Zombie survival games hold a special place in my heart; be it Seven Days to Die or Project Zomboid, there’s something about finding a way to thrive in a world that’s falling apart all around you. God Save Birmingham seems to have the bones of a great zombie survival game, but it still has a long way to go to prove itself. But you wouldn’t know that if you’ve only seen the initial gameplay trailer. Indeed, it is so far removed from it that you might be wondering what the heck happened between then and now.
God Save Birmingham is a physics-driven medieval zombie survival simulator where objects can be freely picked up and moved around. It is a game where every object has weight to it and interacting with objects often opens up new gameplay opportunities. You play as a peasant who regained consciousness after a lengthy recovery after a perilous fall repairing a church roof. You wake up to a world that’s gone to hell in a handbasket, and it is up to you to carve out a life in whatever hole you decided to crawl into.
The Playtest offers a glimpse of the core gameplay features that might potentially be part of the full game. In this build, we get to see what combat is like, as well as crafting mechanics and general survival mechanics. More importantly, we get to see the extent of the physics-based systems that are a core part of the experience. Now, it should be noted that these features are continuously being worked on. The developers were even making adjustments as the playtest was going on. So, don’t be surprised if some things have changed from now to the start of the next playtest.
The playtest starts with you inside the infirmary room of the Priory of Saint Thomas. A sense of dread takes over as your characters desperately seek Brother Morris, the kindly old monk who nursed you through the worst of your fever. This first section teaches you a basic concept of the world: you can pick up objects and move them around in front of you. The second part is a reminder that the world is dead, and you’re quick on the uptake; you can stay alive a day longer. You find Brother Morris as a shambling corpse in the hallway near the stairs. You are reminded that Objects can be used to trip up zombies before letting you know that you can curb stomp their heads.
The rest of the opening sees you finding food, water, and a source of heat to warm yourself up. The Prior grounds have all those things, if you know where to look, as well as a dozen or so zombie friends.
The next part of the playtest asks you to head into the nearby village to secure food, a water source, and shelter from cold nights. This is where the game ultimately starts to become complicated. So far, the playtest has taught us the absolute basics. But like many games like Project Zomboid, you are left to figure out the rest through painstaking trial and error. Some people like this kind of no-hand-holding, but I can assure you, this approach makes it hard to bring new players into the fold.
There are some things I like about what they’re trying to do in God Save Birmingham. Firstly, they’re trying to be as Project Zomboid as possible with as many mechanics as possible. Things like menus and interactions are easy enough to do in this game because I have spent an ungodly amount of time living in Knox County. Basically, this has everything I’d like to see in a third-person zombie survival game. The fact that it is set in Medieval Europe is just a bonus.
The standout feature of this game has got to be the physics-based interactions. I can stack up boxes to make them look the way I want them to be laid out, much in the way I would display stuff around in Fallout: New Vegas and, to a lesser extent, Fallout 4. Other than that, I can pick up ladders and position them in such a way that I can climb them up to reach higher places. I imagine this being the hardest part to get right from a programming perspective. In combat, any object with enough weight can be used to sweep zombies’ legs, forcing them to stumble on the floor, where they can be easily dispatched.
There is just so much potential with this feature that I may be keeping a close eye on development, just to get updates on this one feature.
In its state, the playtest can barely be considered a functioning game world. The base moodle systems aren’t working precisely, and the zombie A.I. is dumber than a bag of rocks. There is also nothing remarkable about the world so far other than a generic Medieval town that might as well have been an Unreal asset pack. I can’t really put too much on the developers at this point, as the whole point is to test the waters and see what people think. Still, though, you’d think that you should already have a distinct look to further distinguish yourself from other Medieval games that do not have zombies roaming around.
The zombie A.I. is rudimentary. They do not move unless the player moves within their striking distance. If the player moves an inch further away, they are willing to move, they will completely stand still, through rain and shine. The zombies are not particularly dangerous, even when dealing with half a dozen at once. It only becomes dangerous when you have no space to move around, and your stamina is depleted. In an open field, the only thing that can kill you is carelessness and overconfidence. I am certain the developers are going to add more to the zombies. More on that below.
The game doesn’t have enough going for it right now to stand out. While the playtest did have some high-quality assets, the entire map itself felt bland and not lived in. There is very little in the way of background music. I hear birds and chickens more often than anything resembling music. Maybe it’s because it’s a playtest, but I would like to have something to work with, so we know what we’re supposed to feel. Performance-wise, everything was ok for the most part. The game almost crashed on me when I decided to drop two empty buckets at once, causing them to overlap and freezing my computer for a few seconds. Thankfully, it wasn’t too serious. I’ve heard that crashes are a frequent occurrence during the playtest. I hope they have a fix ready since there’s currently no option to save your progress.
Near the end of the playtest, the developers did give us an update on the project. They are aiming to get building and construction mechanics into the game ASAP. Additionally, they have made mention of adding zombie classes into the mix as well. I remember mention of knight and jester zombies, to name a few. They are also looking to implement occupations and traits in the future, like the ones we have in Project Zomboid. I’m sure a pikeman will play very differently from a sell sword as to a blacksmith.
The game needs every bit of help right now, so I am glad that the developers are being open and receptive to the concerns of the community. Hopefully, we can make it into something worthwhile.
I can’t help but be optimistic about this game as someone who has played quite a lot of Project Zomboid. There is so much potential to this game in terms of its ideas and unique setting. But at the same time, it would be neglectful of me to not mention the fact that this playtest looks nothing like the gameplay reveal we saw a while back. This apprehension didn’t come from out of nowhere. I need only look back to the disastrous launch of The Day Before to remind everyone how destructive misleading trailers are, as well as the fabricated hype behind it. You will have to forgive me when I say that God Save Birmingham’s trailer already triggered alarm bells the moment I saw it. This playtest, though useful in its own right, didn’t dispel any of those apprehensions.
I truly hope that the developers continue to work closely with the community to create a game that’s truly unique to the zombie survival genre. God Save Birmingham may never be as robust and lifelike as it was in the gameplay trailer, but I am genuinely willing to give it a shot if the community is afforded a high degree of transparency during development. I want to see the features and changes implemented on time, and maybe then I can recommend players try this game out.
