Sniper Elite: Nazi Zombie Army 2 crawls from the grave later this year
Sniper Elite: Nazi Zombie Army was released in February as an entertaining off-shoot of the staid Sniper Elite V2, but the idea of re-killing fascist corpses from afar proved such a hit with fans that developer Rebellion has announced a sequel.
"We really wanted to heighten the demonic, nightmarish tones of the first game," said Rebellion's head of creative, Tim Jones. "The environments, the levels, the soundtrack all give a strong feeling of descent - each encounter, each level becoming progressively more hellish. Most importantly though, we've expanded the legions of Nazi undead with some really intimidating new enemies which we'll reveal soon."
The game is currently slated for release on the PC "later this year." A console port is possible, but without a publisher backing the project Rebellion's best hope lies in the promised self-publishing initiatives of the Xbox One and PlayStation 4.
"We have to admit, we underestimated the demand for the original game. All of sudden we had console gamers desperate for us to port the game to 360 and PS3, but without a publisher this just wasn't feasible. We left a lot of Sniper Elite fans disappointed," stated Jones. "They didn't want to hear excuses from us, they just wanted to play it".
"As an independent, we're obviously really excited about what we're hearing from Sony and Microsoft when it comes to self publishing on PS4 and Xbox One. We think the series could be a great fit for them."
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Rebellion reveals sequel to Sniper Elite: Nazi Zombie Army
Launching on PC this year, other platforms hinted
Independent UK developer Rebellion today announced that a sequel to Steam best-seller Sniper Elite: Nazi Zombie Army (NZA) is already in development and will launch this year on PC.
Gamers can sign-up to get pre-order notifications via email here: http://goo.gl/Pzixwj
New campaign. New terrors
Directly following the aftermath of the nerve-shredding climax to the first game, Sniper Elite: Nazi Zombie Army 2 follows franchise stalwart Karl Fairburne and his three allies as they battle back into the dark heart of Berlin to put an end to the occult powers that reside there once and for all.
But as Head of Creative, Tim Jones explains their unholy adversaries haven't been idle, and neither have Rebellion:
"We really wanted to heighten the demonic, nightmarish tones of the first game. The environments, the levels, the soundtrack all give a strong feeling of descent - each encounter, each level becoming progressively more hellish. Most importantly though, we've expanded the legions of Nazi undead with some really intimidating new enemies which we'll reveal soon."
The next chapter in a 'breakout' series.
Launched in February of this year, the original NZA was imagined as a fun spin-off project between games, but the incredible reaction from gamers took the whole studio by surprise as Rebellion founder and CEO Jason Kingsley explains:
"It was amazing. At that point we hadn't announced Sniper Elite 3. A lot of Sniper Elite V2 fans had been asking for 4-player co-op content, and we thought it would be a good test of our gameplay mechanics. So we thought 'Why not?" and self-published it."
"What we got though was a breakout hit. The co-op and the price put the game on the map, and suddenly we were at the top of the Steam charts. We had hundreds and hundreds of requests from YouTube channels wanting to do "Let's Plays" and reviews, and the game just took off. When we had a second to breathe, we looked at the player data and it turns out most of them had never actually played another Sniper Elite game. We never knew it would tap into such a broad audience."
Will the series ever see the light of day on other platforms?
"We have to admit, we underestimated the demand for the original game. All of sudden we had console gamers desperate for us to port the game to 360 and PS3, but without a publisher this just wasn't feasible. We left a lot of Sniper Elite fans disappointed. They didn't want to hear excuses from us, they just wanted to play it".
"As an independent, we're obviously really excited about what we're hearing from Sony and Microsoft when it comes to self publishing on PS4 and Xbox One. We think the series could be a great fit for them."
Key facts:
Stand-alone sequel to Steam best-seller Sniper Elite: Nazi Zombie Army.
Launching on PC later this year. Other platforms TBC.
Gamers can get pre-order notifications here: http://goo.gl/Pzixwj
Completely new campaign for up to 4 players.
Atmospheric new environments, new enemies, new animations.
Includes the 'Enemy Multiplier' feature added to the first game allowing players to change the number of enemies they face.
