Deck-building · Competitive · 2–4 players
Zombie Overlord: a competitive zombie deck-builder for 2–4 players
You're not surviving the apocalypse. You're running it.
Ordering open · fulfillment begins November 2026
About the game
Most zombie games make you run. Zombie Overlord lets you hunt.
You don't save survivors. You harvest them. Set traps. Lure the desperate into your base. Then flip them into zombies and add them to your growing horde.
Every turn, your deck gets stronger. Every rival gets closer to being overrun. Outplay your opponents, sabotage their plans, and prove there's only room for one ruler of the apocalypse.
Best value
The game plus both campaign extras that aren't headed for retail.
Watch
The campaign trailer. If you would rather see a full game played end to end, there is an eight-minute playthrough further down the page.
How you win
Every survivor has a human side and a zombie side. Your job is to flip them.
01
Lay down cunning traps to lure desperate survivors into your base. Each trap has a unique effect, giving you control over how the hunt unfolds.
02
Captured survivors flip to their zombie side and join your deck. Every card has two forms, and every conversion makes your horde stronger.
03
Outplay rival Overlords and tear apart their strategies. Disrupt, discard and destroy as you build devastating combos. Only one ruler remains.
What makes it unique
Zombie Overlord isn't just another zombie game. It's a strategic engine built around deception, conversion and chaos.
You don't just lure survivors. You turn them into your army.
Survivors roam the wasteland in desperation. By placing traps that match the resources they're searching for, you lure them to your base and convert them into loyal undead minions.
Every survivor you claim permanently strengthens your deck, unlocking stronger attacks, better combos and new strategic paths. But every survivor is contested: attack your rivals, sabotage their traps, or out-lure them entirely.
Your traps are both your weapons and your greatest vulnerability.
Trap cards shape the battlefield and define your strategy, each tied to different resource types that fuel combos, attacks and disruption. Build deadly combos, bait opponents into bad decisions, or watch your plans crumble when rivals strike.
Every game feels different.
Each character features original, hand-crafted artwork that brings the wasteland to life, from desperate civilians to dangerous criminals. Each one feels like a character, not just a card.
And when you convert them, they become yours forever. Add the Misfits Mini Expansion and the roster goes to 68.
Every character, every background and most of the visual identity of this game is the work of Maximiliano Musso, who goes by Chino the Goat, out of Buenos Aires. He has stuck with the project for years and been endlessly patient with me. That's his own self-portrait, zombified.
The difference
Most deck-building games have you building quietly. Zombie Overlord doesn't.
From a shared board. Every card you gain was taken from the game, and from everyone else.
Every card you convert makes you stronger while thinning the pool for your rivals.
Every turn stays aggressive. No waiting around while opponents build in silence.
You're fighting other Overlords, not a cooperative threat. Ruthless control of the wasteland.
No waiting. No passive play. Just ruthless control of the wasteland.
From the designer
Zombie Overlord started as a survival game. You built defenses and tried to outlast a growing horde. It never clicked. The whole thing felt forced.
Everything changed when I flipped the script. Instead of surviving the apocalypse, what if you controlled it? That one shift unlocked the design. The game got faster, more interactive and far more strategic. Instead of defending against zombies you build your own horde.
After years of playtesting there's one thing I should probably admit: I've only won my own game twice. Maybe I'm too busy watching how everyone else plays. Either way, that's the goal: every player feels like they have a real shot, and no two games go the same way.
Erick · designer, Rising Warrior Games
How to play
Each round is fast, aggressive and full of decisions. Here's how a turn unfolds.
Play Supply cards to build up Purchase Power, then spend it on new Traps, Action cards or Scavengers from the shared Wasteland.
Place Trap cards into your base to set up defenses and lure types. Activate their special abilities for an edge: more resources, card draws or disruption.
Play Minion cards to attack rival bases. Hit their Life Points directly, or break and deactivate their Traps to disrupt their lure strategy before they can use it against you.
Survivors in the Wasteland are drawn to whoever has the most matching resources across their active Traps. If you lure them, they flip into Zombie Minions and join your deck permanently.
Discard unused cards and draw back up. Your newly converted zombies shuffle into your deck, making every turn stronger than the last.
Last player standing with Life Points wins. Out-lure, out-build and out-battle your rivals to claim your rotten throne.
Want the full detail? Read the complete rulebook PDF · 6 MB before you order.
See it played
Lincoln Hoppe of The Game Bard walked through a complete game in about eight minutes, from setup to the point where the conversion engine starts to snowball. It's an independent review. We didn't script it, and the whole thing is unedited below.
Filmed with a preproduction copy, so the box art in the video is an earlier version. The final cover is the one shown throughout the rest of this page.
Jump to
Seen enough? Build your horde.
Order the gameThe components
With a wide variety of survivors, traps and action cards, no two matches unfold the same way.
Ordering
Direct from the studio. Pick an edition, add the playmats you want, then tell us whether we post it to you or you collect it in person in Chattanooga. Fulfillment begins November 2026.
Email overlord@risingwarriorgames.com with the edition you want, any playmats, and whether you are shipping or picking up in Chattanooga. We will send a payment link back by hand.
Shipping is charged separately from the item price and is worked out from the weight of the box, so it depends on your region and how many playmats are in the order. The exact amount appears in the order panel above before you pay. Local pickup in Chattanooga is free.
Rates by region are shown in the order panel above once you pick an edition, or email overlord@risingwarriorgames.com and we will quote it.
Add-ons
These were unlocked during the campaign and stay exclusive to this store. The mini expansion and the Life Point Trackers come with the Horde Bundle, and playmats can be added to any order in the panel above.
20 new characters: Misfits, Holiday Horde and backer-created characters, plus a card explaining the swap. Same stock as the core game, in a resealable bag.
Full-size 24" × 10" mats with a smooth surface, non-slip rubber backing and subtle placement guides.
Four custom 16mm D6 dice with an engraved crown on every face, no standard pips, in a flannel drawstring bag.
Before you order
Anything not covered here, email overlord@risingwarriorgames.com and you'll get a real answer.
Two to four players, 30–40 minutes per game, recommended for ages 14 and up. The box holds 194 cards and 48 unique characters, or 68 with the Misfits Mini Expansion.
No. Zombie Overlord is a competitive game built for 2–4 players. Luring survivors away from rivals and attacking their bases is the core of it, so it needs at least one opponent.
Yes. The complete rules are on this site, free to read with nothing to download. You can also grab the rulebook PDF (6 MB). If you'd rather watch than read, there's a complete playthrough on this page, about eight minutes from setup to the point where the conversion engine takes over.
All three include the complete 194-card core game and every stretch goal unlocked during the campaign.
Player playmats can be added to any of the three in the order panel.
No. The Core Edition is the complete game. The Misfits Mini Expansion is optional.
The core game has 68 Survivor cards covering 48 unique characters, so 20 appear twice. The expansion swaps those 20 duplicates for 20 new characters, so your deck stays the same size and every card is unique, taking the roster to 68. The cards to swap are marked with a small white marker in the top right. More on how the swap works.
The cards are 63 × 88 mm (2.5 × 3.5 in), the standard size, so any sleeve sold as "standard" or "poker" size will fit.
They're printed on 300gsm blue-core stock with a linen finish and a matte varnish. Blue core is the opaque layer that stops light showing through from behind, and the linen texture is there so they shuffle well and don't stick. The insert tray holds the deck sleeved or unsleeved.
English. All the cards and the printed rulebook are English only.
German and Spanish rulebook PDFs will be available to download here once the game is out. The cards themselves stay in English.
Yes, and it costs nothing. If you are in the Chattanooga area, choose local pickup in the order panel and it will show you the date, the time and the place. Pickup is a required choice at checkout rather than a buried option, so nobody pays for shipping by accident when they could collect in person.
It depends on your region and on how many playmats are in the order, because shipping is priced on the weight of the box. The rate table above lists every combination, and the order panel shows the exact amount for your order before you pay. Local pickup in Chattanooga is free.
The Misfits Mini Expansion and the Life Point Trackers are light and ship in the same package, so they do not change your shipping cost. Playmats do, because they need a larger box.
We ship to the US, Canada and most of the rest of the world. Orders to the UK and the EU are paused while VAT registration is finished.
Zombie Overlord is out of the factory and fulfillment begins in November 2026. Kickstarter pledges and earlier preorders go out alongside orders placed here.
If you choose local pickup you collect it on the date shown in the order panel, which is sooner than anything posted.
Email overlord@risingwarriorgames.com before you do anything else. Orders already placed are locked, so you can't add to one yourself, and placing a second order separately would mean paying shipping twice.
Message us and we'll sort it out so you aren't charged more than you should be.
On this page, then on Stripe. You choose your edition and delivery here, and the card payment itself happens on Stripe's own secure checkout page. We never see or store your card details.
Rising Warrior Games is an independent studio in Chattanooga, Tennessee, and fulfills every order directly.
Not right now. This site will be the only place to get it. We'd like to see Zombie Overlord on the shelf at local game shops and with a handful of online retailers eventually, but nothing is arranged yet and there's no date to share.
One thing to know either way: the add-ons are campaign unlocks and stay exclusive to this store. The Misfits Mini Expansion, the playmats and the engraved life trackers aren't part of any future shop edition.
