World War Z: Aftermath Xbox Series X Review

World War Z offers many of the attributes people loved from Left 4 Dead. It had strong shooting mechanics, incredible large-scale battles, and diverse campaigns that had players traveling around the world during a zombie plague. With Aftermath Saber Interactive has added 3 more campaigns, new enemies, and many more ways to replay the title. It doesn't add any new competitive options and still suffers from technical problems but those who loved the original will find more to enjoy with Aftermath.
 

 

As the title convey this takes place after the original campaigns. Players will travel to France, Italy, and Russia in these new adventures. In Marseille the last of the French defenders will attempt to push back a massive swarm coming towards, them, Rome has engineers attempting to take back the city in a grand plan, and Kamchatka sees our Japanese friends from Tokyo attempting to survive the Winter when stranded in Russia.

With the exception of Episode 7, each campaign remains separate from one another and has distinct characters in the mix. Players can choose from 1 of 4 characters and 8 classes, the newest being the Vanguard. Which adds a new defensive class for players to try out.
 

 

Other new additions include new enemy types like swarming plague rats and suicide bomber zombies. In terms of objectives, the game remains the same, clearing out hordes in giant wave-based battles and while through the level while getting key items that are randomly placed in the environment. The developers did add more environmental hazards but these are only in the final episode where the player can freeze to death, requiring players to turn on heaters to remain warm. There was one section in France when you went into a dark office space in a sewer that really added some tension and I wish more of these were in the game.

Leveling is traditional, you earn experience and points to upgrade each class and weapon. Each class has 4 tiers followed by a prestige rank with sub-options and weapons have several options that unlock base on use. Everything requires points to unlock, each time you complete a level you earn points based on the difficulty of the stage you completed.

A new addition is first-person. Going into the options menu allows you to play the game as a FPS but not fully. Your character is still thrown into third-person when climbing and interacting. There's also no holding down the sights, instead, it just zooms. It's a nice choice but feels more like a mod than a fully-featured option.
 

 

The grind has not improved and unlocking all the gear will take a lot of time. Especially if you want to 100% the game. Unfortunately, the game does not include new achievements for the Aftermath content. There are vials of the virus hidden throughout the stage, if collected and carried to the end of the level without taking too much damage you'll get a bonus in experience.

In terms of cosmetics many almost everything is locked behind coins earned through the Challenge Mode. The amount of coins you get is so small that unlocking a single item can be tedious. I wish they bundled coins in with points to give a better sense of progression.

Those hoping for improvements to the technical quality, well some improvements have been made. Joining matches has definitely improved from the original launch and there are fewer glitches. I still noticed audio problems such as sound not playing during certain actions, clipping, Sofia's hair in Holy Ground appearing as boxed textures, and AI allies being hard to deal with. Whereas the enemy AI does a good job of pressuring the player you'll want to play with friends. The AI can shoot properly but refuses to pick up more powerful weapons, lacks class upgrades, and will not carry key items so you'll have to do the brunt of the work. Worse if you have to key NPC alive since they cannot fight effectively and the AI simply follows wherever you go this can often mean the NPC will die, especially on harder options.
 

 

Those who enjoyed the competitive option for World War Z will be sad to hear no more content was added through the Aftermath update. It's not surprising consider competitive multiplayer died down dramatically after launch and more cooperative content was high in demand. Still, 1 new map would've been nice.

World War Z Aftermath delivers a safe series of content updates. It adds some minor additions and the campaigns are definitely fun but they play the same as the original content. When taken as a whole package World War Z Aftermath has dozens of hours of replayable missions but those deciding to return will have to ask whether they loved the content they already experienced. World War Z Aftermath offers many hours of zombie slaying fun that encourages you to keep coming back for more.
 

Adam Siddiqui,
Managing Editor, NoobFeed