Source: Lightspeed Studios / Undawn / Will Smith
Even Will Smith wasn’t enough to prevent this video game from flopping like his film Wild Wild West.
Undawn, the zombie survival game featuring Will Smith, bombed epically, according to a report from Reuters. The website reported that the game was a “key” in-house project at Tencent and “flopped spectacularly” even with Smith’s involvement and the game’s closet to 1 billion yuan (around $140 million).
We first reported on the game’s existence in May 2023. Before its June launch, 2.3 million people pre-registered to play it. That didn’t matter, as the game didn’t meet expectations.
In the game, which eerily resembles Smith’s film I Am Legend, the actor plays Trey Jones and serves as your guide in the game.
It was billed as a free-to-play mobile and PC game, as well as these other features:
- Base construction and survival mechanics
- An expansive open-world
- Vehicular combat
- Customization elements
- PvPvE platform
Per Reuters, through research firm Appmagic reporting, Undawn only brought in $287,000. The game’s poor performance resulted in Tencent shifting strategy in its mobile division, canceling a mobile game based on Square Enix’s Nier franchise and delaying the Assassin’s Creed: Jade mobile game.
News of the game’s flopping has taken many by surprise, with many people saying they didn’t even know it existed.
One person on X, formerly Twitter, wrote, “…there was a Will Smith-fronted zombie survival game called Undawn?”
“I’m not shocked as someone who’s only just hearing about The Will Smith-fronted zombie survival game Undawn,” another X user wrote.
Well, we knew. We just thought people didn’t care.
In the gallery below, you can see more reactions to Will Smith’s game, Undawn, flopping.