World of the Living Dead is officially…dead, but a reboot will be filling the void later this summer.
After a year in open beta, the browser-based zombie survival strategy game will no longer see the light of day, independent game developer Ballardia Games announced earlier this week. After the developers surveyed the issues during one of gaming’s longer beta periods, they also announced that the rebuilt version of the game, called World of the Living Dead: Resurrection, will launch later this summer.
While there was early critical acclaim for the game, that proved to be a smokescreen for what the developers identified as the game’s form and infrastructure problems that would not be able to sustain a full release. The game simply was unable to handle the large influx of players generated by its unique use of Google Maps to provide a “real-life” zombie survival game.
“We’ve made substantial design changes – restructuring the universe into grids, extracting information from a rich real-world data set and making these grids and data work together to provide a much more scalable game.” –Ballardia Games co-founder, Kulpreet Singh.
The game’s user faithful, however, will not be left to “turn” when the game dies out. The company has announced that loyal players will receive “special in-game gifts” when the new game launches. “Any unspent NECRA Credits will also be transferred across to their new accounts.” A closed beta also will hold a limited number of existing users beginning in July.
The developers will be releasing information about the reasoning behind closing the server on the official blog, as well as other information pertaining to improvements to the game and new features.
