World War Z was a fairly good novel (written by Max Brooks, son of Mel) which turned into an alright movie (starring Brad Pitt) and then became a semi-decent game. Developed by Saber Interactive, the third-person shooter sees you attempting to survive against hordes of "Zekes" (extra fast zombies, basically).
It launched on the Xbox One, PS4, and PC in April 2019, and despite a middling critical reception, it proved successful, selling nearly two million copies within four weeks of launch. And it has spawned a dedicated community of players. The game's online players are especialy committed and the developer enabled crossplay for all platforms in summer last year.
Now, an official date has been announced for when World War Z is finally coming to Nintendo Switch. The game will arrive on Nintendo's portable console on November 2.
It will also be availble on Google Stadia this winter, according to the game's publisher Focus Entertainment, while PS5 and Xbox Series X/S owners will be able to get a free update for the game starting in 2022. Focus Entertainment published the date for the Switch release after announcing a free World War Z Aftermath update, which contains a new Booster Zombie and new daily challenges for the game's PS4, Xbox One, and PC versions.
World War Z's developer Saber Interactive will be keen to show off their porting expertise for the Switch as they have previous when working on Switch ports. They were responsible for the Nintendo Switch version of The Witcher 3, which was widely regarded as an impressive port as it managed to fit the expansive game onto the more limited hardware without too much compromise.
However, the port of World War Z proved even trickier. In an interview with Sirius Gaming, Saber Interactive CEO Matt Karch said that getting the game to run on Switch was the "hardest thing that we have had to do." The team had to port over the Swarm engine, which helps to handle the amount of enemies onscreen, in an attempt to improve framerates.
Come November 2 players will be able to test how well World War Z does run on the Nintendo console.