Pre-Undead: The War Z Beta Is Proving Popular

The War Z isn't the same game as Day Z. That's the sort of mantra I have to recite to myself, especially a week after I confused Watch Dogs with Sleeping Dogs. Videogames - get more distinct names! War Z is of course an MMO about zombies, rather than... whatever genre Day Z fits into. And they've just announced they've had more than 100,000 registrations for their closed beta, so clearly there's a lot of interest out there for it. If you want to join in with that interest, there's now a proper website for it.

The final game is due out this Autumn - presumably they're not nailing it down any more than that before they run the beta. But the game's senior designer, Eric Nordin, says the interest that's already been shown has been a real boost.

"The response in the first week since we announced the game has been incredible and it’s totally inspired the team. We’ve been following all of the comments on the various forums as well as our Facebook page and it really validates that we’re creating something that gamers want to play. We’re going to continue working hard and make sure we deliver the best game possible!”

Like its zee-named friend, despite being an MMO the focus here is on survival, even featuring permadeath. Clearly it's going to receive a lot of comparison with Day Z, and it'll be interesting to see if that works out favourably. But of course, being released in a few months it's obviously been in the works a long time before Day Z became a Thing. Although I hope to goodness they've had the sense to pay attention to their soon-to-be rival to borrow what works, and avoid what doesn't.

The new site is currently a touch confusing. They've got big PREORDER buttons all over, offering a closed beta place for those who do, but they don't actually link to any such thing. Instead, it's still taking you to the regular beta sign-up form. So, I've no idea if that's going to change in the near future.