Hacks ‘n’ Slashes Its Way to Success

As part of UberStrategist’s ongoing engagement with Ziggurat Interactive, a modern publisher of retro games, our PR team supported the multi-platform release of Slave Zero X. The bloody and brutal hack ‘n’ slash game is the prequel to 1999’s Slave Zero, a third-person shooter set in the same dystopian landscape.

Being the follow-up to a cult classic, albeit with an entirely new genre than its predecessor, promoting Slave Zero X would be as much of a challenge as its gameplay. It is also one of Ziggurat’s only original releases that’s not a re-release or remaster, meaning that the brand was not yet known for this type of development. During the multi-month campaign, we set out to tackle these challenges and ensure a successful launch.

To better understand the project, we dug deep into what makes the Slave Zero series so beloved, what’s unique about Ziggurat’s approach, and the gameplay Slave Zero X offers. We established a regular cadence of news beats, particularly focused around each of the “Calamity” boss battles and the stacked roster of voice talent, including stars from Naruto, West World, and The Legend of Zelda.

In addition to outreach and exclusives secured for these news beats, the run-up to launch was also punctuated with features and interviews about the game’s art style, challenging gameplay, and its retro collaborations such as its officially licensed Quake Remaster mod, Episode Enyo.

The client was delighted with our work promoting the game despite the headwinds we faced regarding its gameplay difficulty and delayed platform release. We secured hundreds of positive reviews, news, and feature coverage in the months before and after the initial launch and the Nintendo Switch launch.

Coverage included interviews and giveaways with IGN, news coverage from Nintendo Life, PC Gamer, Rock Paper Shotgun, Famitsu, PCGamesN, and Destructoid, and reviews from TechRadar, Sportskeeda, The Mirror, Game*Spark, and VG247.