It's been quiet for a while, but now the outbreak is ready to break out...sort of. Techland's next chapter in the Dead Island saga, the ZOMBA (Zombie Online Multiplayer Battle Arena) Epidemic, is going into closed Beta, and they want you to join in. To that end, they're calling for new sign ups. To wet our appetites, they come bearing new screenshots and boasting of significant numbers for their closed Alpha.

"Signing up pays off: All newly registered players can directly join the 30,000 Alpha testers and make their first steps in Dead Island: Epidemic even before the official start of the Closed Beta. In addition to that, they will receive exclusive in-game items and rewards as the Closed Beta proceeds which they can keep afterwards.

"We received outstanding feedback from our Alpha testers and are looking very much forward to many new players who will join us and help us to make Dead Island: Epidemic the best possible ZOMBA experience", says Isaac Parakhen, Brand Manager for Dead Island: Epidemic at Deep Silver. "Once the Closed Beta starts, we can't wait to see players battling it out 24/7."

The screenshots don't show anything terribly exciting, but they do suggest that the game is a lot of fun to play. As well as showing some new enemy types that we haven't seen in the previous two games. Larger, meaner, uglier and more pissed off, but that's to be expected for a game that's focused more heavily around beating the living snot out of everything in sight. We just hope they don't have all their weapons made of tissue paper, like in the main games.