Didnt want to leave a review, but i see a lot of people slagging off the NMRIH team for what happened to this game, and as a level designer for it let me be clear, this wasn't the original team, most of us got thrown overboard when making nmrih 2 became a thing. Personally I would have approached the development of this game completely differently, NMRIH was a tribute to the original holy zombie apocalypse trilogy, this feels like the idea of someone who just watched a couple of episodes of walking dead and gave it a shot. All the effort myself and others put into the original game, even though most of us didn't get invited to work on the sequel we all hoped it would do us proud. And why wouldn't it? we'd built a fan base that was hungry for more, and we knew what they wanted, all that time feels wasted. Torn banner, snatching defeat from the jaws of Victory.

Tried NMRIH2 during the free weekend and honestly lost interest on the first day. The atmosphere and co-op potential are there, but the zombie spawn system completely ruins it. You can clear a room, check every corner, and two seconds later zombies just spawn right behind you like it never happened. It makes any kind of strategy or teamwork feel pointless. Instead of feeling tense or immersive, it just feels cheap and frustrating. Hard pass unless they seriously fix the spawn logic.

I think I speak for many here when I say that WE want objective and survival maps instead of an extraction shooter. We want better melee combat. We want way more zombie variants. We want ammo calibers instead of generic “light ammo” type stuff. We want infection. We want “Press K”. We want scroll wheel inventory. We want child zombies. Instead of glowing red eye zombies, we want military and SWAT zombies. We want to feel like a hopeless survivor again, not a veteran in a war against zombies. We want No More Room in Hell. Wtf happened to Night of the living dead and Broadway 3?? Showcased on YouTube a while ago as launch maps. That’s the NMRIH2 that we want.

On top of all that, the game is a buggy horrific mess. Zombies glide around and teleport. Some of them have gibs floating with them. It’s a mess… stay away. Especially if you’re a fan of the original

EDIT FOR REANIMATION+ UPDATE: Game has come a long way. Game still needs a lot of work. I have put almost 50 hours into this game and have put hundreds on the original. I love NMRIH. I was extremely disappointed when the game first came out but I kept my hopes up. They have definitely been listening and as an old school NMRIH fan i appreciate it. Some things I am happy to see added since launch
- ammo calibers
- scroll wheel inventory
- press K
- infection 1.0
- better spawning systems for the zombies
- 2 new maps that fit well with the NMRIH vibe, especially waldo/lewis
- more endings to power plant map
- more guns
- firemen zombies and
- countless bug fixes to make the game feel stable and playable.
- new combat system

However the game still needs a lot of work. A few things that I can think of off the top of my head include
-OPTIMIZATION
- BETTER COMBAT + GORE. Seriously why cant i decapitate zombies with the fire axe? And why cant i downward slash blades to split heads in half? Zombies disappear in a red mist with explosions instead of being able to see the damage done with my grenade or pipe bomb. Why cant i break the legs of zombies with the sledge? WHY DOES THE SLEDGE SUCK??
- BETTER INFECTION that introduces some form of potential pvp aspect similar to the original. What if someones infected and has all the meds and wont give them up? What if he’s hoarding all the pills and theres other infected? What if he wants to kill everyone before they kill him? It would really suck in a zombie apocalypse to not only have to worry ab the zombies but your fellow man. Also, the press K voices are really cringe. They’re like “TAKIN ONE FOR THE TEAM GUYS” as theyre about to blow their head off. The voicelines should be way more scared and self preserving in my opinion
- more zombie models and walking animations. It’s silly seeing the same face on a bunch of zombies all walking in the same 3 styles. Especially the swat guys, we need more variants and animations.
- more maps. We NEED broadway 3 at the very least. I think a NMRIH2 rendition of broadway and chinatown would be a huge hit.
- survival mode
- character customization to choose voice and appearance
- more firearms, especially SKS and AK for 7.62. Id like to see a tier II .45 caliber firearm (maybe a Glock 21?) and a 50 cal pistol for a silly gun. Not too unrealistic either. Also maybe a tacticool .308 weapon like an AR10 or a tac stock attachment for the m14.
- extended magazine attachment for some of the guns
- better looking optics. I mean seriously they look so bad. Why is the sight reticle consistently visible??

I think lewis is the closest map that captures the original NMRIH vibe the best. The other two have grown on me, but man the other new map seriously needs some alternate missions to do other than the community center. Combat is getting there, we just need better gore and real directional combat for all the weapons. Theres no reason i cant downward swing blades. And theres no reason a sledgehammer doesnt break the zombies legs and make them have to crawl. Sledgehammer should crush zombies skulls as well. Anyways i could write forever about this game because ive been so hype for it since announced almost a decade ago.

I still dont think i would recommend it to someone just yet for 30$. It needs a bit more time to cook. Torn banner, you guys are doin a good job. Make sure you keep the originals fan base in mind and dont let new players completely ruin the games identity

Free Weekend Review

After seeing all those negative reviews flow in at launch and restraining myself from purchasing this game, I've decided to give it a go during free weekend. I can see a lot of improvements had been implemented since launch which included many features from the original Source game such as infection, a wheel inventory menu and classic guns. As well as bug fixes which makes this game a bit more enjoyable to play compared to video reviews showing it at launch. But at this stage and speaking from my personal experience, I still don't recommend it to anyone yet. Also, don't expect NMRIH2 to be similar to the original NMRIH, especially if you really like the first game.

My main complaints and what can be improved:
- Joining a game: There is literally only one option, and it's multiplayer. Not even an option to pick a server either. So if you're very unlucky, you might be connected to a server half way across the globe with 300+ ping, making the game literally unplayable with the lag delays. And if you quit mid-game to rejoin, you instantly lose the character you're using. There really should be at least an option to adjust your acceptable ping for joining a server, or choosing a server you want to join that's not 300+ ping away. Especially due the consequence that NMRIH2 will kill off the character you're using if you decide to go back into the menu, given that character progression and skill unlocking is a feature.

- No single player mode: Yes it can be extremely hard and challenging for a solo run, but there really should be an option to give players the mode they want to play, especially when offline. Having just the multiplayer option available kinda limits player preferences. Or, at the very least change the minimum requirement of needing 2 players to start a private lobby and make it so that just the single host can start a private lobby, and friends can maybe perhaps join mid-game.

- Zombies, their respawns and balancing: There is literally no limit to zombies respawning. This needs to be reworked and balanced out. You can clear an entire room with a squad of 4 people, all turn our backs to walk one way, and turn around with 2-3 zombies just appearing out of thin air. During finales, this is extremely annoying especially when ammo runs scarce. There needs to be a balance between finding sufficient resources and zombie respawning rate.
Even comparing to the first game, military zombies have a chance to drop resources such as ammo, a pistol, grenades or bandages players can pickup and use, which does help out to balance the game a little.

Review will be subject to change accordingly to how the game improves over time. I would like to purchase this game one day, but I much rather wait until it's full release and finished, not in early access.

It has potential. All it requires is fixing the buggy zombies and performance issues, and adding a downtown city map, and not some rundown power plant back country area.

That being said, I am disappointed. I got this for free and I still regret having it in my library due to the state it was released in.
There is absolutely zero excuse for what was done.
"We want to create the game with player feedback." - No. That does not fly anymore. You wanted to cash out immediately. The playerbase has mostly abandoned it now, with a peak of 140 players.
I'm sure there's devs who are extremely passionate about this project...but their dreams have been pre-emptively assassinated by a C-tier executive demanding more money.

Hell is overflowing, and Satan is sending his slaves to us.
Why? Because you buy unfinished Early Access slop. You ignore valid criticisms due to the sunk cost fallacy. You lap up the toxic AAA industry garbage.
How do you think your God will judge you? Well, friends; now we know.
When there is no more room in Hell, middle-managers and shareholders will walk the Earth. And they will give you games like these.

I tried to sludge through this game at launch. 8 friends and I sludge through it despite its broken mess.

Now? It's dead, and the mess is still there. I mean, if the devs can magically fix the main issues (Hit detection and connection issues) then I don't see this becoming a full game.

Also they abandoned Chiv 2 for this so.. Yeah remember, always be aware of who is developing a game and see their track record.

As a NMRIH 1 veteran, I’m quite disappointed with this game. At the time of writing this review, I can’t recommend buying it - not even when it’s on sale for around 23€. The main issues I’ve encountered while playing include:

► Occasional problems when trying to join games, whether solo or in a group (the game says "ready" or "in a match" but nothing happens, and eventually it shows an error)

► An absurdly high number of constantly spawning zombies, who are either extremely tanky or melee weapons just deal far too little damage

► Zombies sometimes manage to grab or hit you from a distance where it's clearly not physically possible

► Item spawns sometimes make no sense - for example, you open a military crate and it's empty, but then you find an assault rifle and four magazines just lying on a rubbish bag

► At times, it's absolutely unclear what you're supposed to do even with the compass

► Bugs - zombies were climbing through closed windows, some doors were duplicated and clipping into each other, and the hitboxes are weird. They can hit you while you’re standing on certain cars, but not if you’re on a gravestone or a kitchen counter

► When I die, spectating others can be difficult due to a glitched inventory screen covering the entire view. And when it does work, the player I'm spectating often teleports

► Overall, it feels like the game is not playable solo or with a small group of friends. In order to survive, you either need someone who really knows the game or you’ve got to run with a full squad and work together the whole time

This is not No More Room In Hell game. It's just a generic zombie game with the name "NMRIH" slapped on it.

To start the review, it seems worth emphasizing that I NEVER give negative reviews before. When I buy a game that I end up not liking, I just refund it and don't leave a negative review. Because, well, maybe I just didn't like the game so there's no need to leave a negative review. But this time it's different. I feel the NEED to leave a negative review for this game.

This is NMRIH 2, a sequel to the classic zombie game which can be said that was a part of my childhood. Me, and other NMRIH fans, have been WAITING for this game for 8 years. People expected this game to be a great sequel and raise people's interest in NMRIH. But instead we get this lame, lazy, soulless game (and buggy too).

First, lets talk about the cut content (yeah, a cut content for early access game, imagine that). If you just recently following this game, you need to know that Torn Banner has only recently taken over the game's development. Previously the developers worked on this game independently. After Torn Banner took over, they MAKING THIS GAME FROM SCRATCH again and removed all of the previously existing content. You want kid zombie? You want infection? You want su*cid* mechanic? You want character customization? You want weapon customization? You want more map? All WAS exist in the old build BEFORE Torn Banner TAKING OVER the game development. All that 6 years of hard work wasted just like that.

The second thing that is also very important is that Torn Banner changes the concept of NMRIH 2 into a soulless extraction shooter game. What makes NMRIH so beloved by many (despite its flaws) is that it has a uniqueness that not many other zombie games have. When you play NMRIH 1, you feel hopelessness. You just a nobody, trying to survive the zombie outbreak. You're not immune to the infecion, resources are scarce, and you objective is to save yourself from the chaos that happen. Now compare it to NMRIH 2. You play as responder (the equivalent of cleanser from B4B. Who the hell want that?), spawn already with weapon, a skill (a skill in NMRIH game? What were they thinking?), and tasked to prevent some power plant from exploding. What a fresh and unique concept, right?

Moreover, there are SO MANY bugs in this game. You think after Torn Banner taking over, the game will be better? It's become WORSE. Zombie teleporting, brain floating, weapon flying, etc., it's still exist even after the hotfix! These guys now they game was so buggy, but they released it anyway. If you said "hey this is early access, so you better expect bug to exist". Well yeah I will expect some bug to exist, but not a infested kind of bugs like this game have. Better call this game alpha build and not early access.

I wouldn't be this angry and disappointed if this wasn't a NMRIH game. But the dev slapped the NMRIH name to this game, mainly because they know people will play this game because of it. But of course people are expecting a real NMRIH sequel, not this crap, generic, and boring game. I'm not even going to bother at all if the dev polish this game more an release a 1.0 version one or two year later. Because, well, this is NOT a NMRIH game.

So, thanks to Torn Banner for ruining a beloved franchise and destroying the old dev vision. Go to hell, Torn Banner. But I don't think there's going to be any room in hell for you, Torn Banner.

They threw away everything that defined the first game and made it stand out, in favor of turning the sequel into a soulless shadow of its predecessor in a pathetic attempt to "aPpEAL To MOdErN aUdIenCEs".

The bleeding and infection mechanics are entirely absent (Supposedly, the latter will be introduced in a future update, but it alarms me how they are not prioritizing something so integral to the NMRiH experience). The reanimated soldiers and children are nowhere to be found. In their place are bloodied zombies with glowing red eyes that are inexplicably much stronger than the others. You can sprint and jump all you want without worrying about stamina, but four swings with a metal pipe will exhaust you (A recent update claims to have tweaked this somewhat, but my point still stands). The diverse cast of civilian survivors desperately struggling for their own survival have been replaced with members of the fictional CRC, all wearing the exact same generic uniform, set out on a grandiose mission to fix the power plant and save thousands of human lives. Losing all your health, instead of killing your character instantly, leads to them being downed and needing a "rEvIVE SyRinGe" or help from a teammate to get back up, as the zombies stomp and beat them instead of simply eating their victim alive. The list goes on.

The head developer promised us this would be "more of the same, but better". No More Room In Hell 2 was supposed to be a sequel, an expansion of the original concept. It should have introduced new elements that added depth and breathed new life into the franchise, enhancing it in ways that weren't previously possible due to technical limitations of the Source engine, while retaining the same core, spirit, and personality of the original game. And that's what the developers were aiming to do at first, before Torn Banner came along and carelessly tossed years of hard work into the garbage bin so they could work on their stupid vision of Hunt: Showdown: Zombie Edition, while crudely masquerading it as No More Room in Hell 2.

This is a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ disgrace. It completely disrespects the fans of the first game that have been patiently waiting for almost a decade. No amount of bug fixing or optimizations can fix the absolutely broken foundation of this poor excuse of a sequel. People need to open their eyes and stop encouraging this kind of arrogant behavior from game developers.

♥♥♥♥ you Torn Banner.

Very late edit: here's a list of scrapped features that were included in the abandoned build of NMRiH2, which was near completion in 2022, but ultimately got flushed down the drain and spat on by the new developers when TB took over.

1. Not only were there zombified children, but they also had walker/crawler variants
2. The old wheel inventory
3. Crafting system
4. Character customization, the survivors were just average Joes and Janes
5. There were multiple escape routes, not just different variations of the objectives. For example, if your friends took off on the chopper without you, you can still try to reach a boat or something.
6. A 'clues' system that was used for stuff like opening weapon safes
7. Expanded infection mechanics. For example, the pills become increasingly ineffective as you keep taking them, and you can get infected from simply getting clawed by a zombie. The virus has an effect similar to retinoblastoma, making the zombies' eyes reflect light. This also happens to both infected survivors and people who have been cured by gene therapy, which was said to make players suspicious of each other
8. Workshop support and being able to create your own server
9. If you remove a zombie's arm, they will now be able to slash at you with their exposed bone, dealing more damage and inflicting the bleeding status on you
10. Firefighter zombies and riot gear zombies
11. Medkit healing animation was more realistic
12. The return of the welders and fire extinguishers
13. You can get grabbed by more than one zombie at once, and being swarmed by them results in instant death
14. Zombies will feast on the corpses of dead players. A walker can temporarily gain the ability to run after eating someone
15. There were badly decomposed zombies that released infectious gases into the air around them, preventing players from camping a location
16. Ammo types had actual names such as 9mm, 12 gauge, and .22LR
17. You can trigger house alarms that must be shut off in order to prevent zombies from spawning en masse
18. Weapon attachments
Etc.

Edit 2: I may or may not have accidentally taken down an innocent comment or two during my attempt at 'damage control', sorry about that.

If you disagree with my opinion and want to leave a comment about it, sure. But please at least attempt to bring up actual valid arguments that are grounded in logic and reasoning instead of pulling baseless, thoroughly delusional claims out of your unwashed butt crack or resorting to name calling.

"nMIrH iS a rEliC Of ZeE pASt aNd dOesN'T HoLD uP tOdAy!!" Okay, then explain how the first game has almost 5x more players than the sequel even though it is over 13 years old. We will see which one gets left behind in the past when TB ditches this ♥♥♥♥ show like they did with Chivalry 2.

"sOmEONe's tiLtED i sEe, wE DoN't LIve iN a pERfEcT wOrLD" Yeah, no ♥♥♥♥, Sherlock. We should all just let the higher-ups have their way with us and lick their boots without putting up any resistance, is that what you're saying?

"tHe cOrE gAmEpLaY LoOp Is gReAaaAtT!!" No, it is not. You're either lying to yourself or you simply cannot comprehend what a good game is supposed to be like because you are so used to consuming crappy products that you pay good money for. It's basically just a dumbed down and dragged out clone of NMRiH1's gameplay with a silly skill/upgrade mechanic and other overly gameified stuff thrown in.

"yAPpeR" Alright, brainrotted tool with the attention span and brain power of an infant.

Even if you chose to go ahead do so anyway, don't worry. I'll be helping you save the embarrassment :)

Edit 3: It's free weekending time! What can I say, a free game is a free game. I'm gonna check out the new update and write about my thoughts here after I'm done.

Edit 4:

It takes forever to get into a match and it can sometimes start before I even finish loading.

I saw a teammate t-posing for around a minute straight when I first entered a game.

Low FPS despite minimal graphics settings and horrible lag.

I'm glad they added things like shamblers, the radial inventory, and unloading guns. I also like how pill bottles now have 3 uses instead of 1. Most of the players were rather friendly to me.

Everyone has reach, living and undead alike. Stamina drains/recharges way too quickly during combat. Jumping doesn't take away stamina.

Zombies go down from body shots too easily and it's too hard for you to headshot them.

You shouldn't be able to cut off a zombie's legs this effortlessly. Especially when the developers made them more resilient towards head trauma.

The zombie animations are goofy as ♥♥♥♥ and just don't have that eerie aura they originally had. Their constant screeching is kind of disturbing, I guess, but I prefer the mostly silent zombies in the first game. These ones don't feel "dead".

Why tf is gene therapy a gun now? What was the thought process behind this decision? It should have been kept as an auto-injector pen, like adrenaline and insulin. The Infection special effects are cringe. Why the flickering blue/yellow/white light rays?

The down mechanic is awful. It's even worse than I thought it would be. Your character just lies on the ground coughing while the zombies that swarm you do absolutely nothing to hasten your demise. At the very least they could have your character scream in agony and beg for help, like in l4d1&2. In this game, your character only yells "Aw, what the ♥♥♥♥?!" in annoyance instead of pain.

Swear words are censored in the chat for some reason.

I am a veteran for the first No More Room in Hell and I was also a private tester for the game back when it was developed on Unreal Engine 4 and let me tell you this, No More Room in Hell 2 is in name only. This game is so casualized and dumbed down with stupid decisions that bogged down the hardcore nature of the game.