God Save Birmingham, an upcoming zombie survival game by Korean devs Ocean Drive Studio, answers an important question. “What’s worse than being in a zombie apocalypse?” Easy – being in England. Originally debuting at Gamescom 2024, a recently released gameplay trailer shows God Save Birmingham with a major facelift. Majorly improved textures, utterly fluid animations, and a much slower pace fill almost nine minutes of new gameplay footage. But for some, the latest trailer rings a few alarms, with more than a few viewers likening it to The Day Before.
‘God Save Birmingham’ may be the next big zombie hit
God Save Birmingham promises realistic zombie survival with deadly physics in 14th-century England. On the surface, it’s a fantastic-looking game with animation quality that rivals even the best Naughty Dog titles. In fact, some of the animations, like drive-by looting an apple off a table, look eerily similar to The Last of Us.
I’ll admit, it certainly has me giving a bombastic side-eye. While I’m not quite ready to question whether the gameplay is completely fake or not, many moments almost certainly follow a script. And, from the YouTube and Reddit comments I’ve seen, I’m not the only one.
“The ‘Looting…’ circle popping up and not matching the animation at all, and the move object icon only popping up when the character actually interacted with something were dead giveaways. It’s clearly some prerendered video they slapped some icons on to make it look like gameplay,” one Reddit user says.
Well, isn’t that convenient?
Certain moments in the God Save Birmingham trailer show the character interacting with the physical objects around them. At other times, the crosshair glazes right over other, once-interactable objects, without any on-screen prompt showing. Another moment features our protagonist in a moment of respite, tucked away in a secluded shack. When he approaches a bubbling cauldron, we hear the distinct sounds of boiling water. After a scripted event occurs in which a zombie busts through a nearby window, the boiling sounds are gone. Despite the character (and camera) still being near the cauldron.
Other questionable sequences, like dispatching three zombies in a bedroom and smoothly pinning another’s head against a wall for an axe smash, reek of choreography. After narrowly escaping a horde – and by that, I mean a horde conveniently waiting for the character to pick up a ladder and use it as a bridge before advancing – the protagonist falls into a toolshed. Once he finds a nearby pitchfork and an escape through a door, he’s face to face with another horde outside. And in that moment, when the trailer has a chance to showcase more freeform combat, the segment abruptly ends.
“Him opening the door with the pitchfork in front of a dozen zombies and just standing there while it fades to play before fading back him just blandly walking is such a big red flag. This is your big reveal trailer and all you show is him walking around with some basic interacting using a bunch of quixel megascan,” another Reddit user comments.
The initial ‘God Save Birmingham’ trailer may be closer to reality
God Save Birmingham‘s initial reveal trailer, released just eight months ago, paints quite a different picture.
In it, we see the main character running around various areas of a village. Though there’s never any actual combat shown, the protagonist is seen holding a pitchfork throughout the trailer. The majority of the footage features zombies tumbling over objects. Almost a quarter of the trailer shows the survivor lighting a brazier before using it to light a torch.
Next week, an exclusive playable demo for God Save Birmingham will be available at PAX East. And if I were a betting man, I’d wager it’ll look a lot like last year’s trailer than the latest exclusive reveal shown this week. Hey, I’d love to be wrong – and I genuinely hope I am. This week’s reveal shows one of the most promising zombie survival games I’ve seen in a while. Be nice to find out it’s not all rubbish, innit?
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