Wait. What?

No, that’s not a typo or a joke, I think. Third installment in the Dead Island franchise, to be called Dead Island: Epidemic, will not be a co-op first-person shooter but will instead be Deep Silver’s entry into the Multiplayer Online Battle Arena (MOBA) genre.

This seems like a bit of a cynical move by Deep Silver. Since they’re a bit of a volume publisher, in that they seem to favour quantity of games released over quality, launching a MOBA based on a popular franchise seems like a quick cash-in on a popular genre which owes its popularity to the likes of League of Legends and, to a lesser extent, Dota 2.

Deep Silver say they’ll have details later in the month at Gamescom. For now, we’re left with plenty of questions about what they are calling a ZOMBA. Yes, they’ve dubbed the MOBA genre “Zombie Online Multiplayer Battle Arena” for their own game.

The official press release says that the gameplay will feature three teams against each other in a fight for survival. Presumably, they’re trying to fight off zombies and other survivors to be the last team standing. At least I hope fighting zombies is somehow important to gameplay rather than being an obstacle in an otherwise a generic MOBA. It would be nice if DI:E would introduce some unique mechanics around the zombies but I’m not holding out much hope.