Zombies in GTA V? Take Two CEO says that the undead equal sales

GTA V publisher Take Two Interactive has gotten to talking about the upcoming open-world title from Rockstar Games. Company CEO Strauss Zelnick spoke at a Technology Conference recently hosted by Cowen & Company. He talked about the importance of GTA V to Take Two, calling it the company’s “most important brand”.

I’d like to do zombies in everything, but I probably can’t say that here.

Zelnick believes that GTA V is going to “redefine what an open-world game is and will be”. He thinks that the changes being brought forward by Rockstar Games, with regards to the game’s multiple protagonists, will be a genre changing event.

“We also think that you’re going to have to have multiple protagonists in video games going forward, and we actually know how to do it because we’re the first ones to do it. It’s going to be very, very difficult for our competitors to do this. And they’re going to have to do it in our opinion… This is going to be the first video game where you can shift seamlessly among three protagonists and if you think about it, one of the complicated factors in a video game has been the first person has to play all the emotional roles in the story; the good guy, the bad guy, the victim, the policeman, the cop, the hero,” Zelnick said. “And, for the first time, you’re going to be able to have three protagonists and that will actually drive the story forward.”

So what about those zombies, you ask? The conversation transitioned from GTA V to selling games, and Zelnick began talking about the wild success that Rockstar had with Red Dead Redemption: Undead Nightmare. A game that put a whole new twist on what was already a top-selling title. It urged fans to go back out and pick up the game yet again, to take on an old west infested with zombies.

“We had the presence of mind to add zombies to the title; and everyone always loves zombies,” Zelnick said. “I’d like to do zombies in everything, but I probably can’t say that here. But they do sell.”

We’ll chalk it up to both a rumor, and a rumor that would probably be pretty cool as secondary content for GTA V down the line. We’ll have to wait and see if Zelnick slipped up about DLC plans for GTA V with this zombies talk, or whether he was just speaking in generalities.