Pandemic combines the originality of first-person shooters with the playability of movies

Ever since Wolfenstein 3D singlehandedly lowered college GPAs across the country, people have argued that their beloved first-person-shooters would make great feature-length movies. And apparently someone successfully made that argument in a pitch meeting, because now Pandemic exists.

While 2005’s Doom was loosely based on the source material, its single POV scene failed to deliver the claustrophobia-inducing perspective that true FPS aficionados were clamoring for. Finally, a decade later, Pandemic has arrived to set things right by placing viewers into the center of the action, and dialogue, and establishing shots. Starring alongside ER’s Mekhi Phifer, Rachel Nichols (G.I Joe), and Game Of Thrones’ Alfie Allen, are you, a combat shotgun, a monkey wrench, and some other kinds of guns.

Phifer suggests that you “think of it as a game … it’ll help.” Later on, Nichols contradicts Phifer, solemnly informing you that “that wasn’t … a game.” (No kidding: If Pandemic was a game, it would have sweet HUD graphics, and the screen would throb red when your health got too low.) Plus, Allen asks how many zombies you’ve killed today, as if Pandemic might allow us to rewatch it on an easier setting, enabling a higher kill count.

Will Pandemic usher in an exciting new subgenre of avant-garde first-person cinema, or will it simply remind you of sharing the couch with your old, controller-hogging roommate? We’ll find on April 1, when Pandemic fires into theaters.