Ubisoft discusses how to make multiplayer scary in ZombiU 2

Ubisoft’s ZombiU is one of the few truly original titles made for the Nintendo Wii U. The game’s creators are discussing what they’d like to explore in a sequel. First up: Multiplayer.

The Nintendo Wii U racked up more than a few positive reviews for its launch games in November. From ports like Assassin’s Creed 3 and Mass Effect 3, to quality remakes like Ninja Gaiden 3: Razor’s Edge and solid first-party efforts like New Super Mario Bros. U, the Wii U put up a respectable showing when it hit in November. The best and brightest gem in its line up is arguably a Ubisoft original rather than a Nintendo-made game. ZombiU has garnered a strong critical following since its release, and it’s clearly been a commercial success as well since Ubisoft is already hinting at what will be in store for ZombiU 2.

Ubisoft Montpelier producer Guillaume Brunier told Nintendo World Report in a recent interview that multiplayer is a feature missing from the first ZombiU that he’d most like to see in a sequel.

“How to bring cooperative experience and still keep fear and tension is a question we would love to address,” said Brunier, “In our most exciting dreams, we would like to create an online experience where players never quite know where they stand between co-op and player-versus-player. Doubt is a great nest for fear.”

It’s not difficult to imagine what a cooperative mode for ZombiU might be like. Part of what makes the game so frightening in the first place is how vulnerable a player is while looking at the Wii U GamePad’s screen to look through their inventory. If they had to do something more complex on the pad, like performing surgery on another player, a co-op partner could be forced to defend them from a growing zombie mob. This wouldn’t even necessarily need to be an online mode, since Nintendo has already promised that a future system update will let game makers build games for two Wii U gamepads.

Despite the generally positive reviews for Nintendo’s Wii U launch line up, sales have not been spectacular. Some analysts have pegged early Wii U sales at 50-percent lower than those of the Gamecube during the same period after the console came out, and 40 percent lower than those of the Wii. Those figures don’t account for downloadable sales, though, so Ubisoft could be racking up more ZombiU sales than retail analysts know about.