The lead designer of the newly announced ZombieU for the Nintendo Wiiu, Gabrielle Shrager, debuted the first gameplay footage from the title this afternoon.

One of the hooks that sets the ZombieU apart from other modern horror games is that your character only has one life. Once your avatar has met its untimely demise you’ll be warped to the body of another survivor in a similar situation, so death isn’t necessarily a game over, but this is an interesting mechanic.

Once you’ve been warped into your body your task becomes to track down your former survivor. You’ll have to defeat them in order to recover your backpack, which acts as the gains inventory.

The idea of no death penalty is interesting, but Ubisoft still hasn’t outlined how exactly players will reach the end of the game. Hopefully we’ll find out more as the development of ZombieU continues. Check out the first gameplay video after the jump.