You have to give the developers some kind of credit for sticking with The War Z. It’s a knockoff brand that has become iconic in its own way (though admittedly, not a very good way). The game has made yet another comeback to Steam, this time under its newest moniker Infestation: The New Z.

Fredaikis AB and OP Productions make no mistake about beating around the bush or attempting to play footsies with the title or direction of the game. Right there at the top of the description on the Steam page they announce that Infestation: The New Z is a “massive re-work” of Infestation: Survivor Stories, which is a re-release of Infestation, which was the renamed version of The War Z. And for those of you who don’t remember, The War Z was the knockoff game based around Dean “Rocket” Hall’s DayZ mod.

There was a whole buffet of drama stretching across a smorgasbord of community disruption centered around The War Z. In fact, there more drama involved with this game than the entire boxed set of the Jerry Springer Show. The divisive history of the game has even spilled right on over into the reviews of Infestation The New Z, landing it a “Mixed” rating on Steam.

Despite being free-to-play, the game still carries a lot of bad blood with it, but that hasn’t stopped the developers from trying to reinvent the series. They offer open-world gameplay with zombie battles, looting, PvP, a Battle Royale mode, a new anti-cheat setup and various loot and skin boxes.

You can see what the reinvented game looks like with the trailer below.

If you’ve already played The War Z then you know what to expect. If you haven’t played the game, essentially it’s a first-person survival title. You loot places scattered around the map, attempting to find crafting supplies, health, food, water and weapons. You deck your character out with gear, you fight zombies along the way, and you either team up with or kill other human players.

Years ago this was one of the games that helped usher in emergent gameplay, piggybacking off the success of the boon in Twitch and YouTube videos centered around player-created stories and exploits coming out of games like DayZ and Minecraft.

So you might be asking yourself “Why does this game have a mixed rating if it’s a revamped version of DayZ and Minecraft?” Well, young grasshopper, it’s because despite supposedly being an upgrade on The War Z, a lot of people have had problems with getting kicked for suspected cheating, while some cheaters still roam around in the game.

Others complained that the game is pay-to-win, including having to buy respawns. Some complained that the game looks like it’s from 2006, others argued that being able to buy loot boxes and vehicles give payers an unfair advantage.

Some liked the game… they felt that it was well optimized, that the combat was solid and that there was plenty to loot throughout the map. Many enjoyed the fact that it’s free-to-play. So there’s that, too.

The general consensus is that H1Z1 would be the better game to check out, based on the user reviews, but it’s still a decidedly mixed crowd who just can’t seem to stay away from the game that will forever be known as the DayZ knockoff. If you’re interested in learning more about how the game runs, what new patches they’re adding, and downloading the client for yourself, you can visit the Steam store page.