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Runaway trains and zombie-spawning corpse piles stalk the plains of Zombicide: Undead or Alive

Dessicated desert husks.

Zombicide: Undead or Alive, the next entry in the series of horror board games, will see players dodging speeding trains and eliminating corpse piles.

Fresh details on the upcoming game were revealed in a blog on CMON.com, the publisher’s website, including playable characters and the sort of threats players can expect from Zombicide: Undead or Alive. There will be four different survivor classes for players to choose from in the board game, which are entirely unique to Undead or Alive.

One of these classes is the Gunslinger, who specialises in ranged weaponry and has the ability to unload an entire round of bullets into an enemy in a single action. Whereas the Brawler is better suited to melee combat, using their higher health point count and charge ability to face zombies head-on. Whilst the Faithful class utilises their connection with the heavens to hold back hordes, activating their vade retro power to take on entire groups of the undead. Players can also choose to play as a member of the Townsfolk, whose knowledge of their home enables them to perform the search action multiple times and ignore the need to establish a line of sight to hit zombies indoors.

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Players are going to need to utilise all the skills and abilities of the featured survivors when playing Undead or Alive, as they’ll face threats beyond just zombies. A train engine will be moving through the entire town whilst the players search for weapons and eliminate undead. The train will plow through zombies if they step in its path, but unsuspecting survivors can also get caught in its wheels if they don’t get out of the way in time.

Another threat to contend with will be corpse piles - which will spawn a never ending supply of zombies into a room if discovered. Players will have to use holy water to purify corpse piles in order to stop them from producing more undead enemies. Should an abomination appear in the area, then players may have to deal with a deadly abomination spawn zone. Players will be able to utilise some of the vantage points provided by the game’s variety of tiles - including balconies for survivors to climb onto and shoot from - to get the drop on their undead foes.

Zombicide: Undead or Alive is a western themed dungeon-crawling game in a series that began with the initial title in 2012. Since then, the franchise has seen the introduction of fantasy elements in Zombicide: Black Plague, aliens in Zombicide: Invader and even a cross-over with the classic 1968 film, Night of the Living Dead.

Zombicide: Undead or Alive board game layout

Besides the Zombicide series, CMON is known for releasing all three entries in Eric Lang’s unofficial ‘Mythic Trilogy’ of games - including Blood Rage, Rising Sun and Ankh: Gods of Egypt - alongside the Massive Darkness series of dungeon-crawling titles and the horror game Cthulhu: Death May Die.

The Kickstarter campaign for Zombicide: Undead or Alive launches later today, with information regarding pledge amounts and an estimated delivery date yet to be confirmed.

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