Days of Doom makes it feel like 2009 again, and that's a good thing in my book. The moment I hear its name and see a screenshot, I know that Atari's upcoming strategy game will tick all my boxes: it has zombies, turn-based combat, and vibrant 2D animations playing out across a gridlike chessboard for a battlefield.
I'm reminded immediately of Plants VS Zombies, transported back in time to playing it on my school-issued PC aged 14 years old. Atari has always been known for its old-school arcade games, and getting to play Days of Doom at Gamescom 2023, I finally feel that sense of nostalgia myself.
Hack to the roots
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When it comes to battling zombies, sometimes the simplest approach is the best. Don't get me wrong, I love the best Resident Evil games as much as the next person, but the side-long perspective of Days of Doom turns battling the undead into a tactical artform. In a regular playthrough, zombies line up on the left side of the screen while your human survivors stand opposite. Much like a game of chess, you're able to move each survivor in a certain direction to occupy other squares as you make your approach.
These are no zombie-chomping flora, however, but skillful hand-drawn heroes with unique abilities and weapons. Some provide protective defence buffs to teammates who stand in close proximity, while others can use weapons to push zombies back or splatter them to bits. The roguelike component of Days of Doom means that once a survivor dies, they're gone for good. Luckily, there are plenty more to recruit at the end of each round, each with their own stories to flesh out the RPG elements, and you can acquire permanent power-ups to give your party a boost from run to run.
I only got to experience the combat side of things during my brief session with Days of Doom, but what an experience it was. Playing on a Nintendo Switch only bolstered the nostalgic fun of it, and the simple controls mean that I can sit down and play it without any prior knowledge of what to do. It definitely helped that my Plants VS Zombies experience came flooding back quickly, even without potted plants littering the screen and chucking projectiles at zombies.
Also unlike Plants VS Zombies, the strategic combat of Days of Doom is fully turn-based. You need to predict where best to place your survivors so that they can deal damage while avoiding getting hit, with zombies making their moves once your characters end their turn. There's an indication on-screen when you're in melee range of said undead foes, but if you act first, you tend to have the upper hand.
Experimenting with the range of survivors and abilities on hand seems to be where the true magic of Days of Doom lies. Like with any turn-based strategy game, there's a certain balance to be struck between careful defence and all-out carnage, but Days of Doom makes sure it's clear enough to help guide you through it in those earlier stages. One survivor can blast a cloud of noxious fumes right in the path of the shambling horde, while others can use ranged pyro attacks to set the battlefield ablaze. My brief 15 minute hands-on with Days of Doom left me hungry for another bite – I didn't get to see the full range of enemy types or big bad boss zombies, for example – but whenever Atari launches this game, it'll be a no-brainer choice for me. Mmm, brains.
If hack n' slash-style strategy games are more your thing, check out our hands-on experience with Lysfanga: The Time Shift Warrior and her remnant 'clones'.
