“White Rabbit” was one of ZombiU’s first prototypes

ZombiU has experienced a complete metamorphosis over the past couple of years.

As many of you know, “Killer Freaks from Outer Space” was one of the first ideas the team was kicking around. Before this though, the staff worked on the short-lived “White Rabbit”.

International brand manager Loïc Gounon, explaining the idea to Nintendo Power, said that it was essentially all about “shooting white rabbits with guns.” Ubisoft wasn’t too fond of the prototype, but some its ideas transferred over into Killer Freaks… before that project turned into ZombiU.

Gounon told the magazine:

“I think we were six or eight people at the very beginning. We began in 2010, and then we had one or two months making some really weird concepts, and we didn’t really know what we were doing. And then we rapidly decided to do [a first-person shooter]. We had this prototype, White Rabbit, which was about shooting white rabbits with guns. That was not accepted [Laughs].”

Gameplay director Jean-Philippe Caro added:

“We worked on Rabbids for six years. Imagine ‘Bwah, BWAH!’ for six years. [Laughs] It was like being in hell. [Laughs] So of course you want something like a shotgun. We were at that point, and we did it.”