VGTimes Interview with the Developers of God Save Birmingham — a Medieval Zombie Survival Game with Realistic Physics

God Save Birmingham is a survival game set in medieval England. According to the premise, the city's residents have turned into flesh-eating ghouls, and only the protagonist has retained his sanity. The game puts a strong emphasis on realism — every object can be picked up and used as a weapon. Fall from a great height and you can break a leg. There is also a risk of infection or even losing your mind. We spoke with the developers to find out how all of these systems will work together in a single game.

Our questions were answered by God Save Birmingham Creative Director HyeonSeong Cha, with Guinn Kim translating from Korean into English.

VGTimes: Tell us about the game — what is it about, what are its key features, and why should players choose your project?

HyeonSeong Cha: God Save Birmingham is a medieval zombie survival game with crafting. Project Zomboid was one of our main inspirations. It managed to deliver a realistic survival experience, and we wanted to bring something similar into a different setting. The main thing that sets our game apart is its realistic physics, which directly affects the survival gameplay and plays an important role in the overall experience.

VGTimes: Why did you choose medieval Birmingham specifically as the setting for a zombie survival game?

HyeonSeong Cha: When our team decided to make a game about the undead, we considered a number of different options. We needed a city with a rich history. At the same time, capitals such as London or Paris were simply too large for our small team. We don't have the resources to recreate cities of that scale in the game.

So we started looking at smaller settlements that existed during the Middle Ages. Around that time, we visited the Birmingham Museum, which provided us with a great deal of information and inspiration. It became clear that this city could serve as the foundation for our open world. That's why we chose Birmingham.

VGTimes: Why did you decide to use slow zombies instead of fast ones?

HyeonSeong Cha: That was a decision made by our game director, who has played a lot of zombie games. He's seen a kind of evolution of zombies over the years — fast ones, strong ones, and even creatures with special abilities. But he finds the classic shambling undead the most terrifying.

They're slow, but they're difficult to stop. They also gather into large crowds and surround the protagonist from every direction. It creates this feeling that sooner or later the monsters are going to get you. That's the experience we wanted to bring to God Save Birmingham.

VGTimes: In God Save Birmingham, any object can be used as a weapon or tool. How much freedom does this give players? Does a feature like this create any particular problems?

HyeonSeong Cha: Being able to pick up any object gives players a lot of freedom. For example, you can build a barricade and board up windows, or knock a zombie onto its back.

But the physics can also work against you. A zombie might hit you with some random object and knock you over. That creates additional risks for the player.

This kind of freedom requires a lot of work on the in-game physics. It creates additional challenges for the development team. We need to make sure we're ready to give players that much freedom without it causing unexpected problems.

VGTimes: The game will have an online mode. Studio representatives previously admitted that combat was the weakest aspect of their games. How difficult has it been to implement combat in God Save Birmingham?

HyeonSeong Cha: It's important to point out that last time we were talking about a shooter, where you need to aim accurately and react quickly (likely referring to Section 13. — Editor's note). Here, we're dealing with the Middle Ages, where you can have an arm or a leg cut off. It's a different kind of work, but it still requires us to polish every small detail, which is a major challenge for our team.

VGTimes: How deep will the survival system be?

HyeonSeong Cha: We want to make it relatively deep, but still reasonable. For example, you'll need to keep track of hunger and thirst, which is straightforward enough.

Beyond that, there are illnesses tied to hygiene and cleanliness, the risk of freezing, and a sanity system affected by things such as stress. You also need to consider how your actions affect individual body parts. For example, if you've been running for too long, your legs will become weakened, which will directly affect what your character is capable of doing.

VGTimes: God Save Birmingham will feature co-op. How will it differ from playing solo?

HyeonSeong Cha: Co-op is built into God Save Birmingham. It differs from single-player, where dying means game over and you have to reload a save. In multiplayer, if you die, you simply respawn. That may make it sound like a more casual experience.

Another difference is the tone. Single-player creates a sense of fear because, as we mentioned, you're fighting enormous hordes of zombies that constantly surround you. Yes, they're slow, but they're difficult to get rid of.

In co-op, defeating the undead is easier because you're working together with other players. At the same time, the gameplay becomes more fun. We've noticed that the overall tone of the game changes.

But co-op also creates its own challenges. For example, you'll need to feed everyone in the session, which means spending time searching for much larger quantities of food.

VGTimes: Your roadmap changes quite often. How has player feedback influenced the development of God Save Birmingham?

HyeonSeong Cha: The original roadmap was created by the game director and the rest of the team based on their own ideas about what a survival game should be.

But after reading player feedback, they realized that people felt certain elements were missing. We were already planning to add those features eventually, but because so many players were asking for them, we changed the roadmap so we could implement the requested features earlier.

VGTimes: How large will the final version of God Save Birmingham be?

HyeonSeong Cha: As I mentioned earlier, while gathering reference material we visited the Birmingham Museum. It has a miniature model of the city showing what it looked like in the Middle Ages, and we recreated that version of Birmingham in the game.

VGTimes: Will the game have a full-fledged story, or is it primarily focused on survival?

HyeonSeong Cha: It will be a kind of mixture of the two approaches. We won't have major unexpected plot twists. At the same time, we took inspiration from survival stories such as Robinson Crusoe.

It's important to understand that the protagonist is an ordinary person who has to work hard simply to stay alive. There is a sequence of specific objectives that gradually teaches you everything you need to do in order to survive.

VGTimes: Can the player's actions affect the world of God Save Birmingham?

HyeonSeong Cha: Some features are technically difficult to implement. For example, you can't burn an entire house to the ground or destroy a whole neighborhood with fire, but you can burn all the furniture inside a building.

There is one particular detail worth highlighting. The number of zombies in the game corresponds to Birmingham's population. And they do not respawn in any form. So if you clear out a district — or even the entire city — the undead will not return. That's one way players can change the world of God Save Birmingham.

VGTimes: You've played a lot of zombie games. Which series is your favorite? Could some of its elements appear in God Save Birmingham?

HyeonSeong Cha: First of all, I'd highlight Project Zomboid because of its deep and hardcore survival system, which tries to simulate virtually everything you would deal with in real life.

Lone Survivor is also worth mentioning, where an ordinary person finds himself in a city whose entire population has turned into zombies. And when it comes to the behavior of the undead, the first three Resident Evil games come to mind, with their slow but powerful enemies.

VGTimes: Thank you for the interview!

HyeonSeong Cha: Thank you!

The modern gaming industry certainly has no shortage of zombie survival games. God Save Birmingham could stand out among fans of the genre thanks to its elaborate physics and attention to realism in even the smallest details. The main challenge is making sure that authenticity does not become the game's only strength. No release date has been announced yet.

VGTimes has been operating since 2011 and over that time has attended dozens of exhibitions and festivals, where our journalists have gathered a wealth of exclusive material. For example, in 2019 we attended a closed showing of Cyberpunk 2077 at gamescom, in 2017 we prepared a photo report from WG Fest, in 2020 we were at the largest gaming event in Central Asia — CAGS, and we have visited IgroMir several times, where we met Hideo Kojima and other famous developers. In 2024 we traveled to the Land of the Rising Sun for TGS 2024, where we were amazed by the scale of the Tokyo event. In 2025 we witnessed one of Asia's premier gaming exhibitions — ChinaJoy in Shanghai. We also made it to the Thai edition of gamescom 2025 in Bangkok, and at the start of this year attended CES 2026 in Las Vegas and later Computex 2026 in Taipei.