Activision is making several hearts of Call of Duty fans into a nearby frenzy by spinning gossip about a new mobile game about the Zombies lore. Last week, the gaming giant let loose a teaser ad on Facebook and Instagram for Call of Duty: Zombie Defender. The ad generated buzz not just for the projected game content but also for the cool AI-generated visuals accompanying it.
Zombies and AI Ads: Is Call of Duty Cooking Up a New Mobile Undead Adventure?
The tagline — “Defend, survive, conquer — Call of Duty: Zombie style” — grabs the fans with fast-paced action and violence against zombies that we all are so familiar with. After clicking on the ad, users would be taken to Geeklab — a website probing user interest in various game ideas. There is a description of Call of Duty: Zombie Defender giving some tantalizing glimpses into the game’s concept.
Zombie Defender is a tactical top-down mobile defense game where players fend off waves of zombies. Players control a squad of different survivors with specialized skills, such as being medics or heavy weapons experts. It features a variety of strategic locations in which to defend from ruined cities to military bases to forests, each offering its own sets of challenges. The aim is to set up defenses and fight through ever-increasing hordes of zombies while upgrading and equipping the survivors with new weapons and gear.
Battling with hordes of zombies on a sunny sandy beach is advertised as a “limited-time event” called “Tides of Terror.” When the install button is pressed, though, users receive a survey stating that the title isn’t currently real. The fee-for-service survey asks for feedback to help with future development and includes questions about why the ad was appealing, habits in mobile gaming, and what other zombie games have been played.
Interestingly, it actually includes games such as Zombie Waves and Last War: Survival, which have a play style similarity with Zombie Defender, hinting towards where Activision may go with the game.
Using AI-generated images and surveys to test the market suggests far more from Activision than merely using its assets to examine whether the game will be a hit. As the teaser campaign progresses, whether Call of Duty: Zombie Defender is ever realized or continues to remain purely theoretical remains to be seen.
