Zombie Army 4 : Dead War is essentially a fully realised version of what we got in Nazi Zombie Army Trilogy. If you're a newcomer to the series, just know that this game does exactly what it says on the tin. Precise headshot carnage, insane hordes of zombies and intense situations where your back is against the wall.

It's difficult to sometimes design levels around high density hordes, too many and you risk frustration but too little and you're going to get bored. I'm happy to say that this isn't the case here, you have just enough tools in the toolbox to have a slight edge even when you're in dire situations. The campaign is relatively tightly balanced depending on how many players you bring to the part and alot of that is thanks to how special enemies work in this game.

One of the biggest upgrades this game has over it's previous entry is how specials work, they are immediate changes on the battlefield depending on which are out and some you might need to do a fair amount of work to kill but it's one of those deciding factors that stops the game from becoming a slog of just chewing through endless amounts of hordes. In many ways this was the case back in Trilogy but it's a bit better here. A heavy enemy can occasionally drop their weapon, allowing you to mop up the fodder which just wasn't the case in the other entries. As you start to go into the DLC, you start to see some really interesting twists on the special enemies which drastically change how you approach them or prioritise them. Some get easier to kill but become more dangerous. Some become harder to kill but are easier to exploit in other ways.

Additionally you have an actual sense of meta progression, your weapons can be upgraded in their respective trees. Some of them aren't that useful but they can give you interesting decisions to make as to what to bring and what not to bring and it really gives you that variety that was lacking in the original. A grenade shotgun? We've got it. Flamethrower? We've got it. A harpoon gun? Hell yeah. Triple barreled shotgun with dragon's breath goodness? Step right up sir! It's these new additions that really add the spice to what was a mildly fun but not very stimulating dish in the original. All of this is punctuated by perks and equipment modifications which change how your explosives work, sometimes giving you extra utility where you originally had none or filling out weaknesses in your kit that were there. It's actually fairly nice.

The levels in Dead War are just by far and away leagues better than Trilogy and while trilogy did have some notable standouts they just don't stand up to how fun Dead War's are. The best part is the pacing is never cut short or a section is too long, checkpoints aren't cruel and they've really tightened the pacing of the campaign. However.. what they did change was how long the runtime for the game is. There is.. a lot of game here. An astonishing amount of game for what you get. We're talking around 20 hours to beat the game if you're on a decent difficulty and that's not even talking about the free DLC which can double that ontop of the horde mode which adds probably another 10 hours if you're just going for clears.

Ultimately if you like what is put on the tin, then it's a solid recommendation. It's not a perfect game or best in it's class but it's really really hard to beat destroying zombie hitler's balls in x-ray mode in terms of how fun it is at it's highest. I think my own critiques are relatively niche, horde mode needs an update but i doubt we'll get that considering this game is around 4 years old now. The DLC can be relatively expensive when not on sale but if you can get the bundle down then it's definitely worth buying it all, especially if you enjoyed the base campaign. It's probably the same length of the base campaign for all the DLC and potentially longer. Definitely worth it.