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Corpses shouldn't be up and walking around. That's a pretty basic rule of nature, so it's not surprising that the idea of the walking dead gives us a sense of fear. Zombies, mummies, vampires, and the like have been a fundamental part of our scariest stories for ages. In many of these tales, the only thing worse than the living dead is someone who raises them on purpose.
Occasionally, it's fun to be the bad guy. Games let players get their evil on without actually hurting anybody - here are the ones that let you defy the natural order and raise your very own undead horde.
Updated on July 22, 2022 by Matt Arnold: There are so many great games that put players in command of the unliving that we couldn't just leave it at six. We've added two more titles to this list; turn-based roguelike Iratus: Lord Of The Dead and the deliciously twisted Evil Dead: The Game.
8 🍒 Sea Salt (2019)
While Sea Salt isn't exclusively about raising the dead, the option is definitely there. As a vengeful Old God denied the proper sacrifice, you'll visit your wrath on the ungrateful mortals. By sending your cultists, fish-people, and spectres into battle, you'll take what is rightfully yours.
Sea Salt is a blood-soaked action game with delightfully creepy pixel art. Its 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Lovecraftian vibe offers some truly 💙skin-crawling units, and you control your entire horde as a single entity. Most of the monsters you can summon are terrors from the deep, but the Lich unit can summon the ghosts of dead foes to fight at your side temporarily.
After you've unlocked Saint Katharine Blavatsky, you can utilize her unique playstyle. Blavatsky enters the field as a single Lich with a few spectres. She can't summon more minions normally, but the spectres she raises last until they are killed rather than vanishing after their timer expires. Played correctly, she can become an unstoppable spectral force as long as you can protect your sole Lich.
7 Un൩dead Horde (2019)
With a title like that, there would be something deeply wrong if this game didn't make our list. In this isometric RPG, you're a necromancer out to plunge the kingdom into eternal darkness and destroy your paladin nemesis. Along the way, you'll raise the bodies of the slain to do your dark bidding.
With procedural loot generation, your build can change from game to game. Whatever your loadout, you'll have to rely both on your spells and your shambling minions to win. The late game is a sight to behold, as your necromancer can command up to one hundred creatures simultaneously.
Despite its dark themes, Undead Horde doesn't take itself quite as seriously as many other fantasy games. This is a game about having fun being the villain, and in that regard, it excels.
6 Th𒐪e Unliving (2022)
If you like the gameplay of Undead Horde, the upcoming early-access title The Unliving turns it up to eleven. WIth massive legions of pixelated zombies, you'll lay waste to the living - and of course, every slain foe is a new recruit for your army. You can even sacrifice your troops to power your biggest spells, which is a nice touch.
Currently, the game has a demo available and is expected to enter early access on Halloween 2022. It's an exciting time to be alive... or otherwise.
5 Iratuꦦs: Lord Of The Dead (2020)
This devilishly difficult roguelike puts you in the shoes of the dread necromancer 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Iratus. Defeated by the forces of good a thousand years ago, his tomb is finally disturbed by hapless miners, freeing him to wreak his vengeance on the living. By summoning and customizing different minions for your army of the dead, you'll need to find the right combinations of abilities for each encounter.
Body parts can be harvested from defeated enemies and used to craft new minions. Better quality parts lead to better units, but if (and when) a minion dies you might be able to salvage the parts for a new one - including an intact brain to impart your new creation with their predecessor's experience!
4 Heroes 🐈Of Might And Magic 3 (1999)
The classic Heroes of Might and Magic games always had dangerous undead. The original had ghosts that would bolster their numbers with every kill, but these weren't recruitable outside of very special circumstances (usually requiring fighting a large army of them.)
Starting in Heroes of Might and Magic 2, the Necromancer class allowed players to deploy skeletons, zombies, vampires, and even bone dragons in the series' signature hex-grid battles. For players who truly want to send unending hordes of the dead into battle though, Heroes of Might and Magic 3 is the way to go.
The Necropolis faction is among the most powerful in the entire franchise - not only can they raise large numbers of troops from their towns and castles, but necromancy allows them to raise dead enemies and recruit them into their armies. The snowballing size of the Necropolis' skeleton units, among other factors, means the faction is almost always banned in multiplayer - it's that powerful. If you're just playing against the AI, there's no need to feel bad about drowning them in skeletons, however!
3 Total𓃲 War: Warhammer (2016)
While orcs, skaven, and the forces of Chaos tend to get the most attention among the 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Warhammer world's many threats, the undead are just as dangerous to the forces of good. The Vampire Counts of 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Total War: Warhammer and ꧂the Tomb Kings in the sequel both send armies hundreds and even thousands strong into battle, with hardly a pulse to be found among them.
The Tomb Kings boast ordered ranks of skeletal infantry, even more disciplined in death than they were in life, supported by enormous constructs. The Vampire Counts instead use shambling throngs of mindless corpses, bolstered by the dead of the Old World's countless battlefields.
Whichever faction you prefer, the sight of a maximum-size army of the undead on the horizon is sure to strike terror into the hearts of your foes. Just remember to reanimate their fallen soldiers after the battle - it's always important to recycle, after all!
2 Evil Dead: The G🔯ame (2022) 🅰
This multiplayer adaptation of the classic horror franchise puts a team of survivors against an all-powerful Kandarian Demon. As the demon, you'll summon legions of Deadites to overwhelm the survivors and swallow their souls before they can banish you from the world.
168澳洲幸运5开奖网:The Necromancer class, represented by Ash's evil counterpart from Army Of Darkness, excels at conjuring endless hosts of skeletons armed for battle. Once you've instilled sufficient fear in the hearts of the survivors, you can even materialize to fight them directly. It would be a shame to leave a perfectly good broadsword unused, after all.
1 𒉰 ▨ Stubbs The Zombie In Rebel Without A Pulse (2005)
This gem on the original Xbox can't really be considered a horror game - while it's full of gruesome bloodshed, the whole thing is a giant parody. When a traveling salesman murdered in the 1950s suddenly and unexpectedly rises from the grave in a retro-futuristic "city of tomorrow," he needs two things; brains, justice, and brains. That's three things, but Stubbs isn't very bright on account of being dead and the brains are probably the more important thing anyway.
What follows is an action game full of zombie chaos - every victim Stubbs sinks his teeth into rises again as a fellow zombie. These zombies proceed to wreak havoc on the nearby area while Stubbs somehow solves puzzles and lurches his way to avenging his own death. If you've ever wanted to see a zombie apocalypse from Patient Zero's perspective, Stubbs the Zombie In Rebel Without A Pulse ensures you'll have a blast doing so.
