WWZ

WWZ is an acronym that most commonly refers to World War Z, a media franchise originating with Max Brooks's 2006 novel World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War. The book presents an oral history of a global zombie pandemic, told through a collection of interviews and personal testimonies from people of varied nationalities and professions. It surveys the outbreak, the breakdown of societies, and the eventual strategies and measures that are argued to have led to humanity’s recovery, offering social and political commentary in addition to its horror premise.

The novel achieved wide readership and critical attention for its structure, realism, and thematic scope, contributing to a resurgence of zombie fiction in the 2000s. It has influenced related works within the franchise and has been discussed for its anthropological and geopolitical framing of a pandemic scenario.

In 2013, a feature film titled World War Z, directed by Marc Forster and starring Brad Pitt, was released as an adaptation of the source material. The film preserves the broad concept of a worldwide zombie threat but diverges in narrative focus, character development, and tone, presenting a more action-oriented, cinematic interpretation than the novel.

In addition, a World War Z video game was released in 2019 by Saber Interactive. This cooperative shooter expands on the zombie premise with multi-location campaigns and online co-op play for players to face large zombie hordes and complete mission-oriented objectives.

As a term, WWZ thus denotes the World War Z franchise in general, with usage varying by context to reference the book, the film, or the game.