I believe it’s quite fair to say that The Walking Dead franchise has turned many of us into followers of everything zombie-related and, especially, everything TWD related. So, it’s no surprise that there are two The Walking Dead games in the first 150 top grossing apps of the App Store, and one of them, The Walking Dead: No Man’s Land (Free), just got a pretty interesting update. If you haven’t played the game, No Man’s Land is a base building game with a pretty robust tactical component that makes those fights with the undead both entertaining and tense. As solid as the combat was in the game, it has become even better with update 1.8 that’s gone live today. This update has introduced a cover system that will make the ranged part of combat much more tactical than before.

Before the update, the ranged mechanics usually involved trying to use your guns as little as possible (to avoid attracting more walkers) or trying to line up as many zombies as possible for a one shot-three kills kind of move. Now, though, you can flank your enemies and shoot them from cover XCOM-style. The cover system only works in missions with human enemies with ranged weapons because cover won’t help you much from a swarm of clawing zombies (unless it’s Glenn’s dumpster, of course).

Being in cover cuts ranged damage done by half, which is significant. Flanked opponents do not get the cover bonus, so flank away. There are also additional improvements and changes in the update, and you can check them all here. Now (spoilers ahead), I wonder how long Daryl will stay on the game’s icon… If you want to get into (or back into) the game, check out our guide here.