Zombicide: 2nd Edition – First Impressions
Everything comes in threes with CMON. Three designers for the 2nd Edition—Raphaël Guiton, Jean-Baptiste Lullien, and Nicolas Raoult. Three bajillion dollars have been made with the Zombicide series—that’s an accurate statistic, mind you. And then there are three reasons to play the game—zombies, an endless buffet of Kickstarter exclusive minis, and the unquenchable desire to join the masses and bow before the CMON marketing gods.
But… if that’s not enough for you, then here’s the too long, didn’t read: Zombicide is a best-selling board game series published by CMON, with millions of copies sold and numerous iterations spawned over the last decade. It’s accrued a huge fanbase and it forces players to keep survivors alive through waves of zombie hordes while completing objectives and scavenging for weapons and supplies.
It’s a cooperative favorite of many. It’s a wildly successful series. And Zombicide: 2nd Edition continues the streak of big campaigns and lots of plastic paraphernalia on the tabletop. As the original gets a mani-pedi, let’s see if it’s worth your time… and your bullets.
What It Does
This is an objective-based, mission-oriented board game in which players must direct Survivors around a tile-grid board during a zombie apocalypse. Objectives are strewn across the map and players must navigate to them while evading rushing zombies—Walkers, Runners, Fatties, and Abominations. As players complete objectives and kill zombies, they’ll increase in Adrenaline Points, which allow them to get stronger. However, with more strength and zed-slaying acumen comes heightened awareness of the zombie plague, who will rush in with greater numbers to confront these empowered Survivors.
While you can play ordinary missions that aren’t tied to any grand narrative thread, players can also embark on a campaign of bullets and mayhem as they link together missions in one big Zombicide story.
Zombicide: 2nd Edition gives the original game a new lease on the undead life. It features new art and miniatures while also updating rules for faster setup and more streamlined play. The gameplay remains true to the series, though.
Kill zombies. Find things in buildings. Kill more zombies. Get out alive.
It’s as simple as that. To explain. Not to actually do, though. Because zombies.
How It Does It
Zombicide is a cooperative action-selection game. Players figure out what they want to do between Moving, Searching, Completing an Objective, and Ranged/Melee Attacks. Those are the four main choices for a player to consider.
Moving is how you get around, but it’s harder if there are zombies in your space.
Searching can only happen once per character’s turn, and it could just as likely spawn new zombies as it could provide a new weapon.
Completing an objective gives a solid Adrenaline Point boost and pushes the team toward the endgame, but they are spread out across the map, requiring coordination to get there safely.
Hacking up a zombie with an axe or shooting them in the face. Both will work, but each one has its ups and downs. Melee attacks frequently don’t do as much damage and may not kill harder zombies. And using firearms might be a deadlier attack but the noise draws unwanted attention from more zombies.
Then, each character might have starting abilities or upgraded ones that influence how those four actions are resolved. One Kid Survivor might be slippery and move faster. One female Survivor could be a Sniper with a reduced chance of friendly fire. Another could search more than once. As the different characters gain Adrenaline Points, players will start to develop a diversified approach to the obstacles in front of them.
Finally, the dice. They’ll bring you luck. They’ll bring you disaster. It all depends on fate (and the mitigating factors that a ragtag group of Survivors) can add to the equation. You might need some luck to win Zombicide, but your brains might be able to do it just fine if you keep them in your head and out of a zombie’s mouth.
Why You Might Like It
Satisfying character progression set within updated, high-quality components will draw many drooling board game fans who want to drink from the Zombicide well. It’s a fresh look at a modern classic.
With both regular and campaign play, there is a significant amount of content for players to enjoy. Each one has its merits, but the campaign will definitely invest a group in the gameplay with more nuance and narrative inclusion.
Why You Might Not
Other Zombicide games (with expansions) create a level of variety and difficulty that doesn’t seem to be present in this second edition. If you’re already a Zombicide fan, then this might not win you over compared to other editions in your collection.
While the updated rules and artwork create a new version of the game for players to love, the familiar modern post-apocalyptic theme doesn’t evoke the same mystique in its world-building as other versions like Black Plague or the upcoming Undead or Alive.
Final Thoughts
Zombicide is one of those series with a massive following. People in the board game community love it. CMON has no shortage of backers whenever a campaign goes live. Each time a Zombicide game launches, you can expect millions of dollars to be cashed in for the chance to slay more of the undead.
And yet… I was rather underwhelmed by 2nd Edition. I’ve been told that Black Plague is the best of the bunch, but I can’t judge a game based on the potential of another, so that doesn’t really help here. To be clear, I’ve only played one time, hence the First Impressions part of this. However, I don’t anticipate my feelings changing much. Even with successive plays. The central gameplay of moving around and picking up tokens while avoiding and/or attacking zombies did not hold my interest.
What I did like was the character progression that is very neatly organized on the plastic player dashboards. Having characters increase in skill as they kill zombies or complete objectives was a fun way to slowly differentiate their playstyles from each other. That was a positive in my gameplay experience. Controlling a slippery kid who greases past a zombie before running headlong into another fight with a machete was just as interesting as controlling a sniper with military-grade equipment who could send bullets flying past allies and into the rotting cerebral cortexes of the flesh-hungry hordes.
For the full game that I played, though, it was a rather monotonous procedure of:
Move character
Shoot zombie
Possibly search or pick up a token
Lather the gun with oil; rinse the blood off; repeat
That wasn’t enough for me. It’s possible the campaign makes it better, but I have campaign games already that I enjoy more. So I feel no need to invest more time in 2nd Edition. I think fans of Zombicide will find something to appreciate, but if I’m going to play an entry in the series in the future, it would probably be Black Plague.
At the end of the day, it was too easy, lacking a tactical complexity that I had hoped for, and empty of the soul that other games in my collection (and maybe other entries in the Zombicide series) possess.
There’s definitely something here. It’s just not what I’m looking for and I’m not sure Zombicide: 2nd Edition ever would be.
If you want to check out Zombicide: 2nd Edition, you can visit CMON or read what the community thinks on BoardGameGeek.
Have you played any of the Zombicide games? What’s your favorite one?
Let us know in the comments and give a recommendation for other games of which to share our first impressions.