#KILLALLZOMBIES

I came to #KILLALLZOMBIES skeptical - a title that reads like a 2012 tweet does not inspire confidence - and my first twenty minutes did nothing to soften that. You start armed with a weak pistol, dropped onto a honeycomb hex-grid arena with zombies filing in from every side and almost no context for why any of it is happening. The game quietly implies you are a contestant on some dystopian survival TV show, but it never actually tells you this; you will piece it together, if at all, from a store description. That absence of framing is a small but real shame, because the core loop does have a pulse once it gets moving. The hex-grid arena is the game's one genuinely clever idea, and it earns its keep. Sections of the floor rise to form walls, drop to open chasms, or flash red before hazards crash down from above - vehicles, spiked pylons, even the occasional absurd cameo object. That shifting geometry forces you to stay mobile and rewards spatial awareness in a way a static floor never would. Layered on top is a perk system that fires at level-up: four random options appear and you pick one, accepting trade-offs like boosted speed at the cost of damage, or a scarecrow decoy that draws zombies away from you. The weapon roster eventually opens up from that frustrating starting pistol to shotguns, assault rifles, and a few weapons strange enough to raise an eyebrow. None of them feel especially crisp - the shooting has always been criticised for loose accuracy - but the variety at least keeps each run from feeling identical. The three modes are Survival (outlast the horde and chase a high score), Vault Defense (protect a central objective while the floor tries to kill you), and local co-op. Vault Defense is the weakest of the three; the camera sits too close to the action, enemy approach angles are nearly invisible, and the difficulty spikes hard and early in a way that feels like an oversight rather than a design choice. Local co-op is, honestly, where the game breathes easiest. Two people on a couch, shouting about perk choices while the floor collapses, is the context this game was quietly built for. The Twitch integration - which lets stream viewers vote on spawning more zombies, altering enemy speed, or messing with terrain - is an interesting idea that feels finicky in practice, and given how quiet the game's community has become since 2016, you will need an active audience to get any mileage out of it. Technical notes from the PC version are worth flagging: a segment of players reported poor optimisation, GPU stress, and a limited options menu with no resolution or graphics settings to speak of. Those are real concerns on older hardware. On modern rigs and handhelds, Steam Deck compatibility is confirmed and the game runs without incident. The rock soundtrack is energetic for the first couple of sessions, then fades into background noise that you stop registering. The sound design on weapons is thin. These are not dealbreakers, but they add to the cumulative sense that the game was shipped lean and never substantially expanded. For a certain type of player - someone who hunts high scores obsessively, or regularly has a friend on the couch looking for something immediate and low-friction - #KILLALLZOMBIES offers genuine short-burst satisfaction. The perk roulette and the restless floor give it just enough variability to justify one more run. But if you are coming in solo expecting a deep arcade experience comparable to Crimsonland or Geometry Wars, the repetition will find you before the hour mark. Steam reviews land at roughly 79% positive across a modest review count, which feels about right: more people leave happy than frustrated, but nobody is calling it a genre standout. Approach it as a session game, not a destination. Kai, Scout Team