''Zombie Panic! Source'' is a cooperative survival-horror ''
Half-Life 2
''Half-Life 2'' is a 2004 first-person shooter game developed by Valve. It was published by Valve through its distribution service Steam. Like the original ''Half-Life'' (1998), ''Half-Life 2'' combines shooting, puzzles, and storytelling, and ...
''
first-person shooter
First-person shooter (FPS) is a sub-genre of shooter video games centered on gun and other weapon-based combat in a first-person perspective, with the player experiencing the action through the eyes of the protagonist and controlling the pl ...
mod
Mod, MOD or mods may refer to:
Places
* Modesto City–County Airport, Stanislaus County, California, US
Arts, entertainment, and media Music
* Mods (band), a Norwegian rock band
* M.O.D. (Method of Destruction), a band from New York City, US ...
ification. It is the sequel to the ''
Half-Life
Half-life (symbol ) is the time required for a quantity (of substance) to reduce to half of its initial value. The term is commonly used in nuclear physics to describe how quickly unstable atoms undergo radioactive decay or how long stable ato ...
'' mod ''Zombie Panic.'' Set in the middle of a
zombie apocalypse
Zombie apocalypse is a genre of fiction in which society collapses due to overwhelming swarms of zombies. Typically only a few individuals or small bands of survivors are left living. In some versions, the reason the dead rise and attack hum ...
, players start as a small group of survivors attempting to stay alive. Each map will have its own objectives to complete and win the round or survive by a period of time.
Initially released on December 28, 2007, via
Mod DB
Mod DB is a website that focuses on general video game modding. It was founded in 2002 by Scott "INtense!" Reismanis. As of September 2015, the Mod DB site has received over 604 million views, has more than 12,500 modifications registered, and ...
page as a
public beta
A software release life cycle is the sum of the stages of development and maturity for a piece of computer software ranging from its initial development to its eventual release, and including updated versions of the released version to help impro ...
(v1.0) and later re-released for Steam via
Steamworks
Steam is a video game digital distribution service and storefront by Valve. It was launched as a software client in September 2003 as a way for Valve to provide automatic updates for their games, and expanded to distributing and offering third ...
on October 8, 2008, as a
free-to-play
Free-to-play (F2P or FtP) video games are games that give players access to a significant portion of their content without paying or do not require paying to continue playing. Free-to-play is distinct from traditional commercial software, which ...
game.
Gameplay
At the start of each round, players can either choose to join the human team or volunteer to be the first zombie. If no one volunteers the game will pick one zombie randomly, and the game begins. The starter zombie's goal is to kill the humans while the human goal is to stay alive as long as possible, complete objectives, or even wipe out all the zombies. The catch is that when a human dies he will simply join the ranks of the undead, now ready to finish off his old living teammates. The humans cannot tell by the player list who is alive and who is undead.
Eventually, there will only be one survivor still standing if everything goes wrong, his back against the wall while facing the animated corpses of his former allies. In a survival round, the zombies team only has a certain number of reinforcements (lives), and when a zombie is killed they lose a life from the counter. However, when a human is killed they gain 1 life. When the zombies run out of lives, the remaining survivors win the round by killing off the remaining
undead
The undead are beings in mythology, legend, or fiction that are deceased but behave as if alive. Most commonly the term refers to corporeal forms of formerly-alive humans, such as mummies, vampires, and zombies, who have been reanimated by super ...
left on the map. In objective rounds, zombies get an unlimited number of lives while the humans must complete a variety of map-based objectives to win.
Development
''Zombie Panic! Source'' began development in early 2005, and released their first public beta on December 28, 2007.
On October 8, 2008, it was one of the first five "mods" to be released on
Steam
Steam is a substance containing water in the gas phase, and sometimes also an aerosol of liquid water droplets, or air. This may occur due to evaporation or due to boiling, where heat is applied until water reaches the enthalpy of vaporization ...
by
Valve
A valve is a device or natural object that regulates, directs or controls the flow of a fluid (gases, liquids, fluidized solids, or slurries) by opening, closing, or partially obstructing various passageways. Valves are technically fittings ...
under their new commitment to easily accessible quality user-created modifications in the Steam Store.
See also
*''
Contagion''
*
List of zombie video games
This is an incomplete list of video games strongly featuring zombies. These games feature creatures inspired by the archetypal flesh-eating zombies seen in horror films, B-movies and literature; such as in the films of George A. Romero. Other var ...
*
Survival horror
Survival horror is a subgenre of survival of the players as the game tries to frighten them with either horror graphics or scary ambience. Although combat can be part of the gameplay, the player is made to feel less in control than in typical ac ...
References
External links
*
''Zombie Panic! Source'' at ModDB
{{Source modifications
2007 video games
Source (game engine) mods
Video games about zombies
First-person shooters
Multiplayer online games
Windows games
Windows-only games
Video games featuring black protagonists