Zombies in medieval Birmingham? Sounds like some fun! Check out our thoughts on God Save Birmingham from the floor of PAX West 2024!

I've been over zombies for quite a while, after consuming far too many season of The Walking Dead for my own good. Still, I'm always open for new ideas featuring zombies, and God Save Birmingham looks like it might just be the thing to reinvigorate my interest in the genre.

We got some hands-on time with Ocean Drive Studios' God Saves Birmingham at PAX West 2024. I was told it's been in development for just five months, but there's a solid foundation for something big with the ideas at play here.

It's medieval Birmingham, and the year is roughly 1340. You wake up and find your town is full of zombies. You don't have modern firearms or any technology to speak of, just whatever existed in 1340. How is one to survive? Well, you can start by grabbing that pitchfork on the wall, snag some food, and hope for the best.

I'm sure there's media out there that have explored the idea, but medieval zombies feels fresh, especially with such a focus on historical accuracy. Ironic, I know, since zombies aren't historically accurate, but one developer at Ocean Drive Studios explained to me the vision of this title, and I can't help but get excited.

The town of Birmingham is being faithfully recreated to how it would look hundreds of years ago. The developers are looking at actual buildings from that time period and putting them into God Save Birmingham. Here's another super intriguing idea: There's only as many zombies as there were people in 1340 Birmingham.

Records of the town's population vary, but Ocean Drive plans to add around 1900 to 2000 zombies and that's all there is. Though, not all zombies are the same, as some will be clad in armor, for example.

My demo was considered pre-Alpha, showing the progress and concepts at play. The town of Birmingham is coming along and certainly looks like how one would imagine a medieval village. God Save Birmingham's demo included tons of items to pick up, as this is a survival title. Eggs, bread, cheese, meat, various weapons and the like will come in handy.

You'll contend with meters for hunger, exhaustion, and thirst -- it's not my favorite thing to have in a game, but for hardcore survival enthusiasts, I'm sure this will hit the spot. I'm most interested in how Ocean Drive will expand the combat, since what I saw led to some hilarious (and horrifying) moments.

God Save Birmingham has this "de-limbing" system, as I'll call it. Aim your pitchfork at a zombies arms, and it'll fall off. Do that to any other limb and you're met with a similar result. I ended up creating this horrifying legless, armless zombie and it still tried to crawl and bite me!

There's a physics system that's also pretty goofy, so when you get swarmed by zombies, your body is contorting in weird ways to get out of their grip. God Save Birmingham is still early on in development, but if these details are improved upon, it's going to be a blast to play.

I'm looking forward to God Save Birmingham's development, but it's a long way off. Nonetheless, I was told armor can prevent zombies from biting you, you'll be able to use swords, shields, and other medieval weapons. There's even a story with multiple endings. Sounds like some good ol' fashioned zombie-slaying fun, if you ask me.