Fast forward nearly three decades to 1959. The field where Stubbs was buried is now part of Punchbowl, a glamorous futuristic city founded by billionaire Andrew Monday. He hired the world’s best scientists and engineers to design a pristine metropolis where robots perform menial labor and cars can fly.

On the day of Punchbowl’s grand opening, however, Stubbs stirs in his grave. He awakens, a zombie determined to find the person responsible for his demise. Along the way, his brain-eating escapades help him amass an undead army and build his assortment of deadly weapons, including gut grenades, unholy flatulence, toxic sputum and the ability to possess unsuspecting humans with his detachable left hand.

Shamble This Way. Stubbs begins to grow his undead zombie army.

Even if Stubbs never learns the truth behind his fate, at least he’s found a career he’s good at.

The Living Dead Jump Into the Picture

“We were trying to come up with ideas for action games that would be funny,” Wideload Games writer Matt Soell recalls. “The living dead jumped into the picture pretty quickly, and it suddenly seemed obvious that the thing to do was make a game about creating chaos, not containing it.”

“We were trying to make people smile, not meditate on their existential angst. So we went for the giggles.”

- Matt Soell, writer

Soell and the rest of the development team soon realized that while zombies had been used to humorous effect in many movies, the same wasn’t true about games. “We had an opportunity to do a very different zombie game,” he notes.

Silicon Hostess. This robot shows Stubbs around Punchbowl and explains his various abilities.

“As soon as you say ‘The hero of our story is a brain-eating zombie,’ seriousness goes right out the window,” Soell adds. “We were trying to make people smile, not meditate on their existential angst. So we went for the giggles.”

Of course, Soell gives much credit for the game’s inspiration to George Romero’s zombie films. “Setting our story in Pennsylvania was my little tip of the hat to him,” the writer reveals. “There’s a little bit of Peter Jackson’s ‘Dead Alive’ in the game, and a little bit of ‘Return of the Living Dead’, and maybe some ‘28 Days Later’ sprinkled on top.

You Gonna Eat That? Stubbs rises from his grave to wreak havoc on Punchbowl.

“And though it’s not a zombie story per se, Edgar Allan Poe’s ‘The Masque of the Red Death’ was a profound influence.”

Homicidal, Yet Sympathetic

The game’s foundation in place, Soell and company turned their attention to Stubbs himself.

“He is the star,” the writer acknowledges, “so we had to make him as appealing and sympathetic as a homicidal dead guy can be. We went through dozens and dozens of concepts before we were happy with him.”

“Ultimately, it’s a love story. And, as we all know, love means never having to say you’re sorry for eating the brains of people you don’t even know and destroying their city.”

- Matt Soell

Soell adds: “A lot of it is very subtle: the color of his tie, the cant of his hat, the length of intestine hanging out of that giant suppurating wound in his belly. We spent a lot of time getting Stubbs to exude the right combination of menace, vulnerability and charm.”

Stubbs’ desire to lead his own undead army is another story element vital to the game, and Soell says that the artificial intelligence driving the other zombies’ behavior is “a specialized kind of smart; a very useful kind of mindlessness. If the zombies were as smart as they could possibly be, they’d eat all the brains and there would be nothing left for Stubbs.”

Make Him Do It. Use Stubbs’ detachable hand to possess Punchbowl citizens.

Given that brain-eating fuels Stubbs’ special abilities, Soell notes that it was important for the newly undead to “be good companions — zombies you wouldn’t mind having around. They follow your lead; they come when they’re called and go where they’re pushed. They may step on the occasional landmine and blow themselves to smithereens, but better them than Stubbs.”

All For Love

Of course, Stubbs’ fellow zombies are merely a means to an end, with his ultimate goal the discovery of who did him in almost three decades previous. But what of the themes bubbling below the surface of his undead quest?

“You could say it’s about the futility of fighting against entropy — you can’t build a wall big enough to keep the zombies out, so chaos wins in the end,” muses Soell. “You could say it’s about love conquering all.”

License to Sod. Stubbs can inflict major damage while driving the Sod-O-Mobile.

He continues: “Or you could combine the last two and say that if chaos conquers all and so does love, then love equals chaos. Raging, undead chaos that gobbles your brain right out of your head.”

Then the writer hits on the game’s true theme: “Ultimately, it’s a love story,” Soell says. “And, as we all know, love means never having to say you’re sorry for eating the brains of people you don’t even know and destroying their city.”

If you liked this game, check out:

• BloodRayne
• Doom 3
• Max Payne
• Return to Castle Wolfenstein