How to Survive's challenges are a race off zombie-infested islands

Eko Software's forthcoming third-person zombie survival game, How to Survive, will feature a challenge mode that has 10 self-contained challenges, each with a different twist on escaping a set of islands that are swarming with zombies.

Where the game's main campaign mode is about crafting and finding new ways to create, dismantle and upgrade weapons that can be used against zombies, the challenge mode focuses on individual elements of survival.

In one challenge that was demoed to Polygon titled Island of Fatties, the player has to make their way to an aircraft that will get them off the island. To do so, they need to make it through hordes of rotund, boomer-like zombies that explode when attacked. In this case, the player has a few choices. They can try to outrun the giant zombies or steathily maneuver around them to avoid a confrontation. They can attack them at close quarters and risk severe injury (when the boomers explode, they cause damage to anything in their immediate surroundings). Or they can strategically attack them from a distance.

In another challenge Polygon saw, titled Chainsaw Massacre, the player has to make their way off the island with a chainsaw as their main weapon. The player will be able to pick up other weapons in the map, but these will be few and far between. The challenge will include finding a way to take out the boomers without performing a melee chainsaw attack, trying to kill off zombies who are wearing chainsaw-proof armor and picking up armor and helmets from dead zombies for added protection.

How to Survive will launch in October on PSN, XBLA, Steam and Wii U.