Journey Through the Undead Review: A Disastrous Left 4 Dead Clone | PC

Journey Through the Undead is an apparent attempt to emulate the run-and-gun action of the 2000s classic series Left 4 Dead. Unfortunately, this game fails to capture even a fraction of what made those games great. Every element of the game feels unsatisfactory, and the end result quite fittingly, smells of death. 

First impressions matter. My initial reaction to this game was utter disbelief. While the clear inspiration comes from 360-era titles, some of the character models and animations are on par with PlayStation 2 graphics.

A picture is worth a thousand words. 

Behold:

Hideous doesn’t even begin to describe the abject horror of these abominations and this was just a sample of what was to follow. Not only are the NPCs stiff, poorly designed messes, but just about every visual element is lackluster at best. The lighting system struggles indoors. Distant scenery fails to load or degrades as the game world opens up. The burning cars and flaming buildings look laughable, resembling GIFs slapped on top of the environment. At the start of the game, when the player is unarmed, the running animation (with your hands slicing through the air) was laugh-out-loud bad.

As the introduction dictates, the player is pushed forward through the city amid the zombie outbreak, passing pockets of citizens fighting off groups of the undead. These brief glimpses of NPCs battling each other were a sight to behold. (I didn’t capture footage, but it looked like groups of people waiting for a train accompanied by a soundtrack of gunfire and zombie noises.) It quickly became clear that the graphics and animations would be terrible, broken, or most likely BOTH. 

At this point I should address the audio. The zombies sound genuinely unnerving, and the voice acting is passable.

That’s where the good news ends. 

The gunfire and undead noises become annoying quickly, but my first real disappointment was the complete absence of footstep sounds. For nearly the entire game, I felt like a weightless camera floating above the ground. Moving silently through the environment felt strange, as if the physics of this world operate differently. The player can pick up and throw objects like tables and chairs, yet these items have no real presence or impact whatsoever.

I became hopeful that Journey would cross into so-bad-it’s-good territory.

It did not.

Let’s recap:  

The visuals are appalling.  

Textures and environments all appear to be low-effort assets.

The audio is broken or barely serviceable.  

Physics and world interaction feel completely disconnected.  

There is absolutely no characterization, story, plot, motivation, or mystery to uncover.

But surely the gameplay could salvage the experience, right? Wrong.

The first half moves very quickly, with no tutorials or instructions whatsoever. Level design matters and almost all early levels are wide-open spaces. These areas brutally highlight the low quality of the melee combat and enemy “AI.” Swinging a silly-looking weapon while occasionally dashing backward offered zero excitement. Thankfully, firearms arrive soon enough, but the resulting action remains underwhelming. In open areas, zombies quickly devolve into a miserable horde or, if the player simply moves in a straight line, they form an embarrassingly easy column to mow down.

Difficulty is non-existent, and there’s no room for strategy. I have to wonder why the developer didn’t make this multiplayer. Any real depth could have created potential for fun co-op sessions with friends, just like in the Left 4 Dead games. Journey Through the Undead disappoints more than any other zombie game I’ve played.

There’s a bizarre level midway through that tasks the player with driving up a mountain pass. I found this to be a clear dividing line: the laughable and embarrassing first half versus the dreadfully boring second half. Ironically, that short drive up the mountain was the best part of the entire game; the brief moment of quiet I desperately needed… at least until zombies appeared there too. I should mention that the game takes a really weird turn when gigantic creatures appear in the background; gargantuan birds and bugs looming outside the playable area. By then, though, I had already mentally checked out.

The second half was noticeably more enjoyable to play through, though that’s faint praise. Maybe I was just grateful to escape the open-concept maps, or maybe I had gone numb by then, but it passed much more bearably. The tighter corridors and clever use of darkness in later levels were a considerable improvement. 

I would normally feel bad about dumping on a game this hard, but then I remember that Journey Through the Undead stole four hours of my life.