When we heard about Exor Studios' Zombie Driver we were pretty excited, and it was obvious that many of you were, too. We quickly shot an email to Pawel Lekki, Chief Operating Officer at Exor Studios, and set up a short interview. Check out the screenshots, too, they're brand new! Here's the interview:

Zombie Driver looks great! The style is fairly unique, what inspired the game? What are you favorite zombie movies/books

The main inspiration for Zombie Driver was to make a game that we would want to play. There aren't many games with a traditional top down view like that and we felt that there is a gap that we need to fill. We had some really good time while playing GTA1/2 as well as Carmageddon and we thought that it would be cool to combine both of them with a bit of our DIPRIP style using modern 3D graphics and effects. Zombies were a natural choice for an enemy in the game rather than an inspiration. Movies - "Braindead", "28 Days Later", "Shaun of the Dead" and "Dawn of the Dead". Books - Lovecraft's Reanimator.

What's behind the name?

The name tells a bit about the game and there is also a twist. I don't want to put any spoilers here, but more will be unveiled in the game's story.

How does the gameplay work? You already mentioned that it was inspired a bit by Grand Theft Auto, will any other top-down shooter mechanics make it into the title?

Yes, controlling the car is quite similar to GTA2, with the same ease and arcade feel. One of our goals was to make the game playable with just one hand so the controls are very easy to get into. You can control your car using arrow keys or WSAD, Space works as hand break and shift or control fires your current weapon (if you have one), its really that simple. The weapons shoot in front of the car so you will have to maneuver to aim at zombies. Bigger groups of zombies are hard to break through by just smashing your car through them so you will have to help yourself with guns. Controls are really easy to learn but knowing how to approach different groups of zombies is a skill that you will have to learn during the game.



Can players get out of their vehicles?

No. You can move only in one of the 7 different cars.

What kinds of weapons are we looking at for the vehicles? Guns and such, or will there be some more classic items (i.e. chainsaws)?

The primary weapon is your car alone and it comes with "unlimited ammo". It can be fitted with armour, spikes and such for extra ramming capacity. Besides that you will have miniguns, flamethrower, rockets and railguns at your disposal - each one with three upgrade levels (i.e. a fully upgraded rocket launcher fires two rockets instead of one).

What types of locations will be present in the open world?

The story takes place in an infected city under quarantine. You start at the suburbs in a quickly deployed, military field base. As the story progresses you will get access to an urban district and the center with high modern buildings. Besides that there is a whole industrial area, harbor, airport, train station and gardens close to the forest. The whole city is separated with a river into 3 parts of land and you will have to cross one of the several bridges to get there.



Can you give any details on the story?

You start as a lucky survivor in one of the field military bases that have been established inside the city after the chemical accident. The army wont let you out because of the quarantine and they also can't start any official rescue attempts because of bureaucracy. You decide to help the survivors yourself with some unofficial help from the army... Some people are also talking about a certain corporation trying to slow down any rescue attempts within the city. The plot slowly unveils as you progress through the game.

Will there be any multiplayer?

No. The game and its story is built for a singleplayer experience.

Will there be destructible environments?

There will be a lot of stuff to destroy... more than 5 000 destructible objects on the entire map like cars, fences, street lamps, telephone booths etc. We are still adding more things that you can break, I'd say this is our hobby :)



Was there any concern that the market might be too saturated with zombie-related media?

We had concerns about that and indeed there have been many zombie games recently but still we don't think that it's a major issue. Zombie Driver's gameplay is quite unique and we focus on making the game actually fun to play rather then thinking up some modern art just for the sake of art itself. I'm sure that there are people that will say "not another zombie game" and will never play it because of that but in the same time I think it's a mistake. They will simply miss a lot of fun.

With the amount of video games on the market right now featuring the undead, how will Zombie Driver bring something different to the zombie apocalypse?

The majority of zombie games out there are first or third person perspective shooters in which you control a human character. In Zombie Driver you drive a car with lots of guns that you can upgrade. We even have a bus... I don't think there are many games like that with or without zombies.

Thanks Pawel Lekki! Check back for more information on Zombie Driver soon!