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People love zombie stories because they represent hope

Theorry

Theorry

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Oct 27, 2017
61,016
We see alot of discussion lately about "another zombie game" Zombie fatigue" in media and video games in general. This is nice breakdown of why we still love and how ts changing and how zombies isnt really the most important part. Shows also why alot of games have "dadification" in their games now and building
The article is abit short. But watch the vid. Its better and show examples and is only 6 min.



https://www.polygon.com/videos/2018/5/24/17389540/fiend-zone-zombies-state-of-decay-horror

Edit: Watch the vid people. I see alot of posts that the video also addresses.
 
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Deleted member 8861

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I mean, zombie stories are a great setup for scenarios around loyalty, trust, risk-taking, coping with loss, etc.
As well as interpersonal conflicts, of course.

Similar reasons are why, I believe, people enjoy consuming works about people in high-stress situations.
 
badcrumble

badcrumble

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Oct 25, 2017
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Yes, ish. I think that they've become a fully matured genre in the sense that all sorts of extremely different morality plays can happen within it (see also the western).

I do also think, though, that George Romero was 100% right that the zombie apocalypse narrative inherently has race/class anxiety at its heart, though - that 'zombie apocalypse' hobbyist doomsday preppers are on some deep unconscious level fantasizing about bunkering up and mowing down Those Rioting Thugs and so on. The best zombie fiction (again, George Romero) engages with this head-on instead of ignoring it.
 
Redcrayon

Redcrayon

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The Polygon article didn't convince me of it's premise. A single plot point like curing zombie bites in a single franchise like 'State of Decay' isn't enough to suggest the entire genre is about hope when the bigger media franchise, The Walking Dead, makes constant reference to the title being about the remaining humans. The main message of The Last of Us isn't about hope for humanity because pockets of civilisation remain a few years later either. Post-Apocalypse does make a nice playground for pretty much any theme you want to make applicable and retain a background of constant threat though- if zombie media hadn't tried different takes on world building and just made the 'day 1 apocalypse' of Night of the Living Dead over and over again, it wouldn't be as popular as it continues to be. Change and fresh settings and ideas is the link between the popular franchises, I think. There is also a large difference between horror films where the cast largely exists to get killed and downbeat endings are part of the idea, and TV series and games where the viewer/player wills a core group onwards over a period of months or years.
 
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Deleted member 249

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I don't like zombie stories, and think they're a tired trope that to begin with was stupid. I think The Last of Us is the sole and only exception to this general distaste for zombie stories I have, and that was because of how amazing it was in spite of the zombies, not because of them.

inb4 someone points out "but they're not zombies." Don't be pedantic, functionally that's what they are.
 
Astrogamer

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Oct 25, 2017
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I figured it because hordes are a fairly basic method of having semirandom challenge in a shooter and zombies are one of the less ridiculous options for a horde. They are also a good excuse for simple enemy AI
 

Deleted member 6949

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I love zombie stories because they align with my perception that most people are dead-eyed monsters.
 

Faria

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Jan 26, 2018
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Redcrayon said:
The Polygon article didn't convince me of it's premise. A single plot point like curing zombie bites in a single franchise like 'State of Decay' isn't enough to suggest the entire genre is about hope when the bigger media franchise, The Walking Dead, makes constant reference to the title being about the remaining humans. The main message of The Last of Us isn't about hope for humanity because pockets of civilisation remain a few years later either.
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I'd say it's best represented in the RE franchise. Heroes, trained or otherwise, are placed in horrific scenarios and tasked with facing overwhelming odds just to see the light of another day.

Nowadays, the characters willfully enter bio-terror situations but still, it's all to secure a brighter future.
 

Deleted member 14002

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I'm going with misanthropic tendencies and in universe justification to do potentially horrible things.
 
Salty Rice

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Thats weird since i feel like most Zombie stories are hopeless.

Theorry said:
Shows also why alot of games have "dadification" in their games now
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asun

Member
Nov 10, 2017
453
i'm with the "we need to come up with an enemy that we can feel justified doing gruesome things to" trope. i like a number of zombie-themed movies precisely because they can be reflective of deeper social issues. i don't really see that happening much in zombie games.
 
Redcrayon

Redcrayon

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Faria said:
I'd say it's best represented in the RE franchise. Heroes, trained or otherwise, are placed in horrific scenarios and tasked with facing overwhelming odds just to see the light of another day.

Nowadays, the characters willfully enter bio-terror situations but still, it's all to secure a brighter future.
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Fair point. Also, you've got a certain franchise legacy element of the veteran RE investigators being skilled and popular enough to keep returning, whereas in the first game it was easier and part of the horror to kill much the STARs crew off screen early on. Such survivor characters are harder to frighten later in the series (a bit like Ellen Ripley, Sarah Connor etc once their franchise became a mass media moneyspinner) and so contribute to the player being less scared too, in addition to stuff like a main character who once fought a zombie invasion with a handgun now having access to a grenade launcher and dozens of incendiary rounds as the larger genre popularity moves towards action rather than horror.
 
Plum

Plum

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May 31, 2018
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The video doesn't do a good job at backing up its point at all. For one, a good chunk of the examples it uses are of media that aren't about zombies. It also either ignores pretty major examples of 2000s/2010s zombie media (Shaun of the Dead, The Walking Dead, 28 Days/Weeks Later, Dead Rising, Left 4 Dead, Nazi Zombies) or twists messages to fit the point (The Avengers and The Last of Us).

It's 100% correct that zombie media has been used as allegory for social issues since its very inception, but I personally think that most zombie media today either aims to satirise the genre, use zombies as simple cannon fodder, or use zombies as a convenient way to make the story's world post-apocalyptic whilst avoiding actual societal issues. The days of zombie media being used for grand metaphors about societal issues has died down because the zombie genre itself has become too saturated.
 
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Kinthey

Kinthey

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Oct 27, 2017
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I'm not really sure I share the idea that it presents hope. I mean, isn't at the root of it that the entire society gets wiped out so you can finally invent yourself a new? That's why you have a bunch of preppers who wait for an actual apocalypse, because they're so unhappy with the real society.
Many modern zombie stories also put very much the focus on the conflict between people. In Walking Dead for example are the other survivors a much bigger threat than any zombies.
That even after such a tragedy people can't work together and put their differences aside is a rather pessimistic outlook.
 
Astrogamer

Astrogamer

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Oct 25, 2017
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More_Badass said:
Zombies as a horde enemy and zombie stories are two different things
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I initially misread the title as Zombie games (which are what people are tired off) since most people only need 1 or 2 horde modes in their life even if the horde mode is in an open world. It's kind of why DayZ and the like evolved into Battle Royale games. Which is the main issue with zombie Stories, being mostly attached to either power fantasy horde modes or a subdued power fantasy survival mode.
 
Strangelove_77

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We also like blowing off their heads and limbs without them being actual people. It's a nice middle ground.
 
Vela

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The zombie genre also provides a convenient excuse to justify brutally shooting and killing human beings without them ever appearing to be human, i.e. the ultimate Othering, so I guess that's another reason why (some) people find them appealing.
 
senj

senj

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Nov 6, 2017
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Pancracio17 said:
No weve just had decades of zombie stories because people despise them
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I thought that was because Zombies represent Western fears of an unstoppable, faceless horde of "Others" who cannot be reasoned with and seek to consume everything people hold dear -- and those fears became very immediate to consumers post-9/11.

I can't stand the genre, myself.
 
.exe

.exe

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Oct 25, 2017
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I read it's got something to do with whether democrats or republicans are in power.
 
Treasure Silvergun

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Well, I don't love them at all. Zombies have been an extremely trite theme to me since Resident Evil Code Veronica. It's baffling to me that people are still watching/playing these stories.

I mean, when you get stuff like "Pride and prejudice and zombies" everyone should have a good look around and acknowledge that things have gotten out of control, lol
 
Plum

Plum

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BoukObelisk said:
The zombie genre also provides a convenient excuse to justify brutally shooting and killing human beings without them ever appearing to be human, i.e. the ultimate Othering, so I guess that's another reason why (some) people find them appealing.
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In recent years this is definitely the primary reason zombies continue to be such a big thing. Even in the most mature examples of zombie media such as The Last of Us the enemies you fight tend to be either mindless zombies or swarms of cartoonishly evil human beings (Part 2 doesn't seem to be attempting to change this), both groups that are an "other" that has no resemblance to anything in the real world. They provide a great way to add immediate conflict into your story/gameplay without losing mass appeal.
 
QuixoticNeutral

QuixoticNeutral

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Oct 25, 2017
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Never liked zombies to begin with. They're a video game trope largely because they're set up to be morally acceptable targets for mass violence that don't compromise on gratuitous, comical gore. That's true even in games like TWD where direct combat isn't your mode of engagement, where story-wise the trope stands in as a dramatic excuse for characters to smash each other's heads in. Like a great many horror devices in general, I find it utterly trite.

Perhaps there's something psychologically thrilling to the fear of being turned to the enemy against your will, but that's not unique to zombies, and in any case is far less interesting than being drawn into betrayal or a shift of loyalties by persuasion or your own volition. Zombie plots differ from conversion plots (hypnosis, mind control, brainwashing, etc.) only in that they promise a certain irreversibility while providing a flimsy justification for dismemberment, or for violence against uncanny simulacra of people you recognize or hold dear. I've never been able to regard them as anything but dumb. They've never mattered and they don't matter now.
 
mas8705

mas8705

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Oct 27, 2017
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Honestly, I've rarely been one for Zombie games. I find them ok in settings like Resident Evil or Dead Rising but not so much in other medias like The Walking Dead. While I can get the idea of how stories during Zombie outbreaks can represent Hope, it doesn't really seem like that at all when it feels like it can bring out the worst in people too and how it can easily fall into an anarchy where there is no order at all.

It has its audience, and if you like them, all the more power to you. For me, I feel like Zombie apocalypse stories have one of two endings: Either A) You die a meaningless death in the grand scheme of the story, or B) You live another day to eventually get to A sooner or later.

Still, I'll be sure to watch the video when I get the chance later on.
 
Plum

Plum

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May 31, 2018
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Theorry said:
You should watch the vid. As the adress that also.

But i doubt not many watch the vid as i say in the OP. Wich is a shame as its a intresting watch.
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I mean, I watched the video in its entirety and I still don't agree. It omits and twists examples of zombie media to fit its point, and bases much of its argument on a singular reference point (State of Decay) and media with a distinct lack of zombies. You're latching on to the few examples of people who haven't watched the video to imply that "not many" have watched it.
 
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