Rockstar tease open world zombie game similar to Days Gone

When we think of Rockstar Games we think of Red Dead Redemption or GTA – it’s hard to picture anything else, such is the might of those franchises. Yet, in days past, Rockstar once entertained the idea of an open-world zombie game similar to Days Gone.

This information has been hinted at by a former Rockstar employee, coinciding with the news that Bully 2 data was found in GTA V, as well as lost GTA V DLC; people want answers as to where it all went wrong, and if the zombies might still return.

In the spirit of all things GTA, let's look at Vice City with remastered graphics!

You can read the blog posts for yourselves in full, though be warned that the original post has been removed after Rockstar voiced their annoyance. For now, let’s take a look at the main points of evidence for this lost project. According to Obbe Vermeij (the former employee), a portion of the Rockstar North team wanted to branch out and try their hand at something different to Vice City.

“Some of the artists wanted to do a zombie survival game,” Vermeji revealed. “Programmers like fantasy. Artists like zombies. Not sure why that is. We pursued the zombie idea for a while. [The] working title for the game was Z (pronounced zed, not zee).” GTA Vice City is, arguably, one of the best GTA titles to date thanks to its “sensational” music, yet the need to create something fresh is understandable – years of their lives are dedicated to making that one game, after a way you must long for something different. Zombies are definitely different.

What makes this teased open-world zombie fight for survival all the more intriguing is that it was to be set on a Scottish island, with the team simply repurposing previously used Vice City code. An island makes for the ideal isolated experience, especially during a zombie apocalypse, but we’re curious as to why Scotland was the location of choice. It’s a far cry from the US, though perhaps that was the point: to be as far removed from GTA as possible…?

Although this Days Gone ‘Project Z’ never came to be, we did get zombies galore in Red Dead Redemption. It’s a DLC that many praise, so it’s a great consolation prize for those disappointed by this latest news.