vision, sealing him inside San Abaddon Asylum once they verified that the rituals he taught them all worked.
• You All Look Familiar: They lampshade this in Part I of "Ragnarök", pointing out that nobody ever seemed to notice that the members of the Hell Cult were all so similar. Turns out there was a good reason for this.

Common Zombies

Zombie Grunts

Hitler's teeming legions in life, they now serve him in undeath, hunting down and slaughtering anyone in their way.

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• Action Bomb: Engineers often carry welding torches; if these are shot, they explode like a frag grenade, then create a temporary patch of flames like an incendiary grenade.
• The Goomba: Basic zombies are extremely numerous and only possess a simple melee attack, but their strength comes from their sheer numbers and the special types they support.
• Incongruously-Dressed Zombie: The Grunts can be found in many different outfits and configurations. Dead Army takes it to the extreme by having several distinct, costume-based Grunt "subtypes". Few of these have particularly unique abilities, but they are considered separate enemy types for certain DLC weapon upgrade challenges.
  • "Water Grunts" are zombies which have lain in water until their flesh bloated and turned waxy, giving them a distinct bluish tint and "melted wax" skin complexion. Further fitting this trope, in the Venice level, one can sometimes encounter Water Grunts in stereotypical gondolier outfits. What makes them particularly distinct is that they are Immune to Fire, likely due to how wet they are, and have their own subtype in the form of the Spitter.
  • "Gunners" and "Medics" drop valuable supplies when killed.
  • "Engineers" dress in iron welder's helmets that largely proof them against headshots, and often carry welding torches that can be detonated with a well-aimed bullet.
  • "Enraged Zombies" are created or altered by the presence of a Zombie Officer; they no longer lurch along at a slow pace but instead sprint quickly towards the player character. They can be distinguished by the appearance of a ghostly skull overlaying their face.
  • The "Deeper than Hell" DLC introduces "Miners", who still wear the headlamps and carry the tools they used in life. Some also hold lit sticks of dynamite, which blow up when killed.
  • Finally, the "Ragnarök" DLC introduces "Divers", zombies wearing old-school diving outfits with metal helmets that make getting headshots impossible.
• Money Spider: In Dead Army, two Grunt subtypes are introduced; the Gunner and the Medic. The Gunner always carries a submachine gun or shotgun, which it uses with little precision, and when defeated can be stomped on to release ammo for all weapons. The Medic, distinguishable by its green-and-white uniform, is much rarer, and produces a single medical kit when its corpse is stomped on.
• Night of the Living Mooks: They serve as the basis of Hitler's zombie hordes.
• Zombie Gait: They move in a fairly slow, lurching gait, but it's faster than one might think. They're definitely the slowest of the zombie forces. Subverted with the "Enraged Zombie" subtype.

Skeletons

The resurrected remains of long dead soldiers and civilians, rotten to the point that they have little to no flesh to speak of. While they were absent from Dead War's main campaign, the "Deeper than Hell" DLC reintroduced them into the game.

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• Attack Its Weakpoint: In the original releases of Nazi Zombie Army 1 & 2, skeletons were a lot more durable than they appeared. The only way to consistently kill them was to shoot the glowing hearts in their chest, which made them far more dangerous than regular zombies.
• Dem Bones: Probably comes as a surprise.
• Fireball Eyeballs: They sport these in Dead War.
• Fragile Speedster: In the Trilogy re-release and the Dead War DLCs. Unarmored skeletons are a lot faster than ordinary zombies, but they are significantly more fragile to compensate. In Dead War however, they outright rush at you at full speed.
• Heart Light: Quite literally so. Skeletons have an orange, glowing heart inside their chest that seems to be what reanimates them. They lost this quality in Dead War.
• Heavily Armored Mook: While Trilogy made skeletons easier to kill compared to the standalone titles, it also introduced a new variant that wears medieval armor. The added weight makes them move a lot slower, but also protects them pretty well, as you can no longer just kick them to pieces and have to shoot off their armor to expose their hearts.
• Hell Is That Noise: Their presence is accompanied by an unnatural hissing sound echoing through the area.
• Scary Skeleton: The fact that Plan Z even raised bare skeletons from the dead made the situation go From Bad to Worse, meaning there is almost no limit to what can and can't be resurrected.
• Zerg Rush: In Dead War, where they make up for their fragility by rushing at you in large numbers.

Suiciders

Referred to as "Suicide Grunts" in the original Zombie Army Trilogy, Suiciders are zombies that have been strapped with explosives and sent careening towards survivors.

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• Action Bomb: Their only attack is to blow themselves up in a suicide charge. On the plus side, a well-aimed shot can wreak havoc on any grunts crowding around them.
• Body Horror: In Dead Army, the Suicider has gone from an intact zombie carrying lots of grenades to a maimed carcass on two legs; the skin and meat has largely been hacked from its body, dynamite or stick grenades have been threaded through its ribs, its arms have been chopped off, and two stick grenades have been impaled through its cheeks to form an X shape.
• Hell Is That Noise: It's easy to tell when Suiciders are approaching because they scream a constant, unending shriek, similar to the Beheaded Kamikazes from Serious Sam.
• Zombie Gait: Subverted. Suiciders sprint and are hands-down the fastest enemy in the game.

Special Zombies

Introduced in Trilogy

Snipers

Germany's most elite snipers, revived to resume their offensives against the living.

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• BFG: Dead War introduces a second flavor to these enemies, one that lugs around a Panzerschreck instead of a sniper rifle. Due to the large metal shield of the launcher and the obvious lack of optics of any kind, this variant of the Sniper is immune to Scope Sniping.
• By the Lights of Their Eyes: A zombie sniper's eye glows to the point it casts a beam like a laser pointer, allowing players to realize when they are being targeted.
• Hell Is That Noise: Their presence can be distinguished by the creepy laughter they emit.
• In a Single Bound: Snipers can make spectacular leaps across dozens of meters to jump from rooftop to rooftop for a better vantage.
• More Dakka: The second part of the Ragnarök chapter introduces a Hellish version of these enemies who carry assault rifles instead of the typical Gewehr 43, and fire in bursts rather than single shots. Unlike their more common brethren, these snipers sport red laser sights instead of cyan.
• Red Eyes, Take Warning: The second part of the "Ragnarök" DLC features snipers whose eyes and aura glow red instead of green. These are more dangerous than their regular counterparts, as they can fire rapidly instead of just once.
• Scope Snipe: If your aim is true enough, you can re-enact that scene from Saving Private Ryan with these enemies, which will award you with a special "Scope Kill" bonus in Dead War. The Mastery challenge for the Gewehr 43 in that game requires you to do this ten times as well. It's a tricky shot, but aiming for the right eye whilst they have their rifle raised tends to work.

Summoners/Officers

Hitler's personal followers and underlings, now returned from their trip to hell to resume commandership of the damned Nazi regime. In the original Zombie Army Trilogy, these were all Summoners that continuously summon new zombies until killed. Dead Army expands them into their own sub-types called Officers: Necromancers revive slain zombies around them until destroyed, Commanders summon hellish spirits in the form of skulls that possess zombies and turn them into fast-moving "Enraged Zombies", Shadow Demons try to teleport victims into their grasp, and Suicide Generals summon Suiciders.

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• And Show It to You: In Dead War, using a Takedown on a Zombie Officer sees your player plunge their hand into the gap in the zombie's chest that exposes their heart before tearing said heart out and crushing it to a pulp with a squeeze of their fist.
• Attack on the Heart: Zombie Commanders, Necromancers, Shadow Demons, and Suicide Generals can only be killed by shooting them in the heart. Any other shot will simply drop them to the ground stunned for a few moments, although they can be killed whilst stunned by stomping on them.
• Gasmask Mooks: The "Dead Zeppelin" DLC in Dead War introduces a sub-type of the Commanders that wears a gas mask and has a protective plate on their chests, making them significantly more difficult to take down permanently.
• Made of Iron: Summoners in Zombie Army Trilogy will take three headshots before dying.
• Mook Maker: Summoners and Necromancers all spawn endless waves of other zombies until killed, while Suicide Generals cause Suiciders that instantly explode to rise from the ground. Commanders generally prefer empowering already existing zombies, but will also raise new ones if those around them are already dead.
• Necromancer: Exactly What It Says on the Tin. Necromancers fill a similar niche to the now-deprecated Summoner general, in that they will create more zombies to swarm the players, this time by resurrecting any valid corpse around them if they were not completely obliterated beforehand, and a handful of Necromancers can even revive each other.
• One-Hit Kill: The Shadow Demon will instantly kill a player if they get their hands on them.
• Weaponized Teleportation: The Shadow Demon attacks by sending a roiling mass of Black Magic along the ground, which can be disrupted by shooting it. If this mass hits a player, they will be teleported into the Shadow Demon's hands, allowing it to suck out their soul.

Elites/Heavies

Implied to be former SS officers, the Elites are a family of minibosses characterized by their ability to wield more powerful armaments and their heightened durability compared to Zombie Grunts.

The standard Zombie Elite, which is actually called that, is a hulking bruiser in an SS uniform carrying a heavy machine gun. The Chainsaw Elite sports a chainsaw and relies on melee. The Fire Demon is a charred, flame-wreathed Elite that hurls fireballs and summons burning variants of the standard zombie grunt. Dead Army renamed the Zombie Elite to the Zombie Gunner, giving it a new design with a bare chest and a helmet, and features the Flamer (a Zombie Gunner armed with a flamethrower, replaces the Fire Demon) and the Butcher (the Chainsaw Elite, but sporting a buzzsaw).

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• Acrofatic: The morbidly-obese Butchers can be surprisingly nimble when dancing around you with their buzzsaws swinging. They're also capable of running at a remarkably brisk pace despite their size. This is due to them reusing most of the same animation set as the old Chainsaw Elite, who were much slimmer than they are and thus could believably perform such movements.
• Attack Its Weak Point: Uniquely amongst its kin, the Zombie Flamer can be defeated by either blasting through its armored helm like the rest of its kind, or it can be blown up by puncturing the slightly (emphasis slightly) less tough flamethrower fuel tank strapped to its back. Challenges requiring the player to kill elites by hitting their weak spots only respond to the tank explosion.
• Body Horror: The original Fire Demon looks to have been set on fire from the inside out, causing most of its flesh to melt off of its charred bones.
• Boss in Mook's Clothing: Whilst there are many zombies in the series that count at Elite Zombies of the "unique traits and abilities" type, these are the zombies who truly are the series Elite Mooks, acting as minibosses whenever they show up.
• Boss Vulnerability: Fire Demons in Zombie Army 3 are only vulnerable when they temporarily drop their shields after throwing a fireball or summoning fire zombies.
• Broken Armor Boss Battle: In Dead Army, the Zombie Elites all sport armored helmets that protect their vulnerable cranium. The easiest way to take them down is to smash through the helmet and expose the comparatively fragile skull within.
• Bullfight Boss: One of the safer ways to deal with Butchers is to dodge out of the way of their saw charges and let them bang into a wall or hard object. Even if they don't collide into anything, the Butchers will become winded by this missed attack and kneel down, allowing you to freely damage their helmets and get at the weak spots underneath.
• Chainsaw Good: The Chainsaw Elite from ZAT 2 onwards and the giant buzzsaw-toting Butcher in Dead Army.
• Dead Weight: The Butcher notably differs from its Heavy Gunner and Flamer counterparts by having a barrel-chested, boulder-bellied frame that in no way impedes its ability to move quickly.
• Feed It a Bomb: Using a Finisher on a Gunner or a Flamer sees the player snatch a grenade from their bandolier, shove it into the zombie's mouth, pull the pin and then kick the zombie over, causing the grenade to blow apart their head.
• Giant Mook: All Elites tower head and shoulders over the basic Grunts.
• Hoist by Their Own Petard: Using a Finisher on a Butcher sees the player grab the Butcher's buzzsaw and use it to carve off the stunned zombie's head.
• Kevlard: Unlike their more muscular Chainsaw Elite brethren, the Butchers in Dead War are morbidly obese, but can absorb ridiculous amounts of gunfire as a result.
• Lean and Mean: The Flamer has a tall, lanky frame, compared to the muscular bruiser appearance of the Heavy Gunner and the stout, boulder-like body of the Butcher.
• Made of Iron: Zombie Elites are ridiculously tough. The standard Elite from Zombie Army 1 will eat an average of 10 rifle shots to the face before going down, and the others are just as tough. Whilst the Dead Army variants of Zombie Elites do protect themselves with armored face masks, even once it's destroyed, they'll still tank multiple shots to the head before dying.
• Mook Maker: The Fire Demon has the ability to both directly attack players by launching fireballs at them and to spawn "burning zombies" to attack on its behalf.
• Shout-Out: The Butcher's spinning buzzsaw slash attacks are very reminiscent of the frustrated chainsaw-swinging dance done by Leatherface at the end of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 1974.

Armored Zombies

Zombies that have been crudely nailed, bolted and welded into makeshift suits of armor from heavy plates lying around. Renamed "Armored Giants" in Dead Army.

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• Armored But Frail: Despite their tough armor, once you can get through it, they're as squishy as any standard Grunt beneath. If you have the skill (or luck) to shoot them through their helmet's eye slits, you can even one-hit kill them.
• Dead Weight: The Unarmored Giant, despite not having any armor to shoot off, is as tough as its armored counterparts.
• Frankenstein's Monster: A cosmetic reskin of the Armored Giant can be found in certain DLC missions, which trades its armored suit for glowing neck electrodes. Despite this, they are as slow and tough as the standard Armored Giants.
• Giant Mook: In Dead Army, they are visibly taller than the standard grunts around them.
• Heavily Armored Mook: Their primitive armor suits protect them from physical trauma, but make them much slower.

Introduced in Dead War

Spitters

A variant of the "Water Grunt" with the ability to spit noxious fluids at their victims. Variants that spit toxic blood and fire can be found in the DLC missions "Abaddon Asylum" and "Return to Hell" respectively.

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• Interface Screw: Being hit by a Spitter's vomit attack cancels a "fire focus" attack (Empty Lung, Brain Burster, Weapon Focus, etc), causes a visual distortion that makes it hard for the player to see zombies around them, and reduces the player's speed to a crawl until they can get out of the area of fumes.
• Playing with Fire: The Fire Spitter introduced in the "Return to Hell" DLC throws fireballs instead of acid or blood.
• Sickly Green Glow: Standard Spitters can be distinguished from regular Water Grunts by their eerie green luminescence.
• Zombie Puke Attack: Their most distinguishing feature is that they can hawk slimeballs that on impact spatter to afflict a wide area of effect.

Creepers

Distorted, skeletal zombies that are typically found in dark environments, Creepers have devolved into feral, borderline beasts.

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• Fragile Speedster: They're faster than standard Zombie Grunts and can make short-ranged lunging leaps, but they are much squishier than a Grunt as well, and can be killed by a good stomp. In fact, it is sometimes the better way to just stomp your way out of a Creeper swarm, since one hit can kill several at once if you're lucky, and their claw swipes can stagger and throw off your aim if you try to shoot them.
• Hell Is That Noise: Even if you can't see them, Creepers can still be told apart by their raspy chittering noises.
• Primal Stance: They get around hunkered on all fours.
• Underground Monkey: The "Blood Count" DLC introduces bat-like Creepers that are a little bit tougher but otherwise behave identical to their regular counterparts.

Grenadiers

Particularly intelligent zombies who have retained an understanding of how to use grenades. They use custom-made shields to ward off foes whilst lobbing grenades at them. Strangely, grenadiers without shields appear in the DLC missions "Abaddon Asylum" and "Return to Hell".

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• Hoist by Their Own Petard: Using a Finisher on a Grenadier sees the player grab the Grenadier by the head, yank them up and then slam their face down on the sharpened upper edge of their own shield.
• Luckily, My Shield Will Protect Me: They use thick shields of spiked metal to ward off attacks and to bash into anyone who gets too close. Killing them requires either sniping them when they poke their head above the shield to find targets, somehow outflanking them, using grenades or hitting them with an armor piercing attack. Additionally, they are also vulnerable to a Finisher like any other non-Elite zombie. The "Terminal Error" DLC features Grenadiers that do not carry a shield with them.
• Throw Down the Bomblet: As their name implies, Grenadiers fight exclusively by throwing frag and incendiary grenades at the player.

Screamers

Hideously mutated zombies, also known as Blind Screamers, which inhabit dark places.

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• Attack Its Weak Point: They're so mutated that their only vulnerable spot is a swollen, glowing tumor on their humped back. Killing a Screamer with a shot here awards a unique points bonus, and they can only be taken down with a Finisher if the player creeps up on them from behind, whereupon the takedown has the player frantically stabbing them in the hump.
• Body Horror: They are the most hideously deformed of all the zombies, with an Eyeless Face and flesh that has run like hot wax.
• Hell Is That Noise: In-Universe, their iconic battle shriek is regarded with hate and loathing by the survivors, who respond by shouting in pain or rage when it goes off. When they kill a Screamer, they invariably express relief at putting an end to its vocalizations.
• Lightning Bruiser: They move incredibly quickly, can take a lot of damage, and hit like a truck.
• Made of Iron: Don't be fooled by their frail appearance. These things can tank damage like a Heavy.
• Recognizable by Sound: Even when idle, Screamers let out a distinctive array of clicking and chirping noises, likely a form of echolocation.
• Super-Scream: Downplayed. When they sense a survivor, they let out an ear-piercing howl before beelining towards them. This doesn't inflict damage, but is an Interface Screw, rendering the survivors temporarily immobile and unable to attack as they clasp their ears in pain.

Zombie Sharks

As part of Projekt Ragnarök, numerous zombified great white sharks are juiced up with hell energy and then mulched up into paste to fuel an improved generation of blood batteries. Although these sharks can be found in European waterways during the Dead War, they are mostly manufactured in Hell.

One very large mechanized specimen, the Megalodon, is fought as the Final Boss of the first half of the "Ragnarök" DLC.

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• Chekhov's Gun: Zombie sharks are established very early on in Dead War, first appearing in the background of the "Death Canal" mission. They have very little relevance throughout the rest of the game, only occasionally showing up as traps that you can use to bite dozens of zombies to death. "Ragnarök" reveals that they are incredibly important to the series as a whole, as Elites are created by the infusion of processed shark blood.
• Disc-One Final Boss: The Megalodon is fought at the end of Part 1 of the "Ragnarök" DLC.
• Feed It a Bomb: The Megalodon is defeated by Schweiger jamming a large explosive down its gullet, that is then blown up by Alpha Squad.
• Threatening Shark: They are zombie sharks. The Megalodon especially, since it is a Cyborg zombie shark swimming in the lava ocean of Hell itself.

Vehicles

Zombie Half-Treads/Tanks

Hellish combat vehicles created by the fusion of zombified flesh and metal.

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• Cool Tank: They are horrific abominations that seem to be less tanks filled with meat but rather sacks of flesh and organs that have tank parts grafted onto them.
• Cruel and Unusual Death: Killing these things does not cause them to explode like one would assume. Instead, they are horrifically bent and crushed into nothingness. A note from Baron Umbra in "Terminal Error" reveals that, in order for these vehicles to transfer from the production lines in Hell to the material realm, teleportation sigils are carved into their insides so they can be summoned when needed, which violently pull them back into Hell when critically damaged.
• Flaming Skulls: The primary weapon of a tank shoots rockets that take the form of screaming, flaming skulls with pentagrams on their foreheads.
• Mook Maker: Zombies continuously fall out of the back of the half-treads, which also shows that it has a ribcage on the inside.
• Sapient Tank: While the degree of their intelligence is up for debate, these tanks are not piloted by zombies but are actually themselves undead creatures.
• Weak Turret Gun: The actual main turrets of the tanks and half-treads are extremely dangerous and only stop firing when the vehicle itself is destroyed. The Zombie Tanks however have four turret growths grafted onto the edges of their chassis. These turrets are individually pretty weak and easily destroyed, but problem is that there are four of them and that they provide covering fire for the already deadly main cannon.

The Hell Machine

"MY HELL MACHINE IS UNSTOPPABLE!"

Hitler's ultimate weapon, a colossal monstrosity of twisted flesh and metal that he uses to lay siege to Rome upon his second revival.

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• Attack Its Weak Point: The only way to damage it is to attack its turrets when they expose themselves to fire upon you. Once you are inside of it, the hearts on the walls are your target.
• Final Boss: Of Dead War's main campaign.
• Flunky Boss: Wouldn't be much point in having a portal to Hell installed in it if it weren't going to use it. Even when it isn't opening the gate, the zombies that were already in Rome continuously arrive to aid their master.
• Hellgate: Its front conceals a massive gate to Hitler's fortress in Hell, which he opens up twice during the first phase of the fight to summon his legions for support.
• Macross Missile Massacre: The Uberwaffe, a massive gatling gun rocket launcher that fires enough missiles to destroy anything in its path.
• Military Mashup Machine: A gigantic tank that also functions as a mobile flak tower and Hell portal.
• One-Hit Kill: Get caught in the path of a gatling turret or the Uberwaffe and you are downed instantly. On a more positive note, this also includes any zombies that are standing in the splash zone.
• Tactical Suicide Boss: This thing would be completely invincible if it didn't keep opening up its load-bearing turrets to your gunfire.
• Womb Level: The heroes sneak their way inside this thing to destroy it from the inside halfway through the fight, revealing that it is filled with engines and organs alike. Unfortunately, destroying the hearts isn't enough to kill it.

Dead Zeppelin

A gigantic airborne menace, created by Baron Umbra's cult under the codename "Project Valkyrie", piloted by a self-aware Z5 core processor.

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• Arc Villain: For the "Alpine Blitz" and "Dead Zeppelin" DLCs. While it is ultimately just a slave-core to the Rachegeist, it is the more immediate threat.
• Cool Airship: Zeppelins already have a significant cool factor, but a self-aware undead zeppelin is a uniquely dangerous foe.
• Deadly Gas: The zeppelin shoots special "blood bombs" that embed themselves into the ground and release a deadly red gas that instantly zombifies anyone who breathes it in.
• Dread Zeppelin: A zombified zeppelin that rains terror onto the ground below. Its existence is enough of a threat that there are two entire DLC chapters devoted to bringing it down.
• It Can Think: Initially, the Survivor Brigade thinks that it is just a simple A.I. running on a script to automate the cult's factories. It is not until it starts directly referencing their actions and even calling them by name that they realize it is fully sentient.
• Living Ship: A gigantic airship pumped full of necrotic flesh and brought to life by occult rituals, similar to the Hell Machine before it.
• Ramming Always Works: When Alpha Squad sabotages its weapons so it can't launch its bombs anymore, the Z5 core decides that the entire zeppelin has been compromised and sets a course for Paris, intending to ram it into the city and kill as many people as possible.
• Shout-Out: Its name is an obvious reference to Led Zeppelin.
• Womb Level: The final chapter of the "Dead Zeppelin" DLC takes place inside the titular ship, as the heroes had to escape the construction facility before the Z5 core blew it up.

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