Gunslingers & Zombies Review

Gunslingers & Zombies is an action-adventure strategy game released on the 15th of January 2021 for PC and later ported to the Nintendo Switch. It was developed by Live Motion Games and published by Gaming Factory. The game mixes two pop-culture tropes, the Wild West and zombies, into an easy pickup and play experience held back by various accessibility issues and a lack of substance. Let’s get into why that is, though. I beat it on the Nintendo Switch, where I mainly played in portable mode.

Gunslingers & Zombies is a straightforward but stylish game, the main goal is to defeat the undead plaguing your town while completing objectives. At the end of each stage, a reward system evaluates your performance with bronze, silver, or gold stars. None of that seemed to matter during my five-hour playthrough, which I was initially sad about, but I eventually came to appreciate it because this title is geared toward newcomers to the genre. I think the developers were trying to be approachable, and I’d say it paid off in some ways but also didn’t in others.

Back to style, for those who have played this game, they might find it weird for me to describe it as “stylish” so hear me out. Gunslingers & Zombies takes place in a desolate Old West town, consisting of desert, rickety buildings, and cowboys and cowgirls. What makes it interesting is how it executes this style. Once in a while, when you kill an enemy, an action camera will take over the gameplay showing a team member stabbing or shooting the zombie dead. I liked this addition, and there are others too, such as how we get story details before each mission and how the music that plays over every battle is great. None of those design choices are amazing in the grand scheme of things, but they at least give the world a sense of legitimacy.

Unfortunately, with this being a PC port, it has affected some of those design decisions. The readability of the text before and during battle is pretty abysmal, to put it lightly. I swore off playing it on my TV because of this issue due to some of the text being nearly unreadable without squinting. Using brown text against a white background was not the greatest choice, and the game falters in other ways. There were a few instances where the left stick on my Pro Controller overshot my input, causing me to select the wrong square and forcing me to reset entire levels. Making matters worse is that there aren’t any checkpoints for any of these levels.

Now, to be fair, it’s not the most challenging game out there, and it only takes a few minutes to figure out each puzzle; plus, you can heal your team with a limited amount of bandages. But if you want to make your title acceptable, why not go all the way, ya know? I’m not looking for a children’s game, but if this game is supposed to be for newcomers, I can see this issue causing some headaches. Thankfully, the developers picked up the slack in other areas. Choosing your weapon is done through a radial menu which I appreciate — and the team even added a fun little detail where each zombie has a subtitle underneath their name. Some of these were pretty funny, too, such as “Bite off a hand” and “Ate a leg.” It’s not a major thing, but it’s still great.

Thankfully, it’s easy to understand how the game plays. Each team member has a limited number of moves, and you need to get them into position to eliminate the enemy. There are various guns, and it’s fun to experiment with all of them. You will likely pick a favourite, but you can also run out of ammo, forcing you to use a knife. Each move made by each team member is done in one turn, and once finished, it’s the zombie’s turn to make a decision. The challenging part is keeping an eye on each part of the level, as there will often be a zombie at the back of the stage, forcing you to have someone back there to keep an eye on it.

It feels like you’re playing a real board game, which comes to mind when you make a move on the grid. Then, when you kill a zombie, some close-up action kills help the player feel closer to the action. I know I said this game is very stylish, and it is, but it does lack some of the pizzazz found in other titles. Maybe the team could’ve added more to this department with a bit more work. The three difficulty settings help the game last. It is a short game that can be won quickly if you play it continuously. So you can win it in one mode and then come back and play it on another challenge. It’s not a bad game; it’s just held back by the fact that it’s a port, and it lacks that extra thing making other entries in the genre a little bit better.

Gunslingers & Zombies is a simple game to enjoy, and it’s filled with guns, zombies, cowpoke, and many fun puzzles that make you scratch your head. So while I would’ve liked to have seen more effort put into its accessibility and polish, it’s still great for those new to the genre.