This is an "open-world" action-adventure game in which players assume the role of John Marston, a reformed criminal on a mission to stop the spread of a zombie plague. Players roam Wild West environments and use shotguns, pistols, rifles, torches, and dynamite to kill attacking zombies. Players can engage in melee-style hand-to-hand combat and trigger slow-motion effects by shooting enemies at close-range or by targeted shooting (e.g., head shots). Blood often spurts out of characters when shot; close-range assaults cause much larger sprays. Some weapons cause zombies to explode into body parts, and one sequence depicts body parts lying on the ground (e.g., zombies eating a corpse). The game contains zombie characters in revealing outfits and sexual references in the dialogue (e.g, "I'll give you a quickie later," ". . . filthy whore-mongering wretch," "Oh my God, you're a voyeur! You're peeping in on our love."). Language such as "f**k" and "sh*t" can also be heard in dialogue.