Released earlier this month, Zombieville USA 3D is a new, super-stylish top-down indie roguelike zombie shooter that is both simple and incredibly well made, with fantastically responsive controls and impressive animation and art. And it currently costs less that $10.
Developed by tiny indie studio Mika, Zombieville USA 3D is a sequel to the studio’s extremely popular Zombieville and Zombieville 2, both early mobile game successes released in 2009 and 2011, respectively. Those games were 2D and level based. Zombieville USA 3D is, as the name implies, in 3D and is much bigger, featuring a large cartoon town overrun with deadly zombies. You start with a single pistol and survive as long as you can while racking up cash. When you die, you return to a hub, have the chance to spend your money to buy permeant upgrades, and then return to the fray.
It’s a simple formula found in plenty of other roguelike games, and Zombieville USA 3D doesn’t really shake any of this up in a major way. Instead, the small team behind it have focused entirely on making a really, really good version of this kind of game with slick visuals and satisfying action. A big reason the combat feels so good is because of excellent feedback via energetic animations. Everything you do, from walking and running to shooting and hacking or smashing enemies to bits looks great thanks to a slick art style and snappy animations that have a nice bounce to them.
According to the game’s lead developer on Reddit, who has mostly worked as a VFX artist and animator, the idea is that these “juicy” and “extra” visuals will help Zombieville 3D USA stand out among all the other games on Steam. And, in my case at least, it worked. When I was scrolling through Steam’s Spring Sale, I randomly spotted this game in the “Under $10” section and its art and animation immediately made me click to see more. A few hours later I had played a ton of Zombieville 3D USA on both my PC and my Steam Deck.
On Steam Deck I recommend knocking the visual settings down to medium and locking the FPS to 60 to get more battery life and a very stable experience. Once I did that, Zombieville 3D USA played perfectly on Valve’s portable PC. On my desktop PC, though, Zombieville 3D USA looks even better with raytracing and high-resolution options.
Regardless of how you play it, Zombieville 3D USA is a fantastic little indie zombie shooter that even supports online co-op. It demonstrates that a successful game doesn’t have to be massive or completely reinvent the wheel. Sometimes, all you have to do is perfectly nail a simple gameplay loop and make sure your game looks cool as heck and you’ll end up with something special that catches people’s eyes.
Zombieville 3D USA is currently available on Steam for $8. It’s price will increase to $10 this weekend.
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