Urban Dead is a visually minimalist MMORPG about a city beset by a plague of George A. Romero-style zombies thanks to the mad science perpetuated behind closed doors by the sinister NecroTech corporation. Players can begin play as unskilled members of several occupational classes, informing their starting skills and equipment, then are turned loose into an urban wasteland grid in hopes to secure useful equipment, earn valuable experience points and, above all, stay alive. There are no computer-automated enemies—all the zombies (or “zeds” as they are colloquially referred to) are controlled by human players, most of them formerly having wandered the streets as a living character in-game before being slain or infected by another zombie player.
Daily game play is capped at approximately 50 turns, with a turn being added every half-hour. Every in-game action, from entering a building to addressing other players present to attacking an opponent (human or zombie—though experience gained against members of your “side” is halved) expends turns. Some of these actions earn experience points (depending on one’s character class—doctors for instance gain XP by healing others) which can be later employed purchasing new skills (again, priced according to class). Other actions that can be performed include communicating with other players remotely over short-wave radio, marking map locations with a can of spray-paint, and barricading safehouses (and dismantling those barricades for zombie players). Naturally there are high XP incentives for human players to slay zombie players and vice versa, but generally, through the application of unusual items, it is possible for an altruistic player to revive zombie players and restore to them the options of playing as a human character.
Most gameplay occurs in in the initial town of Malton, with new maps opened for Monroeville (opened February 25th, 2008 but since closed) and (with limited play—no zombie revivication) in Borehamwood (opened October 28th, 2008, no new accounts).
