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George Romero’s Son Enlisted for ‘Infestation’ Reboot
One of the most controversial video games of 2013 is getting a reboot, and George Cameron Romero, son of legendary director George A. Romero, is going to be involved as a “creative force”, because having his name on the box can’t hurt sales.
Technically, Romero’s Aftermath is a spiritual successor to the universally maligned zombie survival MMO Infestation: Survivor Stories (formerly The War Z). I know what you’re thinking, and yes, that’s the same game that Valve was forced to remove from Steam when it was discovered that its developer had lied to misled people into thinking it had features it didn’t.
Since it’s no easy task making a video game — especially when that game is an MMO and the team behind it is small — I’m going to rein in the mean a bit. Free Reign East, its new developer, seems passionate about the world they created and the fans who found a way to immerse themselves in it. They were quick to address some of the lingering issues in their reveal of the game, even if in doing so, they’ve done what Sega tried very hard not to do with Alien: Isolation and its similarly tenuous relation to the abysmal Colonial Marines.
“The development team behind Infestation wanted to create a new experience for Infestation/WarZ players making sure to keep best parts of the game that made it popular, while avoiding controversial decisions and plain stupid mistakes that were previously made,” explains its developer in an interview with Eurogamer. Infestation publisher OP Productions LLC kept that from happening, so now they’re doing it without their involvement. That’s for the best, I think.
For early access to what Free Reign East humbly refers to as “potentially one of the greatest zombie survival games on the market,” all you need to do is go here and select a package.
Access is free for Infestation players with active Pioneer or Legendary accounts, and for the folks who sunk 100+ hours or invested $25+ into the game. It costs at least $14.99 for everyone else.
I’ve already admitted I don’t understand the appeal of DayZ or the slew of clones it continues to inspire, so I’m going to leave it to you to tell me if this is something you want. Is it?
Sam Neill, the New Zealand actor best known for his role in 1993’s Jurassic Park, has passed away this week at 78 years old. In a statement shared on Neill’s Instagram page this morning, the actor’s family said that his passing was “sudden and unexpected.”
Neill had been diagnosed with a rare blood cancer in 2022, but stated the following year that he was in remission. The family notes that he “remained cancer free” at the time of his passing.
The family statement reads, “It is with immense sadness that the whānau of Sam Neill share the news of his passing on Monday 13th July, in Sydney Australia. Sam was surrounded by family and passed with the dignity that has characterised his whole life. The loss was sudden and unexpected but blessed by the fact that Sam remained cancer free.
“They would like to express their deepest gratitude to the staff at St Vincent’s Private Hospital for their incredible care. More details will be shared later, but for now, on behalf of the family, we ask that you respect their privacy as they navigate this immeasurable loss.”
In addition to his iconic role as Dr. Alan Grant in the original Jurassic Park and the sequels Jurassic Park III and Jurassic World: Dominion, Sam Neill left an indelible mark on the horror genre with memorable roles in Andrzej Żuławski’s Possession, The Omen: The Final Conflict, John Carpenter’s In the Mouth of Madness, and sci-fi horror favorite Event Horizon.
Sam Neill’s vast resume in film and television began in the early 1970s and also includes the films Sleeping Dogs, Enigma, The Good Wife, A Cry in the Dark, Dead Calm, The Hunt for Red October, Memoirs of an Invisible Man, Hostage, The Jungle Book, Snow White: A Tale of Terror, The Horse Whisperer, Bicentennial Man, Daybreakers, Escape Plan, and Thor: Ragnarok.
Sam Neill is survived by his four children and eight grandchildren.
Steven Spielberg said in a statement to Variety, “I owe a debt of gratitude to Roger Donaldson, Gilliam Armstrong, Graham Baker and Phillip Noyce for casting Sam Neill in the roles in which he was so brilliant that brought him to my attention and led to his playing Dr. Alan Grant in Jurassic Park. Sam was exceptionally collaborative. It was a stretch for him to play a character who acted as though children were messy and smelly because this was the opposite of the loving father he was to his children. I adored making all the Jurassic movies with him.”
Spielberg adds, “Along with Laura Dern and Jeff Goldblum, we will always have our Jurassic family and Sam will never be forgotten by us or his many millions of fans around the world.”
Sam Neill in ‘Event Horizon’
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