Apocalypses in entertainment always make for compelling gaming, and the humble zombie variety has done more than its fair share across the years. Whether they’re slow, shuffling types like in Resident Evil, or sprinting after us in World War Z, it remains true that taking them down is great fun. No More Room In Hell 2 adds its own take on the genre, mixing in survival and extraction gameplay, up to 8 players, and a hell of a lot of the undead to fight along the way. And I’ve had a great time with it.
No More Room In Hell 2 releases on console after an extended early access period on Steam, and along with it comes new maps, modes, and all sorts of gameplay tweaks. One of the bigger additions is the Survival game mode, where teams fend off three waves of zombies at certain points on a map before extracting. I’ve found this to be a great way to hop in and have a shorter sessions, and a nice change of pace from the Objective mode. With a full squad of 8 it can get a bit hectic when trying to resupply ammo and guns between rounds, but there are usually plenty of extras dotted about for those willing to explore.
That Objective game mode is the main crux of No More Room In Hell 2. Here, we’re dropped into one of the maps at random and have to complete various objectives in order to get out alive. 8 players go in, but we may spawn in alone, so the first order of business is getting supplies and finding others. Handily, the proximity voice chat has a good distance on it so we only need to be in the vicinity of others to start communicating. It’s also location based, so if we’re in a room or tunnel the voices of others will sound different or be more dampened. It’s a nice touch that helps ground us in this zombie apocalypse.
Exploring these huge maps takes time, and Torn Banner have packed them with different routes, enterable buildings, and enough boxes and drawers to search to keep us supplied with all manner of ammo, bandages, pills and more. Objectives are marked on screen at all times, and we can choose to head to them or simply go off wandering to see what else we can find.
The zombie threat is ever present, and can be overwhelming even on the Beginner difficulty. It’s not uncommon for our objectives to be loud and flashy, calling in swarms of undead. And seeing as the game takes place primarily at night, they have a way of hiding in rooms until it’s too late. More than once I’ve entered a clear looking building only to be barricaded in by dozens of zombies as I try to get the lights back on.
And it is thrilling throughout. The aforementioned WWZ overwhelms by sheer scale, but in No More Room In Hell 2 even a few zombies can be a real threat if we let our guard down. On beginner we get fairly weak and low ranking forms too, but higher difficulties bring in armoured versions and faster, more resilient types.
Let them get too close, and we can become infected. Our vision becomes foggy, we start seeing and hearing things, and if not cured or kept at bay with Phalanx pills, then the only option is to put ourselves down – or turn. This adds a nice bit of tension to proceedings as it becomes a fight to extract before that point, though it would have been interesting to either become a playable zombie or have some consequences for getting back to the base while infected. As it is, as long as we get out, our survivor is cured and ready to go again.
As long as we get out. No More Room In Hell 2 features permadeath, so dying in the field means losing our character and their progress. We can have up to three randomly generated ones ready to go at all times, and on Beginner at least we can respawn if we hold a certain loadout, but beyond that it really is down and out for good. I spoke to one player who had just lost a level 40+ character along with all their upgrades and perks. While I’ve not been unfortunate enough to lose one yet, I’ve also not been brave enough to up the difficulty either. Torn Banner recommend certain character levels for each difficulty, though we can just play them whenever we like.
We also have an account level that thankfully doesn’t reset when we lose a character. This allows us to buy better starting weapons or items as we progress. I’d recommend plumping for a larger melee weapon, though we also need to be mindful of our carry weight. Our characters can only hold up to 10kg of items at once (though this can be increased with satchels found in the world). Everything has a weight to it, so grabbing a couple of rifles will pretty much fill our backpack up, leaving no room for meds or ammo. We need to scavenge as much as we can, but importantly we still need to be selective lest we end up overburdened with useless items.
All of this adds up to a tense yet rewarding gameplay experience. I’ve enjoyed just hopping in with a random group of players, teaming up and fending off zombies, watching each other’s backs and swapping tips on progression. Equally, we played as a group over a few nights here at the Tavern, and had some of the most fun multiplayer we’ve done in quite some time. While I had expected to go into No More Room In Hell 2 and get absolutely decimated, what I actually found was a solid mix of Left 4 Dead, Dying Light, and Arc Raiders, putting social interaction on the same level as surviving and skill.
While this is officially a 1.0 release, I’ve no doubt Torn Banner will keep updating and tweaking the game, and one aspect that definitely needs some love are the menus. While slightly better on PC (this is an Xbox Play Anywhere title), neither platform has particularly great menus. Some buttons (like customising colour on clothing) simply don’t work properly, while moving about the menus with the controller feels as much luck as judgement as to what we’ll end up selecting. On PC too, trying to adjust something like the texture quality finds the menus bouncing back to the top on every click. There’s a good amount of things we need to do in the pregame menus – upgrades, new unlocks, etc – so we really hope they can sort these inconsistencies out.
Conclusion
No More Room In Hell 2 has won us over with fantastic objective based gameplay, letting us pair up with up to 8 players to survive the madness. The maps are huge and offer plenty to explore, the new Survival mode is a great change of pace, and the constant risk of losing it all feels well balanced. If Torn Banner can sort out the buggy menus, we’ll have one of the best online multiplayer games we’ve played this year on our hands.
This game was reviewed based on Xbox S|X review code, using an Xbox S|X console. All of the opinions and insights here are subject to that version. Game provided by publisher.
