YMMV / World War Z (2019)

• And You Thought It Would Fail: Many believed it would've tanked in sales and critical success just like most other games trying to achieve Left 4 Dead's success, like Overkill's The Walking Dead. However, the game sold over 2 million copies in the first month after its release, making it one of the most successful games of its kind with an active community.
• Awesome Music: The menu theme has a low-key intensity to it, which captures the desperate feeling of the setting well.
• Best Level Ever:
  • The entire Tokyo campaign, considering that there are few shooter games that are set in Japan, but also having the most likable characters and objectives.
  • Due to numerous factors coming together, Descent, the very first level of New York campaign is considered the best... for finishing it on Extreme. And even without that, it's still the most interesting level of the whole NY campaign.
• Complacent Gaming Syndrome:
  • The upgrade system for most weapons offers a choice between slightly better reload speed and slightly bigger ammo count or higher damage and better accuracy. Yeah. The advantages the better stopping power brings to the table means you are unlikely to use other options or meet anyone who does.
    • Apparently acknowledged by the dev studio. Once DLCs started to roll out, they completely disconnected the previous upgrade tree system for all the new guns, providing instead a linear progression.
    • Eventually, weapon upgrades got reworked from scratch, offering unlockable item perks... but that just means a new set of best picks, that promote accuracy and raw power, along with stacking possible bonuses (like two different perks offering increased damage to special zakes or extension of effective range of a shotgun).
  • When choosing perks, it's not recommended to choose those that give you a second tier weapon as your starting gun, because those will be found down the line and they tend to be overshadowed by other perks in the same column. This is especially true for classes that start with a Scout Rifle, which, once fully upgraded, has stats on par with a tier II gun.
    • The Gunslinger's "This is My Rifle" perk ^note Start with ARK-103 Assault Rifle, which has the best synergy with variety of Gunslinger's perks is an exception to this, since the other perks of that tier also let you begin with a certain weapon.
  • Go on, find a class or situation where there is a better choice for a perk than "Wheatgrass" (+25% total HP).
  • Dronemasters won't use anything other than the stun gun, as the pistols can only kill 15 zombies at a time in a game where horde event can involve dozens (if not hundreds) of zed.
  • When facing Bombers, the choice is to try to disarm their bomb and loot some random gear, taking time for precise aiming and then risking stepping on a mine that will deplete almost all your health bar... or just gun them down and trigger the explosion at a safe distance (while taking down surrounding zombies). Take a guess what most people prefer to do.
    • It's also worth pointing out a lot of players don't know how to disarm Bombers and get a gear drop from them, making it all that more common to just detonate them from afar.
  • In various levels, it is easier and more efficient to simply hoard a defense kit for the finale, making it bearable, than deploy it during the mid-level horde event. The same goes with the use of breaching charges.
  • NY's first level, Descent, contains two horde events of defensible positions, the first half of the level can be completely stealthed and the finale has few rally points to regroup to, kill the horde and continue with the objective. As a result, almost all attempts to finish a map on Extreme difficulty are made on that particular map.
• Critical Dissonance: Critics gave the game mixed reviews, with its mechanics and story being praised but criticized the soundtrack and lack of non-vocal player interactions. Gamers, on the other hand, were largely positive towards the game for the same reasons as the critics.
• Demonic Spiders: After the Aftermath upgrades, the infected rats turned out to be the single most difficult enemies to defeat in the game (pre-nerf), bar none. Mind you, these swarms of rats will overwhelm you and are capable of killing you and your teammates quickly, especially in higher difficulties. Conventional firearms have trouble dealing with it, so you have to use your grenades or heavy weapons... But since these weapons will harm you and your teammates grievously on higher difficulties while attracting zombies that need more punishment to kill on these difficulties, it is so easy to understand why the fanbase immediately demanded the devs to nerf the rats after just 1 day after they were introduced.
• Diagnosed by the Audience: Raoul Diallo is overly focused on various things, with hobbies used as a distraction from over-analyzing his surroundings and always speaking in a weird, overly descriptive pattern.
• Ensemble Dark Horse: The Japanese cast, probably because of their important role in ensuring the evacuation and survival of the remnants of the Japanese people. So much so that they're the only survivors to receive their second campaign, set in Kamchatka.
• Heartwarming Moments: Sho wants to make sure that everyone who can be saved is already on the bus, and they have no time to double check. If the groups take the longer route, Tatsuo notes that the houses seem empty, and tells Sho that he can rest easy.
• It's the Same, Now It Sucks!:
  • The New York campaign feels cookie-cutter as there have been too many zombie games set in the USA.
  • The Moscow campaign is being routinely derided as being "a discount Metro", especially among Russian players.
  • The Israel campaign is known as "CoD with zombies", as the region, general aesthetics, and heavy presence of military personnel and hardware make it blend with the crowd of military shooters released in the past decade^note an amusing irony considering Call of Duty's actual Zombie Mode.
• Low-Tier Letdown:
  • The Vanguard class suffers from Crippling Overspecialization i.e., very good in tight corridors, not much anywhere else. Thus, its overshadowed by more versatile defensive classes like the Medic, Fixer, Slasher and Drone Master.
  • Drone Master has a choice between a fantastic stun gun on the drone that's great at crowd control and offers protection from sneak attacks... or the basic pistol, which has 15 rounds (and obviously can't recharge).
• Nightmare Fuel: In a zombie game, it's pretty much a given, but special mention to the hordes you regularly face against. It's just you and three other people against gigantic tsunamis of zeds.
• No Problem with Licensed Games: Even though it is loosely based on the source material, it's actually been well received and has an active community, not to mention receiving upgrades over the years since its release.
• Rescued from the Scrappy Heap: The prestige weapons and, for the most part, the weapon upgrade system, got a badly needed overhaul. Gone are the days of Scrappy Weapon, where one part of the upgrade offered simply worse benefits. Gone are the horrendous skins of prestige weapons. You can now set up the item perks you want or need, including the prestige ones, without having to bother with the downsides of those specific guns or simply how awful they've looked.
• The Scrappy: Raoul Diallo, one of the French survivors. Almost all his lines are a flat delivery of some Captain Obvious tidbits and it very quickly becomes just tedious to listen to them.
• Scrappy Weapon
  • Compact SMG, the starting weapon for few classes. Unlike the starting rifle and the shotgun, it has plain terrible performance, being underpowered and inaccurate, even when fully upgraded - and without upgrades, you are better off with your sidearm. It's telling when the Senjata PDW, a secondary gun, outperforms Compact SMG. If given class can access other gun as a starter via skill tree, expect it to be a preferred choice for majority of players.
  • Revolver. Dear God, where to even start? It holds only 6 bullets, which, given the sheer number of zeds just doesn't cut it. It has stopping power that's barely decent for a sidearm and just abysmal for the primary weapon. But worst of all, it is not technically counted as a sidearm - it takes the same amount of exp as a primary weapon to level up. And it's a pretty rare pick, too, so good luck getting it in the first place to grind it into something slightly-less-useless. It was dreadful prior to the weapon overhaul patch and absolutely awful with it, as it takes a horrendous grind to unlock even the first tier of weapon perks.
  • Both bullpup rifles fire in bursts, which leads to very awkward handling. A single bullet is usually enough to stop a regular zombie, which means the rifles waste a bullet or two per shot (The tier-3 variant fires three shots while the Classic fires two.) In addition, the time between bursts is greater than the time between shots of the semi-auto rifles, making it difficult to score the 15 kill streak needed for certain abilities to activate.
    • Since higher difficulties sometimes present one or two guns per tier, one of those guns being a burst rifle inadvertently makes it harder to finish given mission.
    • The tier 3 Bullpup Rifle at least has a penetration score of 2, making it good for clearing pyramids. Otherwise, it's not that much better than its tier-two counterpart.
    • One of the most sought-after upgrades is the one providing tier 3 Bullpup Rifle with automatic fire, but it costs 1000 Challenge Coins, which can take up to three weeks of dedicated farming.
  • Pre-overhaul, various paths for gun upgrades were flat-out worse than the alternatives, significantly affecting already questionable performance of certain guns. This got eventually altered to a different system. In particular, both bullpup rifles got Rescued from the Scrappy Heap. It takes a lot of grind to get there, but once done, they no longer are so dreadful and finally shine in their specific niche of clearing hordes and pyramids.
• Serial Numbers Filed Off: A positive example; the gameplay is very similar to Left 4 Dead, in that you play a Ragtag Bunch of Misfits that have to fight off literal hordes of zombies in different locations to find safety. However, many gamers found this to be one of the game's strengths since the story and characters help make the game feel more like a successor rather than an outright ripoff. It helps that, compared to Back 4 Blood trying to emphasize how it's a successor to Left 4 Dead with the "original team" behind it (even though that only included a handful of employees), only to end up faltering in spite of the hype, World War Z just tried to be its own thing in the genre, letting it launch more gracefully.
• So Okay, It's Average: While sales were amazing, reviews of the game aren't so glowing with them hovering in the low 70s and higher 60s range critically and notably lower on a user rating. Common complaints from the players and critics alike are the less memorable characters and lackluster ending for some (New York and Marseilles) of the episodes.
• Tear Jerker: None of the backstories are light, and most of the Survivors have lost their families to the zombies.
• That One Achievement: Handyman. You have to open and buy all perks in the game. All of them. Including the multiplayer perks.
• That One Level:
  • Tunnel Vision. Not only it's by default about going back and forth, doing switch-hunting to open the next gate, but eventually, you reach a rail terminus. Rather than simply crossing it on top of the train you are trying to get out of the location and reach the ending of the level, you spend the rest of it circling through service tunnels, doing some more switch-hunting (in clouds of noxious fumes), and fighting few hordes along the way, including one during a climb over a tower, all in a really cramped location. If a weekly challenge happens to be set at this level, expect to have a hard time finding a stable team to finish it, because most people will just Rage Quit, particularly in the hard difficulty.
  • Dead in the Water. It is considered the hardest in the game to complete on extreme. Firstly, RNG could end your run before it begins by deciding to spawn a lot of auto turrets throughout the first half. The second half is the finale, which covers a very large portion of the map. Your team has sprint back and forth between objectives, hoping there'd still be enough time to rescue the civilians in the wards.
  • The final stage of Dead Sea Stroll, because its two concurrent objectives requires your team to split up: half of which to collect parts and the other half to protect the doctor. Not so bad at lower difficulties, total overkill on Extreme and during particularly tough challenges.
  • On The Grid, if only because the segment where you hunt for switches is extremely annoying.
• What Do You Mean, It's Not Political?: The surname is one of the more popular ones in Russia and post-Soviet countries, yet this bit from the Moscow campaign gets some additional mileage:
  Soldier on the radio: We lost Medvedev, more enemies inbound from the west.

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