This 2026 shooter is this year’s Helldiver’s 2 as GOTY nominee lands worthy rival

As someone who plays a lot of zombie games, particularly ones with cooperative elements, the original No More Room In Hell was a huge deal for me when it came out back in 2013.

Back then, I was still pretty new to playing games on Steam and was after a bunch of free games to enjoy between each major sale to deck out my library. And No More Room In Hell offered something a lot of other games at the time didn’t.

For as much as I loved games like Left 4 Dead, Dead Island, and Resident Evil, each of these games didn’t particularly dwell on the survival aspect of zombie media as much as I’d hoped. But with No More Room In Hell’s focus on avoiding infection and conserving supplies with your buddies, I was able to enjoy that.

After two years of early access, No More Room In Hell 2 is out now and I’ve been enjoying my time with it over the last couple of weeks. Similar to the first game, the sequel puts a group of eight players into a single server where they must survive against oncoming hordes of zombies all while working through a series of objectives before they can extract.

The game’s objective mode puts you into a large map, usually alone, where you must first seek out fellow survivors. You can start by scavenging for supplies, sneaking around every zombie you find, or you can leg it to the first objective if you want to find company fast.

The important thing here is that other players aren’t marked on the map for you at first, and you must regroup before you can act as a squad. Once you do find them, you’ll start to complete a series of objectives on the map akin to Helldivers 2’s different expeditions, being able to extract from the map once you're done.

The initial wave of fear that is created here is something you simply don’t get from other zombie games. There’s a huge sense of isolation when you don’t have teammates to back you up, where one unfortunate encounter with the undead could spell your doom. Armed only with your starting equipment, which is limited to three items, you’re pretty much forced to start scavenging while you try to find other survivors.

Ammo is limited, so you’re pretty much forced to conserve it and use melee weapons against zombie hordes, only bringing out the big guns when you’re up against a massive horde and need to do some crowd control.

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Torn Banner Studios

This is the best game to make zombie infections terrifying

The threat of death is No More Room In Hell 2’s biggest fear factor because of Torn Banner Studios’ inclusion of permadeath, where all progress made with your character can be lost if you succumb to the zombie hordes.

When you first boot up the game, you’ll create your character (called a ‘responder’ here). You can customise their appearance, their clothing, and you’ll also be able to adjust their starting equipment and passive perks which are gradually unlocked as they level up.

However, all of this can also be ripped away from you should you die while on a mission. Whether your character is level 1 or level 100, an unlucky encounter with a zombie could result in this responder being removed from the game entirely should their health deplete all the way or they fail to extract. There is a permanent form of progression as well, which unlocks new items and perks in the available pool you can select from, but for the most part your responder will get stronger through their own individual levels.

This also extends to the game’s infection mechanic, which is something you definitely don’t want to happen. Any time you get hit by a zombie, there’s a small chance that you may become infected by the zombie virus. The weaker you are, the more likely an infection may occur. And from here, things become terrifying.

While infected, your responder is minutes away from turning into a zombie, and they’ll go through an increasing number of symptoms which lead up to this. The early stages of infection result in blurry vision and staggered movement, while later stages bring visual and auditory hallucinations. While total infection can be delayed using medicine found while scavenging, you can only avoid death by extracting at the end of a mission or finding an incredibly rare in-game pickup.

And with the permadeath mechanic, knowing that the responder you've spent the last few hours building can be ripped away from within minutes makes things all the more desperate.

Torn Banner Studios

No More Room In Hell 2 has massively turned things around since launching into 1.0

After a rather controversial early access period, which saw many players’ first introduction to No More Room In Hell 2 plagued by bugs, design issues, and other performance hitches, the full release of the game has put it in a much more acceptable position. And this has led to it becoming one of my favourite multiplayer experiences of the past year.

Aside from the fact that this game makes zombies scary again, it’s also one tough cookie. Playing the game on its standard difficulty setting, you’ll be constantly experiencing a big adrenaline rush as you narrowly avoid zombie hordes to complete each objective, which can range from recovering research that’ll help to combat the infection, to reaching an escape zone on the other side of a large city.

While there isn’t a huge amount of variety in the number of maps available, the randomised objectives, spawn points, and items can make each round feel fresh as you discover new locations and ways to move around them each time you play. The game’s most popular map for example, Power Plant, is incredibly huge. Despite me playing this map around a dozen times now, there are still a lot of areas here which I’ve yet to discover.

I also really love that for helicopter mission rescues, players can only extract one at a time by attaching to a rope and being pulled up, before the rope descends again for the next player. It adds a last-minute degree of tension for teams as they have to hold an area while every player gets into the escape chopper.

Torn Banner Studios

Survival mode offers a nice break from the more structured objective runs

Finally, there’s also the survival mode, completely new with the 1.0 update, which adds a wave-based mode to the game in which you have to survive against three hordes of zombies within a set time limit before you can extract.

While I don’t enjoy survival mode as much as objective mode, the length of these missions tend to be a lot shorter and are a good breather from the more diverse maps No More Room In Hell 2 has, making it a fun way to mix things up when you’re in for an extended game session.

Bear in mind though, that doesn't mean this mode is a picnic. Piling dozens of zombies into a single location can create some very chaotic scenarios, where on higher difficulties you'll struggle to survive without a solid plan and teamwork in place.

It’s remarkable to see the tide turning on No More Room In Hell 2, going from a botched early access launch that brought in a large number of negative Steam reviews to one of the best action coop experiences of 2026. Torn Banner Studios have really turned things around for this game, and I’m excited to see what the post-launch support will bring.

Pros: Terrifying gameplay, unique zombie mechanics, fun multiplayer

Cons: Some performance hiccups, low number of maps at launch

For fans of: Left 4 Dead, Project Zomboid, Resident Evil

8/10: Excellent

No More Room In Hell 2 is available now. It’s available for PC (version tested), PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X/S. Review code was provided by the publisher. Read a guide to our review scores here.