REVIEW: ‘Welcome To ParadiZe’ Is A Satisfying Hack And Slash (PC)

In the throngs of a zombie apocalypse exists a place—a paradise—where a new technology has turned zombie foes into friends. Welcome to ParadiZe is a hack-and-slash adventure game by developer EKO Software and publisher Nacon. You can play solo or in co-op attempting to survive zombification with the help of your trusty zombots.

Welcome to ParadiZe is quick to the action and easy to jump into. For the most part, it’s as straightforward as zombies: bad, staying alive: good. You begin the game by picking from pre-selected character skins and entering ParadiZe. An administrator confusingly greats you, tipping you off right away that things are not perfect in ParadiZe. It’s not that deep though, either. The story here is sufficient and offers some classic post-apocalyptic humor. The voiceover is great during the old-timey commercial cutscenes and serviceable when characters are speaking. Some characters feel clunkier than others but most are colorful and at least don’t make you dread having to talk to them.

Once the plot commences, it’s off to discover the world. ParadiZe itself is protected by a slew of zombots, traps, and fences that keep the rabid zombies outside. But once you venture into the forest and beyond, danger is around every corner. The danger starts off mild. Zombies are all fended off with a simple stick at first. But as you venture deeper into the wilds and discover other settlements, the threat becomes more and more difficult to dispatch.

The longer you fight into the game, completing quests and helping various denizens of this dismal world, the stronger the zombies get. And the increase is rapid. In part because the game isn’t huge. The map is a manageable size with several sub-areas to explore. But it’s nice to constantly feel like you’re progressing as new zombie types emerge. Some can only be fought in close combat because of their armor. Others at a distance. They all possess different types of weapons, too. The permutations are quite vast and as you play on, they become quite mixed and matched as well.

Defeating waves of zombies never gets old. Especially because death isn’t all that consequential. You don’t lose anything other than time and an insignificant amount of experience points. Most zombies drop either resources or gear when dispatched, which means you have a steady supply of new or upgraded weapons to select. It also means that resource management becomes practically non-existent very quickly. You can basically always find the supplies you need to restock on healing items and bullets. I don’t personally mind not having to put up with tight resources. This is a whimsical game, not an intense one.

That doesn’t mean it’s not without its difficulties though. Especially as the game progresses, enemies do eventually become quite tough to defeat in big numbers. The combinations of what weapons work on them and how they attack you requires strategy to tackle. You can’t just mash attacks and heal and come through unscathed. Different weapons reload or shoot at different speeds. You have to dodge certain enemies first before attacking them, which takes up the same stamina as melee attacks.

You can’t even heal without taking several seconds. Most of these stats can be increased through skill points you acquire every time you level up. But you don’t acquire a huge number through natural gameplay compared to the sheer number of skills and their tiers. Grinding is sort of an option, but a lot of areas don’t quickly respawn new enemies and it’s not really fun to backtrack anyway. Sometimes you have to do a little bit of it though. Certain items and upgrades can only be found in certain areas. Many require you to kill certain zombie types repeatedly to pick up their drops and fill a percentage bar that unlocks the item or armor type for your zombot to use.

It all works out though. If something is truly too tough, you can just skip it and come back later, if ever. Certain harder areas have precious resources or cosmetics to discover and are worth going back to. However, the map is fairly linear. There isn’t much extra space to explore outside of where you’ll naturally go on your quests. It’s not a bad thing on its own, but it does mean you’re on a pretty linear path at all times. The path is certainly fun to traverse though. Especially once you get your zombot a saddle. Zombots can do a lot. They can heal you, fight for you, retrieve items for you, and even self-destruct for you. But nothing is more entertaining than riding one around like it is your steed.

This is one of Welcome to ParadiZe‘s many little bits of flavoring. The wind rushing by as you ride a zombie, which itself is quite silly in the first place. The flavor texts are all a little goofy. Even the zombies themselves and some of their outfits are rather humorous. I wouldn’t call Welcome to ParadiZe laugh-out-loud funny, but it has a sense of humor that is easy to appreciate. The visuals and the sound design are fairly run-of-the-mill, like the plot overall, so it’s these little flairs that help elevate the game.

Welcome to ParadiZe is a nice time. It’s easy to get into a hole murdering zombies in every direction. While never too difficult by any means, there is a steady increase in the challenge as you go. This keeps things fresh as you increase your arsenal and assign skill points. No matter how closely you follow the story or its characters, you’ll have a good time surviving the apocalypse, just you and your trusty zombot.

Welcome to ParadiZe is available now Xbox Series S|X, PlayStation 5, and PC.