Skip to main content PC Gamer THE GLOBAL AUTHORITY ON PC GAMES Search PC Gamer View Profile Movies & TV Gaming Industry PC Gaming Show Newsletter Signup Community Guidelines Affiliate Links Meet the team About PC Gamer PC Gamer Magazine Subscription Why subscribe? Subscribe to the world's #1 PC gaming mag Try a single issue or save on a subscription Issues delivered straight to your door or device From£35.99Subscribe now Essential Hardware Abiotic Factor Dune: Awakening PC Gaming Show Recommended reading Quarantine Zone creator reveals 3 reasons the zombie sim went viral on TikTok Quarantine Zone: The Last Check has been wishlisted on Steam 1 million times, and will be published in November by Devolver Digital 'People hate it. It's very annoying. It's like a boss in Dark Souls': Quarantine Zone's biggest source of negative feedback is that dang supply cart I'm diagnosing survivors of a zombie apocalypse and only occasionally mistaking cold symptoms for the zombie plague in this military base management sim Ambrosia Sky is a narrative power-washing game with the heart of an immersive sim—try the Steam demo now This 'narrative simulator' about a delivery driver in deeply rural Russia is giving me serious Mudrunner meets Disco Elysium vibes How Mycopunk's devs turned a school project with zero funding into a 'Very Positive' Steam launch: 'We wanted to make our own dream version of Deep Rock or Helldivers' Quarantine Zone was almost a zombie-free sim about managing a warehouse Christopher Livingston 28 July 2025 You could have been scanning boxes instead of scanning people for signs of the zombie plague. When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. Here’s how it works. (Image credit: Brigada Games) Something curious happened in mid-2024: everyone went crazy over a little game called Supermarket Simulator. There's never a shortage of quirky little games about doing real-life jobs, but for some reason this particular retail sim about stocking shelves and waiting on customers blew up big—and that didn't just draw the attention of players, but other developers. That includes Stas Staryk, who had been doing corporate VR training and outsourced work for Epic Games, but wanted to make his first game with the company he'd co-founded, Brigada Games. A game like Supermarket Simulator had a lot of appeal, Staryk told PC Gamer this week. "We decided that it's interesting to try our first game in this [simulator] genre, because it's not so expensive in development [and] it has a pretty large audience," Staryk said. "I think we tried two ideas. The first was 'Warehouse Manager.'" Related Articles Quarantine Zone creator reveals 3 reasons the zombie sim went viral on TikTok Quarantine Zone: The Last Check has been wishlisted on Steam 1 million times, and will be published in November by Devolver Digital 'People hate it. It's very annoying. It's like a boss in Dark Souls': Quarantine Zone's biggest source of negative feedback is that dang supply cart His team put together a mock-up trailer of what a warehouse management game might look like and received positive feedback from Reddit and Discord. Ultimately, though, Staryk decided to go another route with Brigada's first game, thinking there were too many warehouse-style sims already coming out. "And actually it was true, because one month later, Storage Guys was announced [and] they used the same assets we used in our trailer," Staryk said. Next, the devs considered making an alchemist simulator, Staryk said, due to his personal interest in "real alchemists, not fantasy alchemists, but the real Middle-Ages alchemists," he said. "How they lived, what they did. They were the first scientists." Another concept trailer was made, but the alchemy simulator idea was eventually scrapped. "It looked too complex for us, for our first game." The biggest gaming news, reviews and hardware deals Keep up to date with the most important stories and the best deals, as picked by the PC Gamer team. Contact me with news and offers from other Future brandsReceive email from us on behalf of our trusted partners or sponsorsBy submitting your information you agree to the Terms & Conditions and Privacy Policy and are aged 16 or over. The team moved onto the next idea: zombies. "I'm a big fan of the Walking Dead universe," Staryk said. Still wanting to stick with a simulation game but incorporate the undead, Staryk says one of the developers at Brigada Games suggested "something like Papers, Please and zombies," and the idea for Quarantine Zone: The Last Check was finally born. Pivoting to a zombie theme appears to have been a great idea: Quarantine Zone now has over a million wishlists on Steam and a publishing deal with Devolver Digital. Ironically, if there's one thing players don't like about the demo, it's the warehouse management aspect of it: everyone hates the wonky supply cart you have to push around, so ditching the Warehouse Manager concept was probably a wise move. Best gaming rigs 2025All our favorite gear 👉Check out our list of guides👈 1. Best gaming laptop: Razer Blade 16 2. Best gaming PC: HP Omen 35L 3. Best handheld gaming PC: Lenovo Legion Go S SteamOS ed. 4. Best mini PC: Minisforum AtomMan G7 PT 5. Best VR headset: Meta Quest 3 Devolver Digital Christopher Livingston Social Links Navigation Senior Editor Chris started playing PC games in the 1980s, started writing about them in the early 2000s, and (finally) started getting paid to write about them in the late 2000s. Following a few years as a regular freelancer, PC Gamer hired him in 2014, probably so he'd stop emailing them asking for more work. Chris has a love-hate relationship with survival games and an unhealthy fascination with the inner lives of NPCs. He's also a fan of offbeat simulation games, mods, and ignoring storylines in RPGs so he can make up his own. You must confirm your public display name before commenting Please logout and then login again, you will then be prompted to enter your display name. Quarantine Zone creator reveals 3 reasons the zombie sim went viral on TikTok Quarantine Zone: The Last Check has been wishlisted on Steam 1 million times, and will be published in November by Devolver Digital 'People hate it. It's very annoying. It's like a boss in Dark Souls': Quarantine Zone's biggest source of negative feedback is that dang supply cart I'm diagnosing survivors of a zombie apocalypse and only occasionally mistaking cold symptoms for the zombie plague in this military base management sim Ambrosia Sky is a narrative power-washing game with the heart of an immersive sim—try the Steam demo now This 'narrative simulator' about a delivery driver in deeply rural Russia is giving me serious Mudrunner meets Disco Elysium vibes Latest in Sim The best Umamusume: Pretty Derby builds for each horse girl Quarantine Zone creator reveals 3 reasons the zombie sim went viral on TikTok 'People hate it. It's very annoying. 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Now the algorithms and data are available' 7 Umamusume: Pretty Derby tips to give your horse girls the successful career they deserve Latest in News 'Maybe I’ve directed my last game,' Dead Space creator Glen Schofield says after being unable to secure funding for his new project: 'With the industry on pause, AAA feels like it's a long ways away' A 'slavish clone': Sony is suing Tencent over a game that looks startlingly similar to Horizon Zero Dawn Great news: A guy saved an image file onto a live bird Steam's latest mini-hit is Mage Arena, a voice-powered spellcasting game that costs $3 Itch.io denies hiding one of 2024's best games from search results amid the payment processor crackdown on NSFW games, says it's been de-indexed since October 2024 because 'it doesn't meet our indexing criteria' Roblox CEO horrifies every parent alive with his ambition that the platform become a dating hub, even if he promises age verification: 'A virtual date to start, and then if they connect, move to the physical world' HARDWARE BUYING GUIDES LATEST GAME REVIEWS Best PCIe 5.0 SSD for gaming in 2025: the only Gen 5 drives I will allow in my PC Best graphics cards in 2025: I've tested pretty much every AMD and Nvidia GPU of the past 20 years and these are today's top cards Best gaming laptop in 2025: I've put the best of this new generation head-to-head and we have a winner Best gaming chair in 2025: I've tested a ton of gaming chairs and these are the seats I'd suggest for any PC gamer Best Steam Deck accessories in Australia for 2025: Our favorite docks, powerbanks and gamepads Tales of the Shire: A The Lord of the Rings Game review Tryx Panorama SE ARGB 360 review SteelSeries Arctis Nova 3X review Killing Floor 3 review Razer DeathAdder V4 Pro review PC Gamer is part of Future plc, an international media group and leading digital publisher. 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