E3 2015 - We Go Hands-On with Madfinger's Unkilled, Which is Looking Great By the Way

Czech Republic-based Madfinger Games (Dead Trigger 2, Shadowgun) is back with another zombie survival first-person shooter that will have you gunning down the undead with a new, prettier Unity5-build engine that will run on your iOS (or Android) devices. That title is Unkilled, and it’s gorgeous, intense, and super accessible - everything you’d expect from the folks that brought you bleeding-edge shooters Dead Trigger 2 and Shadowgun.

The company aims to have the free-to-play Unkilled out this summer, and I got a chance to play it a bit this week at the Electronic Entertainment Exp (E3) at the Los Angeles Convention Center.

The game runs smooth as silk on the NVIDIA Shield I got to play it on, which was connected to a big HDTV in the demo area. Though having so many buttons might do the game a bit of a disservice; this is a game made to work well on touch screens where aiming is the priority and shooting buttons take your fingers away from the action.

If you’re familiar with Dead Trigger 2you’ll feel right at home here, though now your guns auto-fire as soon as you line up the sights with the directional stick. Playing right on the iPhone with touch controls felt even more comfortable; Madfinger has gotten first-person shooting right on touch screens, and that pedigree shows here.

It’s also drop-dead gorgeous. Unity 5 brings some serious rendering power to the environment and on-screen enemies. The team uses fancy terms like paralx mapping, SpeedTree-powered vegetation rendering, and bumpy reflective surfaces. All that language means though, is that this is a console-level eye candy for your mobile device. The animation and movement was buttery-smooth, too, even when there were so many zombies on the screen my avatar had to start kicking them to get away.

Ultimately, this is a fine next game for Madfinger. Unkilled should be out this summer, so keep your eyes peeled.