After watching a music video from Two Down, J.I. noticed something about Black Ops 2 that got the gears turning in his head. After some discussion within the group of The Xiled Ones, a challenge was formed.
The ZedX Challenge would set the Xiled Ones apart from other Zombie YouTubers by creating their own version of Zombies, allowing them to offer critiques on the entire Zombie experience when others had only played XO created their own. Quickly, things changed, and Zed/heaD became its own thing.
Through the process, J.I. noticed a few points that carried over into his old stories, so he decided to integrate ideas from everything he had created over the past decade. Zed/heaD is how J.I. would have designed Zombies while attempting to recapture the old, edgy feel of games from the late 1990s to the late 2000s.
He was inspired by things such as the Half Life 2 beta, Doom, Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines, I am Legend, Escape from New York and the whole Underground/Street titles of the late 2000s.
Set between the unpublished novels “Living Legacy” and “Old Demons,” Zed/heaD follows the journey of four soldiers from the Silver Crown* Service* escorting their captive, Jared Leonhart.
During their mission to transfer Leonhart from Windsor* the capital of Great Agarthia to the maximum security prison located in the town of Bradley, an explosion disrupted their journey, plunging them into chaos. Amidst the confusion, Leonhart broke free, overpowering and fatally injuring one of the soldiers. When the lights flickered back on, the deceased soldier unexpectedly rose as a Zed*
Their train unexpectedly arrived within the quarantine zone of Crowley, infested by the Zed—creatures altered by a modified strain of the virus, different from the usual undead. A voice over the intercom urgently instructed the group to navigate through the Zed-infested area and retrieve a crucial serum stored in the attic of the abandoned Matheson Chantry. Once secured, another train would be dispatched to extract them from the danger zone.
“The game is planned to be a small minigame. It will be a first-person shooter with a similar feel to the classic zombies’ round-based experience.
Instead of the whole otherworldly style, the designer has gone for a more grounded approach since your actions will be monitored by two individuals, Carrie and Clarke.
Wall-buys have been changed to terminals where players can see the items and interact with them to pick them up.
Power-ups must be delivered to either of the observers to trigger them.
Different characters will have separate side objectives they can complete to unlock extras such as camos and story elements.
More will be revealed soon.”
All terminology will be revealed in the Agarthian Handbook which is in the process of being created which will be viewable here on ProjectAgarthia.com