The level of hype circulating Sony’s upcoming zombie-survival MMO videogame H1Z1 is too damn high, but only a few know that it is based on real-life incidents.
Back in 2009, someone tried to terrorize people by creating a fake BBC site which reported a mutant of H1N1 Swine Flu virus – dubbed as H1Z1 – that caused dead to rise from their graves.
The website reported:
Similar to a scarce originally found in Cambodia back in April, 2005, victims of a new strain of the Swine Flu virus H1N1 have been reported in London.
After death, this virus is able to restart the heart of its victim for up to 2 hours after the initial demise of the person where the individuals behaves in extremely violent ways from what is believe to be a combination of brain damage and a chemical released into blood during ‘resurrection’.
The fake report also had some hyperlinks added in it to enhance its originality. Although the URL of the weblog clearly indicated a fake bouncewithme.co.uk domain, many people fell prey to this joke. It is still not known who pulled off this prank that scared millions of people around the globe, but it was indeed a job well done.
5 years after the prank, almost everyone knows that such a mutant virus never existed, but Sony’s MMO is as real as it can get.
H1Z1 is slated to release somewhere in 2014 for Playstation 4 and PC.
Source: Zombie Research Society.
