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 2 you’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.