I was quite taken by the idea of Pandemic Express when it was announced last year. It's a multiplayer survival game that has a group of 30 people attempting to escape a zombie apocalypse, the twist being that one of them—unbeknownst to the rest—is already infected, granting them powerful abilities, unlimited respawns, and a burning hunger for brains. Cue a running fight to the last train out and a final stand by whoever's left alive, and it sounds like a pretty good time to me.

The player numbers haven't been great, though (to put it mildly), and so publisher Tinybuild is taking another run at it by making the game free to play. Under the new system, players will earn "stars" by playing matches that can be spent on costumes, emojis, and in-game music. If you don't want to wait, you can opt to buy them instead. 

"We believe this is the most fair and transparent way to do free to play," Tinybuild said. Anyone who bought the game prior to the free-to-play transition will be given 2000 stars and access to all music tracks, as a thanks "for being with us from the start."

Tinybuild didn't say how, or if, the change will impact its long-term plans for the game, which include new game modes, an in-game tutorial, regional servers, and an overhaul of the transport system. Based on the comments on Steam, the response among players so far seems cautiously hopeful, and Steam Charts indicates a significant uptick in players in the past 30 days: It's still a tiny population, but maybe it'll be enough to get something started.

Pandemic Express – Zombie Escape is a different sort of multiplayer zombie shooter. It starts with a group of 30 players, who must make their way to a waiting train in order to escape a zombie uprising. The catch is that one of them is already infected, and they're eager to share the brain-eating undead love with everyone else. 

It's not as simple as tag, though. Zombies have special abilities that will help them on their hunt: They can mark human players to make them visible to other zombies, and can throw each other around for increased mobility. Humans can equip various sorts of weaponry to fight back, and will have the opportunity to acquire more firepower as they go, but even with that zombies have an edge: They get unlimited respawns, and every time a zombie dies, it comes back with an increased chance of gaining an "ultra" ability that makes it even more dangerous. 

That should ensure that Pandemic Express – Zombie Escape remains a mobile game of evasion, rather than a hold-the-line, last-stand defense—although that's going to happen anyway. Reaching the train is not the end of the action: Once everyone is aboard and the train starts moving, zombies will begin respawning in front of the train instead, and the survivors will have to stand their ground and fend off the infected attackers until the train clears the station. 

It sounds a bit battle royale-like, and like it could be a lot of fun: Zombie shooters are great but a faux-permadeath survival experience with humans on both sides of the bloodshed is where the real action is. Balancing could prove tricky, but that's what an Early Access release is all about. 

Speaking of which, that is set to happen on May 2, which is also when the currently-underway alpha test will come to an end. More information about Pandemic Express – Zombie Escape is up at pandemicexpress.com, and you can lay eyes on some raw (but exuberantly narrated) gameplay video courtesy of Baron von Games in the video down below.