The ‘Battlegrounds’ Community is Bringing Zombie Mode to the Game

In PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds, up to 100 players jump out of a cargo plane onto a desolate island covered with weapons and equipment they need to defend themselves. Once they’re properly equipped, just like a scenario from The Hunger Games, the game pushes every player closer and closer together with an artificial barrier — forcing them to fight to the death until only one player remains standing alive. It’s a challenging concept to survive but one that keeps your blood pumping until you claim the title of victor after a few tense firefights with other players. For some, the basic concept behind Battlegrounds is getting old, however, and that’s how the game’s latest community creation was born.

Made popular recently by Twitch streamers and YouTube content creators, “Zombie mode” pits a squad of four or five survivors against an entire server of players, armed with nothing more than melee weapons. Zombies aren’t allowed to sneak or wear clothes, armor, or equipment, however, and are required to charge at any of the living players full force once they’ve been spotted. Survivors, on the other hand, can use any weapon or piece of equipment (except for vehicles), and are required to play in first person without using any sort of medical equipment to heal themselves after taking damage.

Naturally, if you’re a zombie your goal is to kill the survivors, and if you’re a survivor you need to kill all the zombies on the map to win. When everyone plays according to the rules, the result is an absolutely terrifying experience that brings back some fond memories from the DayZ Mod days of 2013.

Unlike the extremely fast-paced matches PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds is known for, Zombie mode introduces a much slower and more intense experience, which requires a ton of team coordination to survive. As you might expect, it’s relatively easy for zombie players to overwhelm the survivors if they run out of ammunition or remain in a single location for too long, which is when the game mode brings some of its best moments into the mix.

During these engagements, coordinating with your friends to cover each other’s retreats is paramount to your success. You’ll often find yourself gunning down a seemingly endless train of zombies or running with a horde of naked players toting frying pans towards the few survivors trying to escape your wraith. Honestly, it brings the usual Battlegrounds dynamic to an entirely new level, and one which we hope will soon be available as an official game mode of some sort.

Until then, however, you’ll have to look for a custom zombies match being run by one of the community members in PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds.