Will Smith stars in ad for Undawn, Tencent’s new open-world survival game
Will Smith might also be in the news right now for starring in I Am Legend 2, sequel to the sci-fi hit from 2007, but don’t let that distract you from the Hollywood star’s appearance in a weird ad for Undawn, an open-world survival game developed by Tencent Lightspeed.
Undawn is set to launch in China in March 2023 for PC and mobile devices, featuring crossplay between these platforms. Tencent is currently rolling out the marketing for the game, and Smith stars in one the ads for the title.
Staring at the ocean, catching, and grilling fish on a beautiful tropical island, Smith explains that “you’re free to go anywhere” here. He also shows off a motorcycle and a car, before moving on to a little caveat about the holiday destination he seems to advertise up to this point.
“The neighbors”, he says, “kind of suck.” We’re then shown a couple fleeing into a hotel room, followed by zombies, who pull the male member of the couple through the door and eat him. “They really suck.”
The trailer then goes from live action scenes to animations from the game engine, showing a bunch of zombies chewing on a corpse. In-game Will Smith then shows up with his well-armed crew, saying that the survivors “have a problem with that.” ‘That’ referencing the whole eating humans thing the zombies have going on. “We are not your dinner. Period.” Smith is then seen to go to town on a zombie with a baseball bat. No special slap attack included, it seems.
Set in an apocalyptic world, the game is said to feature exploration, survival, combat, and base construction. It has reached over 70 million pre-registrations in China with beta tests apparently generating a lot of positive feedback and hype. A global release is planned with Garena acting as publisher in South East Asia, but there are no details on other regions at this point.
