According to Titov, “It’s up to you if you want to work to rebuild society or destroy it. We really don’t set hardcore goals for you to achieve. As for the game controls and the game feel, it’s more of a shooter. The MMO aspect comes into play because the world will be persistent and populated with many other players besides you.
“There are no quests or missions in the traditional gaming industry sense of the word. We’re not building an objective based game, but instead building a sandbox with lots of tools that will allow players to create their own experiences.”
The developers had brainstorming sessions to determine what would really happen if there was a real zombie apocalypse, even taking into account the economy and social dynamics.
“If you think about our feature set with that perspective it makes more sense,” Titov described, “For example, we have what we call ‘safe settlements,’ that are really not completely safe at all. They are built by people that survived the infestation and are working to rebuild civilization, so they are taking precautions to make sure that their home remains safe. If you obey the rules, there’s no danger for you, but it’s not a place that you can go anytime and expect you’ll be 100% invincible.”
As for the economy: “The same thing goes for currency. We’ve seen some comments that gold coins takes away from the realism. But, if you think about it—gold has been around for ages and, until very recently, it was the ultimate measure of wealth. In the game, Wall Street and other financial institutions have collapsed so we’ve reinstated gold’s value as a universal currency.
“That said, it is not the only currency in the world and, we’re not forcing it on the players. Nothing prevents you from taking ammo for guns and using it as currency when bartering with other players.”
The realism even goes as far as things most gamers take for granted, such as reloading. If players only empty half of an ammo clip before replacing it, the bullets in the old clip will be lost. Players will even have to be aware of distance and gravity to compensate for bullet drop.
The War Z is due to be released on PC in 2013.
